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December 2, 2006

windows

First impressions: Parallels Desktop 3036 Beta

Posted Dec. 2, ’06, 11:11 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Windows

Parallels DesktopYesterday, we told you about the new Parallels Beta release. Now, I’d installed Boot Camp a while back and I still have the partition, and so my inclination to try Parallels was pretty slim: I didn’t want to install Windows on my Mac again. But the fact that Parallels could virtualize my existing Boot Camp partition was too good to pass up, so I hit the download links.

First off, this is important: if you want to use Parallels with Boot Camp, make sure you install the Parallels Tools for Boot Camp (download link) first. I used a FAT-formatted flash drive to get it over, which worked like a charm. As far as I can tell, it adds a “Parallels configuration” option to your Windows boot sequence.

For the most part, my trip into virtualization worked smoothly. It took a restart before certain crucial things (er, trackpad) were operational, and it seems to not like the Input Remapper software I’d been using to emulate right-clicking (though Parallels handles right-clicking with its own modifiers), but that done, my Boot Camp installation’s desktop pattern showed up.

Thoughts? Parallels loves RAM and processor cycles so my MacBook 2.0GHz with 1GB of RAM started to grind. And I’m not sure, but I think the VM might have borked my VPN settings (they seemed to right themselves after a restart of my Mac, though I had a kernel panic first). One feature I miss from my days of using Virtual PC is having the option to be able to shrink the Parallels window and see the whole Windows screen zoomed out, since otherwise, you have to either use full screen mode or or pop the mouse back into OS X to scroll the window (is there a workaround for this?).

I’ve also been unable to get the new Coherence mode to work (it makes Windows apps appear in the Mac layer, sort of like CrossOver), but it seems to be going for Gruber, so maybe it doesn’t work with the Boot Camp partition? I click the button on the tool bar or try selecting the menu option, but neither works. Hrm. Still, it’s cool—I imagine it’s a sight better on a Mac Pro with some serious RAM available, but cool nonetheless. Having both virtualization and native booting with a single installation is yet another killer feature for Parallels. VMWare, you’ve got your work cut out for you.


5 Comments

DWesnor said:

Did you remember to install the Parallels Tools?

December 2, 2006 3:41 PM
Larry V. said:

Hey, it's still a beta... I'm sure most of these things will get worked out in the final release. For instance, when I went to reinstall Parallels Tools on my Win XP installation, it BSoD'd on me. =) But a second try yielded the desired result.

December 2, 2006 4:14 PM
silas said:

I just got it working with Boot Camp. I could never get my Boot Camp WinXP install to get onto my wireless network, and it was something of a problem in terms of updates etc.

Here's what I did: 1)download the Parallels Boot Camp Tools (not easy to find, they're in a forum post, not on the main page) and put them onto a FAT USB drive. 2) Boot into your (NTFS-formatted!) Boot Camp install, and install the BootCamp Tools. 3) Boot back into OS X and start up Parallels, creating a new VM and using the Boot Camp partition. 4) Once you're in Windows (choose "Parallels configuration" twice at the text prompts) install the normal Windows Parallels Tools. 5) Close out of Windows and close out of Parallels. 6) Start Parallels and start Windows (same deal at the text prompts... you have to do it every time). Coherence should now work. 7) If you shut down Windows and edit its VM configuration, you can set it to go into Coherence mode every time you boot up. It's VERY nifty.

So: many problems are solved. When Boot Camp is virtualized, it shares the OS X network, so it can get online and do updates etc. Also, the new drag&drop feature solves the problem of sharing data between HFS+ and NTFS volumes. Now to run updates or install programs or whatever, I can just do it virtualized in Parallels... the only time I need to actually reboot is to play games or use other software that needs the real video card (even in Boot Camp, Parallels is virtualized; so Coherence does not make it the equivalent of Crossover).

All in all, this is Insanely Great.

December 3, 2006 12:44 PM
Greg H said:

Just saw this site ... click on the image for the video Parallels desktop - really shows how well the new Parallels Desktop works

video blog of Parallels - neat

Waiting til tomorrow and my laptop arrives via Fedex - and then I get to try it, too

December 3, 2006 5:27 PM
Christopher Brown Author Profile Page said:

A question for Dan. If you had to pick one or the other, which is better, BootCamp or Parallels?

December 3, 2006 11:22 PM

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