When you want to distribute pre-configured Windows virtual machines to your users, you may need to manage those machines granularly: enroll them into domains, activate Windows licenses, differentiate PC names, enforce specific policies, enable company-wide licensing tools, etc. All that and more can be achieved with the help of Microsoft's Sysprep utility. To learn more, refer to this article.
When preparing a source virtual machine for mass deployment, you may change any of its configuration settings to fit your needs. The following list describes a few common options:
CPU & Memory. Beginning with Parallels Desktop 17, you can configure a virtual machine to select CPU and memory settings automatically depending on the available hardware resources. This option is preselected for all new virtual machines. To ensure it is selected, open the virtual machine configuration, and select Hardware > CPU & Memory. In the right pane, check that the Automatic option is selected.
Shared Folders and Profiles. Parallels Desktop offers great flexibility in bridging the capabilities of macOS and your guest operating system by configuring shared folders and profiles. Think over which files and folders you wish to share between the two operating systems and set them up beforehand.
Enforce USB Device Policies. Specify what types of USB devices can be connected to the virtual machine. See for complete details. Note: With Parallels Desktop for Mac 26.1 or newer, some virtual machine settings, including USB device policies, can now be controlled centrally using the . Read more .
Installing Applications. You can install all the necessary applications in the virtual machine before deploying it.
For the complete information about Parallels virtual machine configuration, please refer to the .
Parallels Tools is a collection of utilities and drivers that vastly improve the virtual machine performance and enable some features that are not available otherwise. Parallels Tools are included with every copy of Parallels Desktop and are highly recommended to be installed in every virtual machine right after an operating system is installed in it. Your source virtual machine should have Parallels Tools installed. For instructions on how to install Parallels Tools, please see https://kb.parallels.com/en/115835.
Adding a virtual machine to the autodeploy package is optional. You can mass deploy Parallels Desktop only and install virtual machines on individual Mac computers later. Consider the following possible scenarios:
If you are deploying Parallels Desktop on either Apple Silicon or Intel-based Mac computers (but not both at the same time), you can include a virtual machine in the autodeploy package, so it will be installed on a Mac as part of the deployment process.
The recommended approach is to deploy without any virtual machines in the autodeploy package and instead provision a corporate VM image using a Configuration Profile in Parallels My Account. This method is especially useful when you plan to deploy Parallels Desktop on both Apple Silicon` and Intel-based Mac computers at the same time. For more information, please see and .
Attention: Architectural differences between Intel-based and Apple silicon Macs require different virtual machines for each of them, even if the operating system type and version are the same. If you have both kinds of Macs in your organization and would like to deploy Parallels Desktop with a virtual machine on all of them, you need to create two autodeploy packages (one for Apple silicon and another for Intel-based Macs) and deploy them separately.
There are two ways to include a virtual machine in the autodeploy package: as a downloadable link or as a local file manually added to the package. Regardless of which one you choose, take the following steps first:
Configure the virtual machine as described in the subsections of this chapter.
FULLY STOP the virtual machine by opening Actions in the macOS menu bar and choosing Shut Down. Suspending or pausing it will not suffice.
Reduce the size of the selected virtual machine by doing one of the following:
Open the Parallels Desktop Control Center, right-click on the virtual machine, and select
Known Issue: With Parallels Desktop for Mac version 26.1, deploying a package that includes a .pvmp packed virtual machine file results in that virtual machine failing to register and launch. We recommend using the second method with a .zip file until the bug is resolved.
Several popular MDM solutions have been known to experience issues with deploying large packages. As a way to mitigate this, you can amend the deploy.cfg file to include a link to a file share location with the virtual machine file instead of including it in the package. Take the following steps:
Upload the compressed file to a permitted cloud storage that would be accessible to all target Macs (e.g., OneDrive or Google Share). Make sure the resulting link is direct and open to all the users affected by the deployment. The best way is to choose Share with anyone. Note: A direct https link is a link that explicitly leads to a file, and not a file download page.
Open the deploy.cfg file in a text editor, same as when , scroll to the Virtual Machines section and add the download link there exactly as described, following the instructions carefully.
To add a virtual machine to the autodeploy package directly, simply copy the virtual machine file to the Virtual Machine(s) sub-folder that can be found under Bundle > Virtual machine(s) . More than one virtual machine can be added to the autodeploy package if needed.
Read on to learn about modifications that you can make to the virtual machine configuration before adding it to the autodeploy package.
.pvmpAlternatively, open the Parallels Desktop Control Center, right-click on the virtual machine, and select Show in Finder. Right-click on the virtual machine .pvm file and select Compress {vm_name}. This will result in a .zip file.