Best Virtual Machine For Mac Os

Give your new virtual machine a name (I just called it “Mac OS X”) and set the operating system to “Mac OS X Server (64-bit)“. Advertisement Click Next and choose how much RAM to give your. Mac Virtual Machine Software 101. Virtual machines, or hypervisors as they’re also known, allow users to emulate additional operating systems called a “guest operating system” in separate app window on their existing computer. A guest OS runs on top of the existing operating system, which is called the “host”.

Earlier to use a second Operating System, we either used another machine or do a dual boot, but with time everything has changed. We can now explore multiple Operating Systems without installing another one on our system. No longer you need to purchase a new machine or make space for another Operating System. Virtualization software for Windows has made it possible to use dual operating systems on a single machine.

Virtualization allows users to test a software or the entire operating system without installing or removing the default OS from the PC. Virtualization allows using different Operating Systems on regular PC for testing, experiments, coding or any sort of reasons. For example, if you want to work on a Mac interface on your Windows Laptop or Windows 10 on a Mac Machine, you can do this by using free VM software for Windows 10. Here is a review and comparison of the best virtual machine for Windows 10.

Best virtual machine for Windows 10:

VMware Workstation Pro

Reengineered with macOS Big Sur in mind plus the usual performance and feature enhancements, Parallels Desktop 16 makes it a snap to run other operating systems as virtual machines on your Mac. VMware Fusion: Powerfully Simple Virtual Machines for Mac. VMware Fusion Pro and VMware Fusion Player Desktop Hypervisors give Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems, containers or Kubernetes clusters, side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. Fusion products are simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT.

VMware Workstation Pro is one of the best virtualization software for Windows that gives you a wide range of features to explore. VMware Workstation Pro allows you to run multiple operating systems on a single machine without installing different operating systems. All these OS run as a virtual machine and lets you test and build the software with utmost compatibility with almost all the operating systems.

VMware Workstation Pro Features

Ultimate Companion to vSphere Integration
Create multiple screenshots or rollback to a point with snapshots
Clones for Rapid Duplication uses linked clones to quickly initiate a VM
Supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 for High-Performance 3D Graphics
Allows you to create enormous VMs on 16 vCPUs, 64 GB of memory and 8 TB of virtual disks
REST API offers over 20 controls for operations like VM Power, Host and Guest VM
Test App flexible Virtual Network Simulation for powerful virtual networking
Supports heavy application to run on Server and Desktop VM environment
Protect your data on VMware Workstation Pro by Restricted Access on VM
VMware Workstation Pro supports 4K UHD / QHD High-Resolution Display
Share Virtual Machines among your teammates in the organization
Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, and other platforms

Parallels Desktop

If you want to experience a Windows Desktop environment on a Mac system or vice versa, Parallel VM is the best virtualization software for Windows and Mac systems. Even Apple provides ‘Boot Camp’ as their free too to run a virtual machine, however, regular users, need to switch to parallel VM. Whatever is your native OS, you can run a different OS side-by-side. A parallel desktop is often required when you want to run an application that doesn’t support your OS and needs a different OS.

Parallel VM allows you to get Windows Notifications in the Mac notification center. The latest built of Parallel VM allows simulating Windows XP, 7, 8, and 10 environments on your Mac machine. All Mac and Windows applications can run side-by-side using Parallel VM without rebooting the system. File sharing between OS is also possible with the Parallel VM.

Parallels Desktop Features

Virtual RAM & Virtual CPUs for each VM session
Easy download and installation process of Windows 10
Optimized and updated to work with macOS Catalina (10.15)
Customized Touch Bar for instant access of Windows applications
Connect & Pair USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, and all Bluetooth devices
24/7 premium phone & email support for business cloud services
One-Click tuning of Retina Display and performance as per need
Network conditioner to simulate instant access to Windows 10
Virtual machine encryption for added security

Best Virtual Machine For Mac

You may also check out the list of complete Features of Standard, Pro and Business edition.

Oracle VM Virtualbox

The Virtualbox Windows 10 VM is one of the best virtual machines for Windows as it gives you a wide range of host and guest combinations. The second most amazing fact about Virtualbox Windows 10 VM is it’s FREE of cost available for all OS.

Irrespective of Windows XP onwards, Linux level 2.4 and above, Windows NT, Server 2003, OpenSolaris, Solaris, and even OpenBSD Unix, you have it all packed in one free VM software for windows 10.

Apple Mac Virtual Machine

Virtualbox Windows 10 VM also runs on Mac machines, and host a client Mac VM session as well. It only takes 30 MB of disk space even after being such a powerful Windows 10 VM software. The disk space may increase to certain Gigabytes depending on the virtual OS you are trying to use.

