Parallels

By Bayle Emlein

Parallels started life as a one-trick pony, a utility for speakers of
a minority language–Mac–to translate from the majority
language–Windows. The Parallels on display at Pepcom’s
Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco on October 28 has grown
into a Swiss Army Knife of utilities for both platforms. Parallels
still runs Windows programs and apps within the Mac environment.
But it does a whole lot more.

Windows natives will be particularly impressed. The major tools
in the Parallels Toolbox for Windows are:

Archive: Create compressed archives from your files to save
space or easily share files

• Block Camera: Block the built-in camera

• Capture Area: Take a screenshot of a part of the screen

• Capture Screen: Take a screenshot of the entire screen and save
in different formats (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF and GIF)

• Capture Window: Take a screenshot of a single window

• Convert Video: Convert many video types to MP4 so they can be
played on phones and tablets

• Do Not Disturb: Disable notifications and animations that would
interrupt your work or presentation

• Do Not Sleep: Prevent the computer from going to sleep

• Download Video: Download video from the Internet to the computer

• Eject Volumes: Eject all external hard drives, memory cards,
network volumes and mounted disk images with one click

• Hide Desktop: Hide icons on the desktop for clutter-free presentations

• Lock Screen: Lock screen to prevent unauthorized access

• Launch: Open several items—such as applications, folders, links
or other files—all at once with just one click

• Mute Microphone: Mute the computer’s microphone

• Record Area: Record video from a selected area on the screen

• Record Audio: Record audio from the microphone

• Record Screen: Record video of the entire screen

• Record Window: Record video from a single window

• Take Photo: Take photos immediately using the PC’s camera

For Mac users, the Parallels Installation Assistant will automatically
install a Windows 10 demo into a virtual machine (VM) with a single
mouse click. (Windows users might wonder why it’s so much harder
for them.)

• The OS can be purchased later without losing data or installed
applications.

• Buy and automatically install Windows 10 from Microsoft

• Add an existing copy of Windows

• Move their PC to their Mac

• Operate in Full Screen mode or make Windows invisible
(Coherence mode), and launch Windows apps from the Mac Dock,
Launch Pad or Windows Start Menu

• MacTouch Bar integration for Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and
PowerPoint, as well as browsers including Internet Explorer, Microsoft
Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera

• Using the Windows Start Menu or Desktop, Parallels Desktop 13
features Taskbar pinned elements, along with Cortana, Task View
and settings in the Touch Bar

• Windows applications that run in Parallels Desktop can be
customized with Touch Bar actions

• Mac Dock doesn’t limit favorite contacts in the People Bar and
enables larger photos.

• More Productivity Tools

• Picture-in-Picture (PiP) View

• Coherence mode (Windows is invisible while using Windows apps
on a Mac)

• Full Screen mode, and Window mode (Windows in a window in
macOS).