In the last week I have had multiple crashes. Here are the facts: - Running latest MacOS Tahoe on M4 Macbook Air - Running Win 11 ARM under latest Parallels with latest Parallels Tools - System crash usually preceded by scrolling in Excel, but not always - Twice, Parallels application memory use exploded from 8GB to 123GB The last point is mysterious as in both cases it happened during idle time, even with only one light Excel file open. For reference, I have animations and "glass" features off in Windows, and have Excel UI "optimized for compatibility". The problem happens regardless of whether Parallels display settings are on "best for Retina" to "best for External".
I'd be interested in feedback on this as I am also starting to suspect that Excel is the culprit or a major contributor to this problem of Windows suddenly crashing. This is also being discussed here: https://forum.parallels.com/threads/sudden-shut-down-of-windows-11.369850/#post-946206 and https://forum.parallels.com/threads/windows-11-keeps-crashing-randomly-on-multiple-machines.369312/ Thanks.
Curious what version of Parallels you are running. I had similar issue. I work with very large Excel workbooks, local database, Visio and other O365 apps. They had me to back to a different version and it has been Happy Days ever since. https://forum.parallels.com/threads/vm-running-mac-memory-out-to-100gb.369767/
Using EXCEL and scrolling up and down often I get a big Crash of the whole win11 system!!! I made a macro reproducing the problem: after scroll up down and right and after a certain number of select (and repaint) the system crashes: systematically.
Thank you, that's very interesting. I'm here because I'm getting a lot of sudden crashes of Parallels, mostly it seems when using Excel. However before that I was getting the issue with resources running out on the Mac side that you described. (That hasn't happened lately). I wonder if the two issues were linked?
This has been happening to me as well on both my work and personal computers. Happens almost every time I use excel in the same manner described above. Honestly if it isn't fixed soon I'll have to get a pc and forego trying to use parallels it's becoming too much of a hinderance to do any real excel work.
May not be the same issue I was experiencing. But might be worth a try to fall back to 26.2.2 version in my other post. I had to do an uninstall, then install the downlevel version. I am on 16in MBP M5 Max with 48GB memory. I upped my VM from 4 vCPU to 6 vCPU, 16GB memory to 24GB memory. I beat the heck out of the Win 11 VM daily. Multiple Excel workbooks open right now. One of them is 185k rows and 29 columns. Filtering, pivots, and xlookups. (4) Other Excel workbooks, one is only 36k rows, but loads of pivots and tables calculating stuff from the Pivots. Also have Access open with linked tables, and the local table that created that giant workbook. (6) PowerPoints. Of course Outlook, OneNote, CoPilot...No Visio opened right now. Just wanted you to understand my workload. If you fall back and still have issues I would open a case. For me throughout the day the VM memory usage would grow and grow. On days where I would hit 240-250GB memory usage, it would crash. Guessing some sort of a barrier at 256GB. I was rebooting every morning to help avoid it, which was an inconvenience. I knew it had to be a bug as I had a 14in MBP I took back after a week, that had the same issue. They had me build a fresh VM using the MS Download. Took me about a week to fully cut over to the new VM. They also provided detailed instructions for collecting all the data they needed. Was easy to do and upload.
Good morning to all, I have read multiple post regarding Windows 11 crashes in Parallels and most of you state that it started around end of March 2026. Now; I have been a loyal Parallels customer since 2005, moment where my PC erased all data except software (I know this should be the other way around). So I moved to a Mac and have been using Parallels since that time. I currently use a ROI loyalty model in Excel which is around 14 Mb in size and Windows keep on crashing. Have followed Claude AI advice in changing formulas, pages, trying to reduce file size and was able to bring it down to around 9.5Mb. Still it crashes. I also have another Excel file similar to the first one but not with all the same pages and this one crashed on Tuesday May 26th 2026. Therefore my course of action goes as follows. a) I have decided to move to Excel for Mac permanently b) Doing so, entails that Parallels licence purchase will be suspended c) At work, we will now move the file (that is key to consulting work) to Google Sheets and this permanently This is not a course of action we like but its the only solution to allow me and my fellow workers to use a file that is required in our workflow Thanks to Parallels team for the many years of great ecpertise and service but evidently no solution is working.
I WANT TO UPDATE my personal experience with parallels pro 26.3.3 After upgrading to Parallels Desktop 26.3.3, the Excel freeze disappeared, but it seems to have been replaced by a more serious issue: a complete crash of the Windows 11 virtual machine. I was able to reproduce the problem using a very simple VBA macro that repeatedly selects cells and writes sequential numbers into them. A test with 300 rows × 300 columns (90,000 iterations) completes successfully. However, increasing the number of iterations beyond approximately 90,000 (for example 100,000 or more) consistently causes the Windows 11 virtual machine to crash. An additional observation is that after a successful 90,000-iteration test, if I close and restart Excel without rebooting Windows, the next crash may occur after only a few thousand additional iterations. Rebooting Windows appears to reset the condition. Because the problem is reproducible and follows a consistent pattern, I believe it may help your engineering team identify the root cause. My configuration: Mac mini M4 (Apple Silicon 16 GB RAM 256 GB SSD Parallels Desktop 26.3.3 (Build 57507) Windows 11 ARM Microsoft Excel LTSC 2024 IMPORTANT ISSUE: HOW TO REPRODUCE THE CRASH: The VBA macro used for testing is: Sub Crash_Test() v=1 For c = 1 To 500 For r = 1 To 500 Cells(r, c).Select Cells(r, c).Value = v v=v+1 Next r Next c End Sub
