My setup experience: Windows Server 2025 on Parallels 27

Hey y'all!

I wanted to test out enterprise-y Windows management-related features so I decided to use the hardware I have (a MacBook Pro w/ M3 Pro) and run Windows Server on it. After discovering that my version of Parallels Desktop (27.0.0 / 58597) supported Windows Server 2025 (despite being mentioned nowhere in docs!) I went ahead and tried it:



Since it's running in x64 emulation with only 1 supported CPU core, it's painfully slow. It took around 20 minutes to get from starting install in the setup to loading the OOBE:



Eventually after a couple more minutes of waiting, the desktop was fully loaded:



However, it's VERY slow. This is certainly not an intended use case for Parallels at all, but it's certainly fun to try! Parallels Desktop is very powerful these days, and can run many different OSes. That's it for now!

-ash

 

the Arm64 version (Canary Channel) works like a charm on MacStudio M1