Oracle VM Virtualbox Features

Virtualbox Windows 10 VM has a super portability feature regardless of OS
It doesn’t require hardware virtualization as it got built-in hardware acceleration
Virtualbox Windows 10 VM supports shared folders, seamless Windows with 3D virtualization
It has incomparable hardware compatibility with multiple Input/Output and Processing devices
Connect with any Remote machine display using the Virtualbox Windows 10 VM
Capture multigeneration snapshots of your sessions for future references

Check out the list of complete Features of the Virtualbox Windows 10 VM edition.

Comparison Chart

Product	Parallels Desktop (for Mac)	VMware Workstation Pro (for Mac)	Oracle VM VirtualBox (for Mac)
Best For	Casual Exploring OS	Testing & Coding	Professional Use
Mac version	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows version	No	Yes	Yes
Linux version	No	Yes	Yes
Shares Folders With Host System	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shares Printers With Host System	Yes	Yes	No
Shares Clipboard With Host and Guest	Yes	Yes	Yes
Drag-and-Drop File Transfer	Yes	Yes	Yes
One-Click Windows Installation	Yes	Yes	No
Downloads Windows Installer	Yes	Yes	No
Imports From Windows PC	Yes	Yes	No
Downloads Linux Systems	Yes	No	No
Supports macOS Guests	Yes	Yes	No
Installs macOS From Recovery	Yes	Yes	No

Summing Up

In the comparison of the best virtual machine for Windows 10, VMware Workstation Pro scored as the top Windows 10 VM. Though Virtualbox Windows 10 is a free VM software for Windows 10 simulation for experiments. However, if you are a regular user, you should opt for the best virtual machine for Windows with complete features.

If this article turned out to be helpful to you, please like and share this with your colleagues. For more such tips, tricks and tech-related updates, click on the bell icon to get regular updates from Tweak Library. Do share your thoughts about this article in the comment section.

Windows, macOS – which one do you want to use today? On a traditional setup, you’re stuck with one or the other. But with virtual box, you actually have macOS on a Windows PC.

It’s the freedom that computer users have enjoyed with Linux and other operating systems.

But Apple has made it difficult to install their operating system on anything other than their own hardware. All of that is changing, and Virtual Box is responsible for it and the rise of the Hackintosh.

New to hackintosh? Learn more about it in our what is hackintosh? overview.

Note: A lot of people will be able to get a mac virtual machine one Windows running smoothly, but sound doesn’t seem to work well. That’s really not an issue because you’ll still be able to access all of your apps and software.

I also recommend that you have access to a real Mac. You might be able to find some distributions of the High Sierra ISO online, but there is always a risk when downloading from an unofficial source. Instead, borrow a Mac from a friend, or use your own and download the High Sierra OS from the App Store.

Check out our high sierra installation guide for hackintosh

Everything You Need to Get Started with Installing macOS on VirtualBox

Before we go through the steps on how to install macOS on Virtual Box, let’s get everything together that you’ll need to get started.

Open up your Mac
Go to the App Store
Type in “High Sierra”

You’ll want to search for your desired operating system (we’ll be using High Sierra), and Download it.

Note: You’ll need a decent computer to be able to run Virtual Box. Your computer will need to meet these minimum requirements:

Dual core processor
4GB Ram or higher
64-bit

If your computer doesn’t meet these requirements, you won’t be able to run macOS properly. You’ll be able to download VirtualBox from the official website. I’m not going to go through the installation process, as the website will have all of the information you need to be able to install VirtualBox.

I do recommend that you read all of the documentation and ask any questions that you have in the community section of the website.

VirtualBox 6.0 was just released, so it’s definitely a great time to get started with your own macOS.

Extract macOS Sierra

Make sure you’ve downloaded High Sierra, and then you’ll want to run a few commands from your terminal . You’ll be able to open the terminal at: Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Once inside of the terminal, you’ll want to run the following commands:

Go to your desktop and rename the file, removing the “.cdr” extension. You need this extension to read “.iso” for it to work properly.

You’ve successfully created your own ISO file so that you can bootup your macOS.

The next step is to copy the file over to your Windows machine (using a large USB drive seems to work best). This file will be mounted in your virtual machine later on in the article, so it’s very important that this step is completed successfully.

Virtual Machine On Mac

Creating a mac Virtual Machine on Windows

You’ll want to create a virtual machine, and this is really easy. You’ll open up VirtualBox and click New. You’ll want to have the following parameters selected or entered before clicking Next.

Name: High Sierra
Type: Mac OS X
Version: Mac OS X (64-bit)

Pay attention when selecting the version because you may find that High Sierra is offered as a version when you go to install it. But if it’s not, you can just choose the settings I listed above and they should work fine.

You’ll then be proceeding through all of the settings.

When you come up to the RAM setting, you’ll want to be generous. VirtualBox requires a minimum of 4GB or RAM to run, but the more the better.

Why?

