Bootcamp For Install That Earlier
Bootcamp For Free Systems Section

The virtual machines dock is visible at the foot of the screen, but its easy to turn that off from the virtual machines System Preferences.

We may earn affiliate commissions from buying links, which help support our testing.

The biggest change is that Apple ripped out all the code that, in earlier versions, made it possible to run older 32-bit apps in Apples 64-bit operating system.

Apple warned us years ago that this change was coming, and theres no doubt that an all-64-bit OS like Catalina is more efficient than an OS that runs both 32-bit and 64-bit code.

Still, for many users, Catalina blocks apps that theyve relied on for years.

Here, we show you how to run 32-bit apps on an OS that isnt designed for them.

The easiest way to do this is to click the Apple icon in the upper left, then About this Mac, then System Report, and scroll down to SoftwareApplications.

Your Mac will take a while to gather information about your apps and then displays a list of all the apps on your machine.

Find the column headed 64-bit (Intel) and click on the column heading.

Study this list, and if you find 32-bit apps that you need, youll have to find a 64-bit update or replacementor you can implement the workarounds below.

Both methods work, but both seem to me inconvenient and time consuming.

These prorgrams are designed mostly for running Windows on a Mac, but you can also use them to create a virtual machine that runs macOS in a window on your Mac desktop.

Parallels is easiest to use, but VMware Fusion isnt far behind.

Lets start with the steps to take if youre still running Mojave.

Bootcamp For Free Systems Section

In the Free Systems section, scroll to the right and click Install macOS 10.14.6 Using the Recovery Partition.

Bootcamp For Install That Earlier

It may show a different version number on your system.) If youve upgraded to Mojave from an earlier OS version, you may see options to install that earlier version.

Parallels launches the macOS installer and creates a new virtual machine.

Click Continue. On the license agreement screen, click Accept, and then click the Accept button in the pop-up menu.

This is not your Macs hard disk, but a virtual hard disk in the virtual machine that Parallels created.

From your actual Macs top menu (not the topline menu within the virtual machine) choose Actions, then Install Parallels Tools.

If youre running Mojave and not an earlier version, youll see the familiar pop-up warning that your 32-bit is not optimized for macOS and will need to be updated.

When the upgrade is complete, start Parallels Desktop and your virtual Mojave machine.

In this screenshot, Mojave is running at night, so its showing the nighttime desktop image, but its the same virtual machine shown in earlier screens.

Here, Im running a 32-bit app that wont run in Catalina itself.

The 32-bit app appears in its own window on your Mac desktop, and a second top-line menu (the menu for the virtual Mac) appears beneath the top-line menu of your main macOS installation.

As you can see in this window, my Mac is running Catalina, but a 32-bit app is running in a window that looks like any other app window.

Bootcamp For 32 Bit Mac