So theoretically it is possible to implement this solution at nil cost too – though much more customisation is needed with the Virtual Box install that the Parallels installation assistant does out of the box. Other options to build your Windows XP Virtual Machine include VMWare Fusion and Desktop (not tested), which attract a similar cost to above, and VirtualBox, which does not.

There is very little cost or functional difference between the two – but Lite can be purchased through the App Store, and that allows us to run virtual machines on multiple computers from a single subscription. We opted for Parallels Desktop Pro, and then Parallels Desktop Lite.

There are many pieces of software that you could do this in. We decided to build a virtual Windows XP virtual machine.

We are yet to find a game from the era that we cannot run. Our solution is not free, like PlayOnMac – but it does work much universally. It was possible for instance to install Championship Manager 01/02 in WINE – but not to run many of the patches that the community have put so much time into maintaining the game. Also PlayOnMac and Crossover are not perfect solutions – many games will work, but not everything will. However, our philosophy is around making old games work on new technology, and is not about holding development back to play old games. One solution would be to not upgrade to macOS Catalina. However, Crossover was also not ready for the introduction of Catalina, with Dreamweavers currently busy working on a solution. We have also dabbled with commercial solution Crossover, which is also run on WINE. Unfortunately the introduction of macOS Catalina removed support for 32bit applications, rendering PlayonMac and WINE useless. Until recently our preferred way of running classic Windows games was using the windows emulator WINE through the PlayOnMac emulator. We started MacRetro as a way of showing others how to make classic Windows games work on modern Apple architecture.

Here at MacRetro we are avid MacOS converts, but we spent much of our youth playing classic DOS and windows games, and still enjoy playing those classics from the 90s and 00s today.

Windows emulator for mac catalina