[DEPRECATED] Using Configuration Profiles

In Parallels Desktop for Mac Business and Enterprise Editions, configuration profiles are sets of parameters that can be applied remotely to a Parallels Desktop installation. Configuration profiles can be used to enable and configure the following functionality in Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition:

• Provisioning a corporate virtual machine image

• Enabling major version upgrades

Attention: In Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition, configuration profiles are being replaced by images provided and policies managed via the Parallels Management Portal.

At the time of writing, the only scenario in which you may need to apply configuration profiles to an Enterprise Edition setup is when you have more than two virtual machine images (e.g., not just Arm/Intel versions of a Windows machine but also Linux machines, etc.). This will change later as we develop the Management Portal functionality further.

Learn more about managing your Enterprise Edition setup via the Management Portal here.

Configuration profiles are created in an organization's Parallels business account. You must be the administrator of the account to create and manage configuration profiles. License administrators (admins who are allowed to manage specific licenses) cannot manage configuration profiles.

Configuration Profile Payloads

Payloads in a configuration profile contain settings specific to a particular functionality. For example, the VM for Apple Silicon Mac and the VM for Intel Mac payloads allow you to configure virtual machine image provisioning, while the Product Updates payload allows you to manage Parallels Desktop updates. The configuration profile itself is created and configured the same way, regardless of which of its payloads are configured and enabled.

A configuration profile can have one or more payloads configured and enabled. For example, you can configure and enable a particular payload in one profile and a different payload in another profile. This allows you to enable one functionality for one group of users and another functionality for a different group (see below how configuration profiles are applied to Mac computers). You can create as many profiles as necessary.

Applying Configuration Profiles to Mac Computers

Configuration profiles are applied to registered Mac computers based on a license or sublicense key that computers are using to run Parallels Desktop. After you create a configuration profile, you need to apply it to one or more license or sublicense keys in your subscription. By doing so, you are essentially applying the profile to Mac computers on which Parallels Desktop was activated using that license key.

The rest of this part of the guide describes how to:

• Create a configuration profile

• Apply the configuration profile to a license or sublicense key

• Configure individual payloads