All posts by Kurt Schmucker

How to Easily Optimize Parallels Desktop for Mac

With millions of users around the world, Parallels Desktop® for Mac has been a popular Mac application for more than a decade. To serve the specific needs of this large user base, over the years we have added preferences and settings to Parallels Desktop—lots of preference and settings. This has resulted in an application that […]

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Visio for Mac and Other Frequent Requests from Mac Users

Mac users aren’t at all shy about making their requests for applications known: How about Visio for Mac? When will IE return to Mac? Will we ever see a Microsoft Project for Mac? Where can I get Access for Mac? When will (insert name of hot new game here) be available for Mac? Most of […]

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Change Your Thinking About OSes

Virtual machines (VMs) have a number of features and properties that require a new way of thinking about operating systems (OSes) so that you can take full advantage of a VM. Doing a major OS update on your Mac®—or even installing a macOS® from scratch—scares many users. “What if the update fails, will my Mac […]

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How to Set Up Your Mac to Run Multiple IE Versions Simultaneously

A blog reader asked me how I set everything to run multiple browsers simultaneously. Here’s how I configured my Mac® to use five different versions of Internet Explorer at the same time. Step 1: Your Mac To store all the VMs, you will need about 60–90 GB of free space on your Mac. A Mac […]

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Running Multiple Incompatible Browsers Simultaneously

There are a number of tasks that are easier, safer, and less costly if run in virtual machines (VM) instead of physical computers. One example is testing beta (or alpha) software. By its very nature, beta software can contain bugs—even quite serious and damaging bugs. Run beta software on your main PC, and you run […]

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Alternatives to Parallels Toolbox Are Difficult and Costly

New versions of Parallels® Toolbox have just been released (Parallels Toolbox for Mac 2.5 and Parallels Toolbox for Windows 1.5), and they contain both new tools and new functionality of existing tools. I’ve been a Parallels Toolbox user from its first release, and I use one or more of the tools every day. (Remember that […]

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Screenshot Page: A New Tool in Parallels Toolbox for Mac 2.5

One of the new utilities in Parallels® Toolbox for Mac 2.5  is the Screenshot Page tool. This creates screenshots of web pages—even especially long pages. In this blog post, I’ll show you this tool in action. Without a tool like this, creating a screenshot of a long web page can be quite tedious. You must […]

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Just Released: Parallels Toolbox for Mac 2.5 and Parallels Toolbox for Windows 1.5!

When Parallels® Toolbox for Mac was first released in August 2016, it had 20 tools, and we promised a steady stream of new tools in later releases. We’ve kept that promise: Version 1.0 – 20 tools Version 1.3 – 25 tools Version 1.5 – 25 tools Version 1.7 – 29 tools Version 2.0 – 32 […]

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Here’s How to Fix “Windows is running out of free disk space”

There are lots of things you can do with a Parallels Desktop® for Mac virtual machine (VM) that you can’t do with a physical PC. For example: You can increase (or decrease) the amount of RAM or the number of processors by just moving a slider or using a menu. You can have lots of […]

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Can You Run a VM from an External Drive?

At a recent conference for Mac® IT admins, I was asked, “Can you run a VM from an external drive?” Short answer: “Yes, absolutely. I do this all the time.” Longer answer: You have always been able to run a Parallels Desktop® for Mac virtual machine from an external drive. In Parallels Desktop 13, this […]

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