If your organization is subscribed to Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition and then decides to try the Enterprise Edition, you will need to contact your Parallels sales representative to receive a separate, time-limited trial key and add it to your Parallels My Account.
Note: If you try to add a purchased Enterprise Edition license to a Parallels business account with an active Enterprise Edition trial, you will be offered to suspend the trial license.
Once the trial ends and you decide to upgrade to Enterprise Edition, the recommended way forward is to contact your Parallels sales representative and convert a Business Edition license to an Enterprise Edition one.
Attention: If your organization's business account holds multiple Business Edition licenses, make sure to communicate clearly which one you want to be upgraded to Enterprise Edition.
In this scenario:
The Enterprise Edition trial license will be suspended;
The Golden Images added during the trial will become available to the users of the new Enterprise Edition setup;
The policies created during the trial will be saved but not applied to any sublicense keys/user groups. You will have to reassign them.
[NOT RECOMMENDED] Technically, your trial Enterprise Edition license can also be converted to a long-term one, keeping your existing Business Edition setup intact, on the following condition:
If your Business Edition license seats have been activated using the per-device/license key method, your trial Enterprise Edition license can be converted to a long-term one, albeit with much effort;
If your Business Edition license seats have been activated using the per-user/SSO method, your trial Enterprise Edition license cannot be converted to a long-term one, and you'll need to convert one of the existing Business Edition ones.
Creating a completely new setup with new sublicense keys and user groups and migrating your users to it is a daunting task, so we don't recommend this path.
If you have an existing Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition setup where end-users activate their copies of Parallels Desktop using Single Sign-On (SSO), you can concurrently trial the same setup on the Enterprise Edition. You will have to take the following steps:
Contact your sales representative using the details provided in Parallels My Account and request a trial license key. If your My Account page does not mention a specific sales representative, use the Request Trial form on this page;
Register the received key in My Account;
On the side of your organization's identity provider (IdP), register a new group and include in it trial users;
If your IdP supports group hierarchy, make sure the trial group is a child of the main Parallels enterprise app user group mapped in My Account as part of the integration (i.e., your mapping should be Parallels app registered with your IdP <- Parallels Desktop users group <- Enterprise Edition trial users group) and add the Enterprise Edition trial users to it;
Warning: For hierarchical setup to work correctly, theSAML token exchanged during the SSO authentication process must include the group identifiers for all the groups a user belongs to. See step (3) in theMapping existing groups... section of the respective chapter, as seen in Microsoft Azure/Entra ID.
Otherwise, connect the trial group directly to the Parallels enterprise application and make sure to include the trial users in the main Parallels Desktop users group as well (i.e., your mapping should be Parallels Desktop app registered with your IdP <- Parallels Desktop users group AND Parallels Desktop app registered with your IdP <- Enterprise Edition trial group), make sure to include trial users in both user groups;
Make sure the end users with trial accounts have activated their copies via SSO;
Explore the Parallels Management Portal capabilities.
For end-users, activating their copies of Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition is much easier by signing in with their usual set of corporate login credentials. If your organization already runs an identity provider service (e.g., Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, or Ping Identity), you can benefit from the Single Sign-On (SSO) activation method by setting up the integration. This method has the added benefit of automatically disabling the licenses of employees leaving your organization, freeing up their quota.
Note: For new customers or those who previously did not use SSO activation, only Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition supports this method. For the sake of flexibility, Enterprise Edition supports mixed licensing, with per-device (license key) and per-user (SSO) activations in the same setup.
This chapter represents a migration plan that will not affect your existing per-device (license key) activations while you continue to run them in parallel with the new per-user (SSO) test group.
If your current Parallels Desktop for Mac deployment uses the license key activation method but you would like to switch to SSO, follow these steps:
At this stage, your goal is to set up the integration between Parallels and your identity provider (IdP) and validate that it works for your test group. Once this goal is achieved, you can make the SSO activation method default for all new users of Parallels Desktop for Mac in your organization.
Start the integration process on of Parallels My Account and follow the instructions from .
Warning: Once you have completed the integration process and activated the SSO functionality, only users from the Administrators group in your IdP signing in via SSO will retain access to managing the Parallels business account. All previous administrative privileges based on logins and passwords will become inactive.
Your designated backup login will continue to work.
Throughout this process, your new SSO setup will not affect your existing users of Parallels Desktop for Mac.
Download a copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac on a computer that doesn't have it and attempt to activate it using the SSO method. Make sure to allow Parallels Desktop access to the Downloads folder.
