Background

Due to agreements with Apple, installation of unsupported OS's is intentionally blocked via the Parallels virtualizer. OS X 10.6 SERVER is supported though. We can trick this check by adding a single .plist file to the installation media.

Tutorial

Download the 10.6 Snow Leopard ISO

https://archive.org/details/mac-os-x-10.6-snow-leopard-retail

Once it's downloaded, mount the ISO with a double click. You should see the mounted volume appear.

Open a Terminal.

nano /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist

Paste in the following (from OS X Server 10.6)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
        <string>10A433</string>
        <key>ProductCopyright</key>
        <string>1983-2009 Apple Inc.</string>
        <key>ProductName</key>
        <string>Mac OS X Server</string>
        <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
        <string>10.6</string>
        <key>ProductVersion</key>
        <string>10.6</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This will create the required ServerVersion.plist; writing it will be on the installation media. There is no need to make a new image to apply these changes. Just Ctrl+X, Y, Enter to write the file.

Note: The installer/setup will say "Mac OS X Server" but you are actually running the retail OS X Snow Leopard installer. It's just the text.

Next, install from that ISO. Parallels Desktop -> New Virtual Machine -> "Install Windows, Linux, or macOS from an image file" -> Choose Manually -> "Mac_OS_X_10.6_Snow_Leopard_Retail.iso" -> Boot and Install

After the installation finishes you have one more thing to do. You need to copy the the ServerVersion.plist over to the boot drive.

Shutdown the VM -> Change the Boot Order to CD/DVD -> Boot Back into the Installer -> Utilities -> Terminal

cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/CoreServices/

Shutdown, Swap the boot order back to HDD first

Once it's finished installing, you're good to go. Boot it up as you would with any other VM and install the Parallels Tools. About This Mac will report that its Server 10.6 but you still get the Stock Retail experience.

Tools for 10.6 from Parallels Desktop 18.0 - https://github.com/downthecrop/misc/blob/main/prl-tools-mac.iso.zip

Note: Written January 29th, 2026, Parallels Desktop 20.4.0, Mac mini i7 Late 2014

Tag: late-2014

Installing Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (Retail) On Parallels Desktop

Background

Tutorial