Is Windows 11 "PRO" required when using Windows in Parallels 18 on M1/M2 Macs?

Parallels seems to be pushing us to use Windows 11 Pro, as its one-click tool installs Windows 11 Pro be default, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change this. My question is this, do I have to purchase Windows 11 PRO edition for $199, or could I use the $139 Windows 11 HOME license? All of the Parallels documentation I've seen mentioned Windows 11 Pro/Enterprise, but nothing about Home edition. Is there a way to force the one-click tool to use Home edition? Would a Home license even work on Windows 11 Pro? The messaging behind this is a bit confusing. Any help would be appreciated!

 

When you install Parallels you are asked if you want to download Windows 11. If you follow the instructions and read the various bits of information provided, you'll see that Windows 11 Home is all that is needed. They even direct you to a website to purchase the license. If you don't already have a Microsoft Login you'll have to create that.

 

Keep in mind that I'm using the Parallels 18 Desktop Pro Edition, not Standard Edition. Maybe Standard directs you to Home Edition of Windows, I haven't checked, but that doesn't seem to be the case either based on the screenshots. I have found nary a mention of Windows Home Edition through the Parallels installer or post installation. Parallels Pro installs Windows Pro by default and doesn't give users a choice that I've found through their 1-click installer.

This is true.

Nowhere on the Parallels installer does it mention Windows 11 Home Edition. Even the links provided by the installer make no mention of Windows 11 Home Edition.

Indeed, they direct you to purchase a license for Windows 11 Pro Edition, not Home Edition.



Obviously you can go and purchase Windows 11 Home by yourself, but I wanted to know if it would work, because all indications show that they want you to use Windows 11 Pro. In fact, it even states on the explore link while downloading Windows 11 that the Pro/Enterprise versions are recommended. Home Edition isn't even mentioned anywhere.

 

I ran into this same issue. Still working to resolve. The "download from microsoft" workflow absolutely DOES install windows 11 pro. I'm starting to believe that potentially Windows on ARM is Beta only, and therefore they only released a "Pro" version, but don't quote me on that, and it's only been 20 minutes of googling.

 

Sounds like the process has changed. I definitely installed Home about 1 month ago.

 

Same here. I installed through Parallels about a month ago and ended up with Home. I don't recall getting a choice.

I recently tried to activate it and it wouldn't let me login with my MS account nor open the Store in Windows 11. Doesn't give me good feelings about where I'll end up if I try to do the right thing and fork over $200+tax to activate it.

 

Keep in mind that you may not Need to have a license to do what you want to do. You'll lose some customization and a handful of things that aren't' coming to mind, but I'd try a VM without a license and see if it suits your needs.

 

That's what I plan to do at this point. I'm only using it to run a single app because it runs better on my Studio than on the 2018 Mini I use for all my other VMs (which are macOS, Linux)

 

JFC.. just install Pro. It'll activate with any Pro key from 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11. Hint.. you can find keys of 7 very easily on the typical "auction" type sites.

 

Hello, I downloaded Parallels desktop (student version) without having a windows product key. I would like to get a product key to activate my windows 11 but I am not sure which to buy. The auto windows downloaded with Parallels desktop which I have is "Windows 11 Home" but what is on the website that is obtainable is "Windows 11 Pro". I would like any suggestions on how I can go about it so I don't waste money buying what will not be useful. Thank you.

 

Thank you @MichaelH63
Can I go ahead to get buy a windows 11 pro and use the product key despite it showing Windows 11 Home or I delete my Parallels Desktop and re-install again and see if I would get the 11Pro Windows and not home?
Thank you.

 

Parallels automatically instals Windows 11 pro and hence a product key for Windows 11 home does not work. It is also not possible to download a windows 11 home ISO image from the the microsoft website for ARM processors. It seems that it is compulsory to purchase windows 11 pro. Parallels is not informing about these requirements which seems to be misleading.

 

Parallels deceptive practices as usual.
Installed a Win 11 Home ISO and it's unable to share the Mac volume. 11 Home totally hamstrung and only acts as a standalone Win 11 home install.
There's no indication of this anywhere on the parallels site.
So I used parallels to install a new version of "Windows 11". They have every opportunity to mention it's a "Pro version only" but don't.
You only find out when you're asked to activate and pay for ther Pro version after it's all installed.
Getting pretty sick of the Parallels and Microsoft antics in this space and being forced onto Pro when I don't need it.

 

I was being being hassled by Microsoft for months to purchase and register what was originally an insider build of Windows 11 Pro. So without going through the Parallels portal I caved in and simply bought a copy of Windows 11 Home and installed it.

Now, a couple of months later, I've discovered that I have a huge performance hit on the software that I'm developing in Metatrader 5. It's unusable. Just in case I did something stupid, I restored a Metatrader 5 backup from before all that, and it also performs terribly.

In that amount of time, I think I also upgraded Parallels. It seems incredible that my software in Parallels plus Windows 11 Home could run at 1/20th of the speed, but I'm going to blow everything away, buy Windows 11 Pro via Parallels, and see what happens.

 

What I actually did was create a new VM and downloaded Windows 11 from the control panel (Parallels Pro). It installs a trial version of Windows 11 Pro by default, so I didn't have to buy it.
I am frustrated but not surprised to report that the new install of Windows 11 Pro performs exactly the same as the Windows 11 Home VM I installed a couple of months back.
Back to the drawing board on why my software is performing so terribly.

 

1. Detailed explanation, with all steps by steps followed, to reproduce the issue.
I'm running the following

• A highly computation-intensive Metatrader 5 script which reads financial instrument data off disk and processes it. Apart from setup, very little disk activity during computation.
• Metatrader 5 build 3662, 26th March
• Windows 11 Home, with 2023-03 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for arm64-based Systems (KB5023778). I have also tried an unregistered version of Windows 11 Pro with no apparent difference.
• Parallels Pro Version 18.2.0 (53488), configured for software development, with the default allocation of 4 CPUs and 6GB RAM
• MacOS Ventura V13.3
• On a MacBook Pro M1 13" with 16GB RAM

The speed of the Metatrader 5 script is extremely slow, possibly about 1/20th of what I was experiencing a couple of months ago.

2. Screenshot of error message you are receiving (if any).
None

3. Collect a technical report
421859366

Thank you

 

I understand your confusion about this, it can be tricky to navigate all the different Windows 11 editions and requirements. As far as I know, Parallels does recommend using Windows 11 Pro or Enterprise, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's required.

 

I have to report that a seemingly trivial single line of debug code I had inserted and forgotten about was massively slowing down the code. I found it using the Metatrader 5 code profiler. Sorry about all the fuss!

I'd like to reinforce again that I am running Windows Home on Parallels without any issues.

 

I found that using the ISO that Parallels downloads for the "out of the box" Windows 11 installation, you can create a new Windows 11 VM and by using "manual install" instead of the default unattended install, you can enter a license key for Windows 11 Home at the start of the installation process and it will install Windows 11 Home. I bought a license key from www.keysfan.com for $25.