Alternatively, choose an existing non-critical Parallels Desktop seat, deactivate it using the following Terminal command:
prlsrvctl deactivate-license,
restart Parallels Desktop, and try to activate again using SSO. Expand the test to a small group of users.
Once everything is successfully tested, you can either:
Update your company's documentation to instruct all new users to activate via SSO only or
If you have a Mac management tool, deploy a configuration profile to all new Macs that forces the SSO login window to pop up at the app launch until it has been activated.
Once you have successfully completed the previous steps, it's time to expand the SSO activation to your organization's wider Parallels Desktop user base. Start by proactively notifying them of the upcoming switch to per-user (SSO) activation. Your email may also suggest the following steps:
Making sure their copies of Parallels Desktop have been updated to version 20.1.0 or newer;
Opening the Parallels Desktop Control Center and using the Parallels Desktop drop-down menu in the macOS menu bar to open the Account & License... window;
Using the Continue with SSO option in that window (bottom left corner).
However, there will always be users who routinely ignore such emails. If you have a Mac management tool at your disposal, you could force selected users to re-activate with SSO by following these steps:
Update all Parallels Desktop for Mac seats to version 20.1.0 or newer;
Execute the following commands:
prlsrvctl deactivate-license
sudo -u $(stat -f%Su /dev/console) defaults write "com.parallels.Parallels Desktop" ActivationExperience -string "sso"
sudo -u $(stat -f%Su /dev/console) defaults write "com.parallels.Parallels Desktop" "isSSOExperienceForced" -bool FALSE
You can monitor per-user (SSO) activations using the following path in Parallels My Account: click on the Business Profile link in the top-right corner. On that page, click on the Users (N) link, also in the top-right corner. From the first drop-down menu, select the Users: With product licenses option. The resulting list will contain all the Parallels Desktop users who have activated their copies using SSO.
Continue to monitor the user count on this page for the next few weeks to ensure progress.
We expect many Enterprise Edition users to upgrade from our previous flagship version, the Business Edition.
The Enterprise Edition differs in the deployment and management procedures, with a particular emphasis on the new , which enables you to apply and quickly change policies to groups of Parallels Desktop users and control and monitor Parallels Desktop virtual machines in your environment.
You can convert your existing Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition to an Enterprise Edition one by contacting your Parallels sales representative for purchase and further instructions. Make sure to communicate to them whether your setup uses per-device or per-user licensing, as the upgrade procedure differs slightly between these two setup types.
Note: A single Parallels Business account cannot hold more than one Enterprise Edition license. If you have multiple Business Edition licenses on the same account and would like to convert one of them to Enterprise Edition, you need to let your sales representative know which one you would like to convert.
It is important to know that converting your Business Edition license to an Enterprise Edition one will not require you to reactivate your existing installations, move users to new groups, or redeploy your existing setup.
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition contains features that require end-user installations to communicate with the for instructions. The earliest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac that supports that functionality is 20.1.0. When upgrading, ensure that all user installations are upgraded to that version or newer.
Once you convert your license to Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition, your local Parallels Desktop for Mac installations will retain their assigned security policies until you set up different policies using the Management Portal, following of the guide.
The steps that you, as the system administrator, need to take to migrate your Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition setup to Enterprise Edition depend on the type of activation in your existing Business Edition setup:
Per-device, when you activate a copy of Parallels Desktop on each individual Mac using a license or sublicense key that you have created in Parallels My Account or
Per-user, when each user activates their copy of Parallels Desktop by signing in with their corporate credentials using the standard SSO procedure via your organization's identity provider.
Note: Starting from late December 2024, organizations using Enterprise Edition will be able to mix and match the two types of activations in their Parallels Desktop for Mac setups, with some seats activated with per-device keys and some on a per-user basis via SSO.
If your existing Parallels Desktop setup is activated on a per-device basis using license keys, you will have to take the following steps:
Contact your sales representative using Parallels My Account and purchase an upgrade;
Ask them to convert your existing Business Edition license to an Enterprise Edition one (the recommended path). If your organization has multiple Business Edition licenses, tell your sales representative which one to convert.
Make sure the product type on the license card in My Account has changed from Business to Enterprise;
[OPTIONAL] Configure Golden Images using the Parallels Management Portal;
[OPTIONAL] Set up or verify the existing sublicenses and configure or reassign policies accordingly;
[OPTIONAL] If your organization uses an identity provider (e.g., Microsoft Azure/Entra ID, Okta, or Ping), consider setting up a Single Sign-On (SSO) activation method and switching at least some of your users to it, as Enterprise Edition allows you to maintain a mix of license key and SSO activations across the same setup.
