Windows 11 on the M1 MacBook Air! Making Parallels Perfect for a Windows User

Windows 11 is now in beta for those who want to try out the future of personal computing from Microsoft. And thanks to some hardworking folks online, it's possible to test out the new preview from a new MacBook Air running Parallels desktop. So I installed the new version and started testing it to see if I could get a better experience than my last video. Check out Andrew Tsai's video here:
And my comparison of Parallels and Bootcamp here:

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0:00 Intro
1:12 Getting Started
1:50 Experience
2:50 Keyboard Shortcuts
5:00 Editing Shortcuts
6:50 It Works
8:50 Swipe Gestures
9:20 Scrolling Performance
12:00 Conclusion

[alex.maxwell]

This is the best video ever! This channel deserves a million subscribers! Finally, someone testing real-world MS Office M1 Windows ARM experience, but not video editing software. Could you please test if the experience improves with Parallels 17, 16 Gb (8 RAM in Parallels) with MS Office and YouTube + some engineering apps like SolidWorks/CFD, etc. + effect on battery life when running Parallels? That would be great! Anyways, you are doing some great job! Keep up with it, man!

[tltaddme]

=)) parallels just release the 17th version which nearly double cpu and gpu performance on M1 machine. I can see that its significant smoother in UI other graphic tasks compared to the last version.

[yusufdomun]

Most mac users use windows for productivity stuffs as some apps aren't still available on macos and I think its pretty damn good if you only use it for that specific reason .

[stacy]

I have a M1MBA (16GB/1TB) running Windows 11 on Parallels and the lag is very apparent. Looks like I'll be ordering one of the last Intel iMacs to use with Bootcamp. I only need to run Quicken Home & Business. I'm so bummed that we can't use Bootcamp on the newer machines.

[sehajgupta]

I think chrome is being emulated as it is not supported for windows arm, however edge is natively supported, therefore that video should run lot more smoother on Edge browser.

[abuabdillah]

does Win11 and or Office natively run on ARM architect? I guess this the backdraw for this... not sure tough

[krontexpit]

in parallels I saw a feature where you can pause Mac OS or Windows when switching between them to save resources running in the background. I’m not entirely sure though but I’d like to see if that increases performance along with windows 10 instead of 11. Maybe windows 11 is what was causing the lag.

[mcajah]

Was looking for this info. Just bought the M1 MacBook Air 8GB. I only want Parallels for Excel and PowerBi. Think I’ll stick to Win10 and give it 6GB to run. Switching back to MacOS I’ll use the pause option to free up the MacOS to run like it should.

[Arnav]

Parallels keeps on taking storage I have the base model of the MacBook Air which is a problem if it’s always taking storage .

[macbp]

Has someone tried using Paralells 17, Windows 11 on Macbook Pro M1 with 8GB RAM for Excel and Power BI? How was the experience?

[xSWIED]

I was looking for this exact video. I was thinking about buying a Mac to do this same thing. How did it hold up to your needs?

I live in the Apple ecosystem, but breathe Microsoft every day at work. Thought this might be a good solution, but might go with a native windows x86 laptop instead.

What are your thoughts?

[bradlaue]

Hey there, dunno if this has already been mentioned but you can disable the desktop switch shortcut on macOS which should free it up for use by the Windows desktop

[billsuper]

thanks for the video ! thinking about running parallels on macbook pro M2 Max with 32 GB - I will only run excel (advanced) and powerpoint - will it work very smoothly ?

[cuddlybug]

Thanks for the vid. Can you tell me about your experience using Parallel to run Microsoft Office the Windows version ? I must use Office for Windows for my work.

Honestly the only thing keeping me from buying a M1 is Office for Windows is so good, not so much for MacOS though.

[rajshresthajuneja]

did the parallel experience improve by this time today (april 2022)?

[wicleansoonwicleansoon]

whats the battery performance if i run windows 11 on parallel full day?

[uzairrampage]

Hi. Is the 8gb M1 Mac Air good enough to run the latest parallels software along with Windows 11?
Keep up the brilliant work BTW!

[markb]

Hey mate, can you make another video with the new MacBook Pro’s running Paralles, and let us know if it feels native.

[markholle]

Does Activity Manager and Task Manager give you some idea of where the lag is coming from? Is it memory pressure or assigned resources? I was also curious if manually allocated resources in Parallels or went with the default.

[bryancool]

If I paralled my MB Air 16GB to Windows 11 and gave the 14GB of RAM to windows. Would there be a problem?