Parallels Growing Pains

Hi,

For best results with the VM, disable VoiceOver to avoid confusion with both the VM and windows 11 in Parallels.

If you must use parallels, I would recommend disabling VoiceOver, that way it doesn’t start saying, Microsoft edge is launched in the background. Settings is launched in the background. Etc. I find it really weird that Voiceover even does this to begin with, but then again, I think it has something to do with the fact that you can command tab to Windows apps and have them Gain focus. If there is a way to turn that off, that might fix the issue.
Considering the an accessible state I saw parallels in when I tried it last in 2023, I would recommend VMware fusion for your windows needs. coming from a person who use parallels for a year before then, and even paid for it, VMware fusion is your best option.

if VMware fusion doesn’t float your boat for whatever reason, you could also try using UTM.

You don't need to disable voiceover, you need to disable, I think it was coherence mode, if i'm not mistaken. You don't need to disable voiceover, though.

Also, hooking up an external keyboard with the VM solves 99.5% of your issues, latency, shortcuts, etc., but running it on bare metal is still better obviously.

Just use VOCR to set up your vm with parallels. I'm sorry but vmware fusion is crap compared to parallels. So much more you can do with parallels and it takes better advantage of your hardware.

But what are the real advantage outside accessibility with parallels that we don't have with vmware? Aside the command tab thing maybe. I have never gotten any clear answer to this yet. I know that parallels is better with virtualizing gpu stuff? What else do we have?
And no, I used UTM but I'd always choose vmware over it, for windows.
I am going to computer science in college. I do have a windows laptop alongside my mac as I know there's no way to virtualize windows server arm and or sql server as they don't exist for ARM. But for the things I can do on a windows vm on my mac, I would be using a vm when needed. So I really want to know what I will get by paying for Parallels.

Especially considering that apple being apple, nested virtualization is only allowed on sequoia but on >m3 series. This is 101% software planned obsolescence.

Question: can you use Narrator during windows instelation with UTM active? I know you can use it with vmware fusion, but I think you have to pres a key before it times out. so, am I able to run narrator during windows instelation while UTM is running???

Yes, windows m can be used, however, you might have to switch some keys, i.e, control to Windows, and command to control inside the vm alone. That’s what I have done in my set up, and I can use windows m without a problem.
Re planned software Obsolescence, I'm a bit... confused. Can you only do this on m3 macs or what? That part wasn't clear. I could do it on my m3 mac no problem.

Because if you have your command key set as your Windows key, command, M minimizes whatever you’re on the mac side, and since its a os keyboard shortcut... as far as I know you cannot change it or disable it.
Also, if you want to stop mac from opening separate apps on the background, disable application sharing, I think it was.

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hi

assuming this would apply to windows VM's also but i just tried turning on nairator in the windows installer on my hp and got nothing

i will need sighted help to instal windows back on my hp, basicly an update broke my computer giving me a bitlocker screen on boot and the unlocking key didn't work

:S your hp arm or intel? I ask because on vms at least for arm not so sure about intel, narrator doesn't speak in the first instalation phaze. I'm not sure if it’s also a bug present on native hardware but, curious if that's the case. You'll probably have to ask for sighted help to reinstall windows if narrator doesn't work in the first install phaze. I don't have a native windows computer so cant verify if the bug is present.

I have a native HP laptop. From what I remember, narrator works right from the start for me. I, however, did not mess with bit locker at all since last time I did a fresh install of windows on my machine.

HTH.

Yes, nested virtualization is hardware possible for the m2 series of chips but apple haven't exposed it to the hypervisor apis or whatever the term is. So Docker Desktop and WSL inside a windows VM on mac will only work on the m3 chips and beyond.
So I think it's perfectly possible to have nested virtualization on m2s through asahi linux but, wayland, blind accessibility... Not worth it. Even there, you still could use vnc or similar on a secondary device if you install fedora tty only with asahi but at this point just get you a windows laptop, and I am fortunate to have both :) Anybody more clever than me feel free to correct me but this seems good from my understanding and gpt confirmed it..... Very interesting philosophical thing 😂

From waht I understand the impossiblity to hear narrator has nothing to do with vmware or utm but it's a problem in the drivers of the installer on microsoft end, and it happened to me on bear metal installs too. The easy fix is to get a generic usb sound card like usb to jack with earphones or similar plugged and make it visible to the guest os, you can then use narrator during the setup process as usual. Things might have change as I last installed windows 11 in 2024.

Ok that's... unexpected. I mean yeah getting a jack or such is a solution but... That should really be fixed. That's quite the mess microsoft got themselves into though. Also, I said before, yes, a jack is a solution, but not everyone has a USB to jack adapter lying around. To be honest, I’m actually surprised this actually wasn’t caught during the betas, I mean, its quite a big bug at that.

If you consider that you are essentially trying to put Microsoft's operating system on foreign hardware, with third-party virtualization software, it may just be a mixture of everything that is causing the audio issues.
Just something to consider. 😇

No it's microsoft fault as it happens on native installs as well. Nothing to do with the vm.

What i'm really curious of, is weather this only happens on windows 11 for intel and arm, or its... Just a specific arm issue? The odd thing beeing that in windows 10 for intel? This doesn't happen. I'm guessing for windows 10 arm, same thing; it doesn't happen so... Exactly what did they break so that this happened in windows 11? And that it hasn't gotten fixed yet is, concerning for sure. I mean, if that, beeing a core thing of the os is not working without a third party solutions, and yeah i'd say that's a critical piece and its still not fixed... To me that's a red flag. Microsoft says accessibility but actions like this? Or lack of actions more like... Paint the opposite picture.

Last time I looked into this, which was either 10 or the very beginnings of 11, I think it depended on what you were running. I don't know if that's hardware-based or what, I'd assume so. But I'm pretty sure i did an install and it worked from scratch.

I remember thinking it probably wouldn't work because everybody was saying you needed an external uSB sound interface of some sort. I did have a Blue Yeti but I don't remember if it was hooked up or not. I also don't remember having to plug headphones into it and using it or trying to switch sound devices, so I think the internal card on the motherboard just worked for Narrator.

Sadly, if you purchased a cheap laptop that you're just going to use for school or work, or something that is essentially a netbook just use for surfing the social media websites, or doing light email correspondence you're not gonna get the best Windows experience.
I have never experienced this on a native Windows-based machine, but my personal experience since losing my eyesight is only narrowed down to Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Each company makes really, really great laptop and desktop computers.

Microsoft makes none of those, in fact as far as I know the only computer they manufactured these days are the Surface machines. So I will stand by my previous statement, that I do not think this is solely Microsoft's fault. There are way too many factors involved when installing an operating system on another machine that is not necessarily designed for that particular operating system.