All Mac® users know about the Mac App Store®, and most have probably used it to get an app or two. If you’re also a Parallels Desktop® for Mac user, there’s another store you should check out: the Microsoft Store.
The Microsoft Store is accessible from Windows 8 or 10—but in all practical terms, this means onlvidy Windows 10, since Windows 8 is used so rarely these days.
The Microsoft Store is for all things to play or consume on Windows 10: movies, music, apps, books, fonts, extensions to the Edge browser, and even hardware. In Apple® terms, it’s iTunes®, the Mac App Store, iBooks®, and the Apple Store® all rolled into one. However, in this blog post, I will focus mainly on apps available from the Microsoft Store.
Accessing the Store
Microsoft gives Windows 10 users the last non-security update until January 2021. AWS engineer puts Windows 10 on Arm on Apple Mac M1 – and it thrashes Surface Pro X.
Just as Apple has the App Store app, Microsoft has the Microsoft Store app. (See Figure 1.)
Here are some apps I have downloaded from the Microsoft Store, none of which are available on the Mac App Store:
Games | Productivity | Learning | Just Interesting |
Age of Empires: Castle Siege | Microsoft Whiteboard | Kakitai: Learn Japanese by Writing | Nebo* |
Crossy Road* | Office 365 Home* | Sensavis Visual Learning Tool | Plumbago |
Microsoft Mahjong | Sway* | Penbook | |
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition | Delve* | GestureSign | |
Age of Sparta | Microsoft Math | Microsoft Font Maker | |
Translator* | |||
Fluid Math |
*Available for the iPhone®/iPad® in the Apple App Store.
All of these apps run fine for me on my MacBook Pro® in a Windows 10 VM using Parallels Desktop 14—with the single exception of Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. I used every setting I know to get this app to run with acceptable performance, but in the end, I gave up. (Age of Empires is my favorite game of all time, as I posted back in 2014.)
You can predict whether an app in the Microsoft Store will run in Parallels Desktop by looking at its system requirements from within your virtual machine. (See Figure 2.)
Figures 3–5 show some other apps from the Microsoft Store running in Parallels Desktop on my MacBook Pro.
Video 1 shows some games from the Microsoft Store running in Parallels Desktop 14 on my MacBook Pro:
And Video 2 shows some of the 3D models available for the Sensavis Visual Learning Tool:
As of today, there are about 800,000 Windows 10 apps in the Microsoft Store, as opposed to only about 11,000 in the Mac App Store. There are a number of excellent apps in both stores, and the Mac user with Parallels Desktop can take advantage of both to find the perfect app for your needs.
Have you found a particularly useful or novel app on the Microsoft Store? If so, tell us about it in the comments.
Long before Safari was released in 2003, Internet Explorer was the default web browser for Mac. But as Safari took its place, Microsoft discontinued any support for Internet Explorer/Edge from 2005 onwards. Due to this getting IE or newer Microsoft Edge on macOS higher than 10.6 is difficult.
This means you won’t find IE for Mac unless you run Snow Leopard. And if you try searching you might end up with Safari, the patented browser.
So, this is what happened to IE on Mac. However, if you still want to use IE or the latest Edge browser, you’re at the right place. This article is about getting Internet Explorer for Mac.
Although launching Internet Explore natively on Mac isn’t possible, but there are ways to simulate IE on Mac.
For those who develop apps and web-based technology, it can be useful and of assistance to see how the application or web design work on Safari, IE, and other web browsers. Thankfully, without risking Mac security, there’s an easy way to do get IE on Mac. To do so, follow the steps below.
1. Launch Safari
2. Click Safari from menu bar > Preferences.
3. Choose the Advanced tab from the new window that opens.
4. Here check the box next to Develop menu in the menu bar.
5. This will give you access to the Develop menu and the tools.
6. Click Develop from the menu bar > User Agent.
7. This will show you a context menu from where you can select the latest version of IE, i.e. Microsoft Edge and other web browsers.
8. Once, you do so the website you are accessing will automatically be refreshed and reflected in the browse of your choice. In this case, it will be the Microsoft Edge browser.
9. Afterward, you can switch back to Safari if you want.
But if you want a permanent fix, i.e. that you want to launch Internet Explorer, you can do so with the help of a virtual machine-like VMware Fusion and others.
VMware Fusion has a Windows license, and it allows creating Microsoft environment on Mac quickly. Once you have it, you can easily download and use Internet Explorer.
But before that, you need to make sure that your Mac is not cluttered and is running at its peak performance. Suppose you don’t know how to do, again nothing to worry. Systweak always has a solution to your problems.
To help overcome such unforeseen situations and to boost Mac performance, Systweak has developed a fantastic tool called TuneUpMyMac. As the name explains, this powerful Mac optimizer helps declutter your Mac, remove junk files, old downloads, detect old downloads, broken cache, and a lot more.
Using it is very simple. To learn how to use this best Mac optimizer and clean your Mac, follow the steps below:
1. Download TuneUpMyMac (for Free)
2. Click Start System Scan button present on the Home screen and wait for the process to finish.
3. After the system has been scanned, you will get scan results divided into categories.
4. Before clicking Clean Now, to get details about each scan area, click them one by one.
5. Once you are sure you want to delete, detected errors, click Clean Now.
In addition to this, you can use each module separately and clean all junk and redundant data stored on your Mac. Not only this, under Optimization, you also get the option to scan for duplicates, uninstall unwanted apps and the leftovers, manage startup items the most common reason for the slow startup, and do a lot more.
To see how well this tool performs, you will need to download, install, and run the tool.
Now, that we have an optimized Mac machine, it’s time to get a virtual machine on your Mac.
Using a virtual machine just to use Internet Explorer is not a great option. But those who just want to use IE or need to know how it is done here it is.
A virtual machine helps install a full copy of any operating system and its apps. It looks just like the real machine. From there, you can access Internet Explorer and other Windows tools.
To set up a virtual machine, you need to buy a license for virtual machine software. For instance VMware Fusion. Once you have that in place, follow the steps below:
Note: There are downsides to this solution:
1. You’ll need to purchase an additional license of VMware Fusion and Windows operating system.
2. Virtual machines are heavy; this means when you will use it, you might see a performance drop on your Mac.
3. Download both VMware Fusion and the Windows ISO file
4. Launch VMware Fusion
5. Select “Create a new custom virtual machine.”
6. Either add the Windows ISO file or drag & drop it > Finish.
7. Again launch the virtual machine and hit the play icon to setup Windows.
Now every time you feel like using Internet Explorer or New Microsoft Edge on Mac, launch the virtual machine and use your favorite browser.
So, this is it. Using either Developer mode or the virtual machine you can get Internet Explorer on Mac and enjoy using it.
But remember virtual machines can slow down and clutter your Mac. Therefore, you should keep it optimized and free from junk files. For this, you can use TuneUpMyMac. This robust mac optimizer knows where to look for junk files and how to clear them safely without harming any of the important files. Not only this, using the Internet Privacy module, but you can also quickly delete cache, cookies from third-party browsers.
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