According to a leaked product page on the Australian Parallels page, the popular virtual machine software will support Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant throughout OS X. The product page explains that as long as Windows 10 is running somewhere in the background, users will always be able to say “Hey Cortana” and receive a response (via Neowin).
People have often called for Apple to bring Siri to the Mac, so this may satisfy the needs of some of those users, but the requests definitely won’t stop. With Cortana in Parallels, the Parallels application simply has to be running for the feature to work. It does not have to be in the forefront and presumably can be minimized or hidden.
In addition to support for always-on Cortana, the leaked product page for Parallels 11 notes that the software is ready for Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan. The program is also 50 percent faster and includes much improved battery life. A variety of other new features are included, such as improvements to Windows printin, a quicker way to view Windows notifications in OS X, improved file associations, and real-time location support in Windows.
While it’s unclear when Parallels v11 will launch to the public, it will likely be sooner rather than later, seeing that Windows 10 is slated to launch to the public later this week on July 29th.
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Parallels is a good product unfortunately the company is awful. Their support policy of basically abandoning all but the latest version of their product keeps you buying upgrades every year if you want something that will work with the latest OS releases. I would recommend people avoid Parallels and use Virtual Box (free) or VMware’s Fusion.
I’m a big believer in the saying, “you get what you pay for.” You might not like paying for upgrades, but in the end, they’re worth it.
Which is why when you pay for VMWare Fusion you get a completed product. Parallels is a joke for the price.
To be fair, it’s a pretty high maintenance product they have, trying to keep parity between two different OSes that are constantly being updated by two of the biggest consumer software companies in the world.
Good thing I didn’t upgrade from 9 to 10. I would’ve been screwed yet again.
Beware for their upgrade plans, versions as recent as 1,5 years have no upgrade path! And support is dropped immediately so you can hand out the full purchase price.
Maybe Microsoft should get Cortana to reliably work in Windows 10 first. Don’t you think? At this time, Cortana remains Not Ready For Prime Time in Microsoft’s Technical Preview of Windows 10.
I downloaded from the Windows site an ISO file https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO It has installed without any problems and I now have Windows 10 operating under Parallels 10 Desktop 10.2.2 (29105)
You could use CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac it is about $30 cheaper and if you use promo code ( WEAVEME ) in CodeWeavers online store you will get a instant 25% discount so therefore CrossOver is $40.00+ cheaper then Parallels.