Make sure that all Parallels Desktop for Mac users in your organization have upgraded to at least version 20.1.0 or newer to enable communication with the Management Portal;
Verify that all your end-user installations remain activated;
Check the monitoring tab in the Management Portal and see it populated with virtual machines on your network.
As a result of this:
The Business Edition product card of your choice on your My Account page will change to an Enterprise Edition product card, while the Enterprise Edition trial license will be suspended;
You will not have to reactivate your end-users' copies of Parallels Desktop for Mac unless you have decided to split them into groups using sublicense keys (step 5 above);
Your Golden Images from the trial license will be saved and offered to the users on your new Enterprise Edition license.
This is not a recommended scenario. However, if you choose it, you will need to follow these steps:
Contact your sales representative using Parallels My Account and purchase an extension;
Explicitly tell them that you wish to convert your trial Enterprise Edition license to a permanent one. Your Business Edition users will remain activated with their Business Edition license;
[OPTIONAL] Configure Golden Images using the Parallels Management Portal;
[OPTIONAL] Configure or reassign policies to groups according to your preferences;
Make sure that all Parallels Desktop for Mac users in your organization have upgraded to at least version 20.1.0 or newer to enable communication with the Management Portal;
Verify that all seats have been activated;
Check the monitoring tab in the Management Portal and see it populated with virtual machines on your network.
As a result of this:
The Enterprise Edition trial license product card on your My Account page will be replaced with the permanent license card;
You will not have to manually migrate all the users to the new setup and activate their licenses (Step 7 above);
Your Golden Images from the trial license will be saved and offered to the users on your new Enterprise Edition license.
If your existing Parallels Desktop setup is activated on a per-user basis (SSO activation), you will have to take the following steps:
Contact your sales representative using Parallels My Account and purchase an upgrade;
Make sure that all Parallels Desktop for Mac users in your organization have upgraded to at least version 20.1.0 or newer to ensure communication with the Management Portal;
Make sure the product type on the license card in My Account has changed from Business to Enterprise;
[OPTIONAL] Configure Golden Images using the Parallels Management Portal;
[OPTIONAL] Your SSO setup used with the Business Edition license did not involve multiple user groups. If you would like to benefit from the flexibility it provides, follow the instructions in this chapter;
Warning: If your IdP is Microsoft Azure/Entra ID, pay particular attention to steps (3) and (4) in theMapping existing groups... section to avoid potential issues with re-activation, license quota allocation, and policy application.
Verify that all your end-user installations remain activated;
Check the monitoring tab in the Management Portal and see it populated with virtual machines on your network. The end-user copies of Parallels Desktop for Mac refer to the server to verify their licenses every seven days. If you would like your users to reactivate their copies sooner, you could use your device management solution to run this command remotely:
As a result of this:
The Business Edition product card of your choice on your My Account page will change to an Enterprise Edition product card, while the Enterprise Edition trial license will be suspended;
Your end-users' copies of Parallels Desktop for Mac will eventually get in touch with the server and update their licensing information (Step 7 above);
Your Golden Images from the trial license will be saved and offered to the users on your new Enterprise Edition license.
Note: Once you convert your setup from Business Edition to Enterprise Edition, Parallels Desktop will retain the locally configured restrictions in the security tab until the policies are created in the Management Portal.
Once a policy is created and assigned to the user group, the previously created restriction in the security tab in Parallels Desktop preferences will be ignored, and the restrictions from the policy will be applied.
Your new setup will continue to respect any policies (like a specific local update server or policy or default virtual machine image) delivered via configuration profiles. However, this functionality will be removed in the future. For all new setups, we strongly recommend making the best use of the Parallels Management Portal's functionality.
For virtual machine images, the Management Portal currently supports providing one for Intel Macs and one for Apple Silicon Macs. In the future, as we remove support for configuration profiles, we will introduce support for providing multiple virtual machine images for each architecture, and you will be able to target specific user groups with each one.
Blocking major Parallels Desktop version upgrades can currently be achieved via the Policies section of the Parallels Management Portal.
[OPTIONAL] Create sublicenses for the groups of your Enterprise Edition users to benefit from granular policy management or if you wish to manage ;
Migrate/reactivate users to the new Enterprise Edition ;
If your previous Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition setup had enabled, you will have to configure the respective policies using the Parallels Management Portal. See this chapter for more information.