Being able to run Windows as if it were native to Mac has made virtualization less important, even more so when free alternatives such as VirtualBox are available.
Parallels goes above and beyond by implementing an ample range of virtualization features that are absent from the competition.
One of the most noteworthy is its compatibility with DirectX and OpenGL, which lets you run most of the games and applications that use 3D graphics, among them: Half Life 2, FarCry, Soldier of Fortune 2, Autodesk 3ds Max, etc.
Another interesting feature of Parallels Desktop for Mac is being able to open any Mac file on Windows and vice versa thanks to the 'Smart Select' option that also lets you associate a file type to an application regardless of what operating system it belongs to.
Parallels Explorer is the file manager that lets you access content on the Windows Volume without having to boot up the operating system.
The full list of operating systems that are compatible with Parallels Desktop for Mac can be found by clicking on here. This includes the entire Windows family (from Windows 3.1 to Windows Vista), the main Linux distributions (SUSE, Red Hat, Debian, Fedora..) and other operating systems such as FreeBDS, Solaris, OS/2, etc.
These, and a good number of other interesting features, are waiting for you in what is, according to many, the best virtualization tool on the market.

Parallel Desktop 9 Activation Key, Desktop 9 offers performance boosts for shutdown or suspension of virtual machines. You also get printing to PDFs (which worked fine during testing, albeit really slowly), PowerNap support, cloud-service sharing between VMs and OS X (to avoid duplicate caching), Thunderbolt and Firewire drive assignment (as per previous USB drive functionality), and a 'Windows 7 look' for Windows 8.

If you're a newcomer to the Mac or to Windows virtualisation, Parallels Desktop 9 is an easy sell. If you need to run Windows on Mac, this is a fast, usable, stable and configurable way to do it. As long as you don't want to play particularly recent games, Parallels Desktop 9 performs admirably when running almost any Windows applications you care to throw at it.

You can run apps full-screen, across multiple monitors (set-ups are now 'sticky' between locations), or with Windows and Mac on the same screen.

If you're upgrading from Parallels Desktop 8, the question is whether the new features are worth the price. There are plenty of nice ideas, but little wow factor. Support for new operating systems (OS X Mavericks and Windows 8.1) is the big draw, but Parallels Desktop 8 works fine with betas of both.

Parallels Desktop 9.0 is a reliable and convenient way to run Windows on Mac. It's not an essential upgrade: despite some useful touches, Desktop 8 users will see little improvement. But newcomers will find Parallels Desktop 9.0 robust, reliable and thoroughly up to the job.

The last of those is an integrated installation of Stardock's Start8 and ModernMix. Use Boot Camp and the Windows 8 install will bug you to register, but in Parallels Desktop, the add-ons enable Modern UI apps to work in Coherence mode rather than forcing you to full-screen.