You’ll want to provide at least 4GB to your macOS, or 4096MB to be precise. A general rule of thumb is that if you can spare it, supply more RAM to your virtual machine. RAM will allow the operating system to put more information into memory and retrieve it faster.

For better overall performance, supply as much RAM as you can.

The next steps are also important, and they’ll include:

Hard Disk: Choose the “Create a virtual hard disk now” setting.
- Choose VDI when choosing the hard disk type.
- Choose Fixed Size instead of Dynamic for added speed.
- Set the size of the drive to at least 25GB.

You’ll now have your virtual machine using the RAM and disk space properly, and you’ll have to work your way through a few screen prompts before having everything setup properly.

Configuring Your VirtualBox to Run macOS High Sierra

We’ve made a lot of progress so far, and now it’s time to configure your virtual machine properly. You’ll see in the main window of VirtualBox that “High Sierra” is listed. Click on this and then click on the “Settings” button.

You’ll want to go to “System” and make sure that the following are unchecked on the Motherboard tab:

Floppy
Network

Click on the Processor tab and make sure that you have 2 or more CPUs set for your virtual machine.

The next few settings are rather simple:

Display: Video Memory with a minimum of 128MB
Storage: Click “Empty” and then click on the CD at the top right. Choose your High Sierra ISO file

Now you’ll need to click “Ok,” and save all of the changes you’ve made. Close out your VirtualBox now.

Apple is very strict on the system that their operating system runs on, so it’s very important that you do your best to configure your virtual machine in such a way that it tricks the installer to thinking you’re on a retail machine.

We’ll now be going into the Windowscommand prompt.

You’ll do this by:

Clicking the Start Menu
Typing “Command Prompt”
Right-clicking on the Command Prompt desktop app
Choosing Run as administrator

It’s very important to follow all of the following command prompts exactly. Your goal is to run each command, one by one, hitting the Enter button and waiting for the command to complete successfully.

Remember that VirtualBox needs to be closed before running these commands, or it won’t work properly.

You have to make sure that the virtual machine is properly named “High Sierra” for this method to work. If not, you’ll be able to go back and make changes to the name to get everything to work properly.

Once all of the commands are completed, and there are no errors, you’ll then be able to open up your VirtualBox and get macOS High Sierra installed properly on VirtualBox.

It’s a long process, but we’re almost done with your installation.

Running VirtualBox and the macOS Installer

You’ve almost learned how to install macOS on VirtualBox entirely, and we’re on the home stretch. You’ll want to open up your VirtualBox and then click on your virtual machine that you set up earlier.

Now, click “Start.”

There will be a lot of information displayed on the screen as everything starts running. I recommend stepping away from the machine and letting it run for a few minutes before coming back. Some errors can hang for 5 minutes or longer.

If you’ve done everything properly, you can be confident that the installer will boot properly.

You’ll eventually be presented with the option to pick a Language. If you’ve reached this point, you’re doing very well and are almost ready to run your macOS.

The next steps can be followed:

Choose your desired language, and click
Click “Disk Utility” and then
Click “View” and then “Show All Devices.”
Click on your empty virtual drive that has been setup and click “Erase.”
Choose the following settings:
- Name: Macintosh HD
- Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- Scheme: GUID Partition Map
Click “Erase” and close Disk Utility when the process is complete.
Click “Reinstall macOS.”
Click “Continue.”

You’ll come up to one point where you’ll be asked to choose a hard drive, and you’ll want to select the Macintosh HD partition that you just created with the Disk Utility.

We’ve successfully copied all of the files on the virtual machine, but we’re not done just yet.

Exit your virtual machine and then go back to your virtual machine’s settings. You’ll need to change up your Storage settings. Click on your ISO for High Sierra in the “Storage Tree.” You’ll click that CD icon just like we did earlier and then choose “Remove Disk from Virtual Disk.”

You need to do this to unlink the ISO from your virtual machine.

Start up your virtual machine and you should come across a black screen with the EFI Internal Shell. You’ll want to look for FS1. If this is listed in yellow, click on the virtual machine and then type fs1: and hit the Enter button.

You should be in the fs1 directory.

Type in the following commands:

cd “macOS Install Data”
cd “Locked Files”
cd “Boot Files”

Now we’ll run the installer by running: boot.efi and hitting enter.

Best Hypervisor For Mac

If everything goes well, you’ll come across a graphical installer and will just have to work through the prompts. The virtual machine will reboot eventually and then you’ll need to go through the settings and the rest of the setup process.

Best Virtual Machine For Mac Os X

Soon enough, you’ll be right inside of macOS, where you’ll be able to start using your mac virtual machine on Windows.

Mac Os Virtual Machine Download

Having a virtualbox mac OS is the easiest method of using mac as and when you need it. In addition, using virtualbox is far less complicated than the dual boot hackintosh method we have looked at previously.