Users of Parallels Desktop 7 are used to using a variety of operating systems on their Macs: Windows 7, Google Chrome OS, Fedora and Ubuntu Linux, and even other instances of OS X Lion. An update that was released today by Parallels now adds support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview and OS X Mountain Lion.

The update to Build 7.0.15055 (Revision 740667 if you're counting) can be installed from Parallels Desktop 7 at no cost. Once the update is installed, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available as a free one-click install from File > New.

The Parallels Mobile app (free) can be used to operate the virtual machine from an iPad or iPhone, great for those times when you want to (koff) pretend your iPad is a Windows 8 tablet. A screenshot of Windows 8 as seen from an iPad follows.