Our preferred way to manage multiple versions of Microsoft Office is now available free. Vmware Workstation Pro for Windows or Fusion Pro 13 for Mac.
VMware has released both of their desktop products to individuals for personal use. All you have to do register and download from Broadcom’s support portal.
Both products are a way to run virtual machines with different operating systems or versions of Office on a single computer without conflicts. In the past it was possible to install more than one version of Office on a single computer but that was always tricky. These days it’s not possible and virtual machines are the only way.
Virtual Machines (VM) are a software emulation that allows multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine. They are very handy (if not invaluable) for more advanced users.
As you might expect, Office Watch has a LOT of virtual machines to keep track of all the different Microsoft going back over 20 years. To say nothing of the bewildering range of ‘channels’ for Microsoft 365 alone.
Our ebooks have a chapter devoted to setting up and using virtual machines with Office, buy Windows 11 for Microsoft Office users and Windows 10 for Microsoft Office users
Virtual Machines for Windows
Windows Pro releases include Hyper/V to make virtual machines however we’ve always thought it was clumsy. Hyper/V is really a server technology that’s thrown into desktop Windows as a side-benefit.
Vmware Workstation has a lot more features with a better interface for managing many VM’s. We’ve been happily using Vmware Workstation for over a decade.
Mac virtual machines
Mac computers don’t have an in-built virtual machine option.
Vmware Fusion adds VM support to modern macOS.
Personally we prefer Parallels for Mac virtual machines but it’s hard to beat the new low price for Fusion.
There are more details in separate blog posts for Vmware Fusion and Workstation
