New Parallels Beta

[plinden]

Parallels has released a new beta - http://forum.parallels.com/thread5997.html

This includes among other things:
Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac.
Read/Write BootCamp partition.
Boot from BootCamp partition. (XP only)
Coherency. Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones.

Unfortunately we Linux users are still left out in the cold - still no Parallels Tools for Linux.

And no USB2 support (although you do get full USB/firewire access to external drives if you mount /Volumes as a shared folder)

 

[yellow]

I must say.. I'm always impressed with the Parallels team. They really do work hard at making their (Mac) product better.

Sorry about that lack of Linux support.

 

[technocoy]

yeah,

I was all excited about it and finally bought it and the bootcamp thing isn't working on mine.. I'm gonna make sure I'm on the latest version of bootcamp and try again.

Of course it IS a beta, but it was dissapointing since I finally laid down cash for it. lol

 

[Phatpat]

Boot camp integration sounds nice; now I can use parallels for quick things that don't require all the performance, and reboot when I do need it. Perfect.

 

[DavidLeblond]

It would be nice to only have one copy of XP on my mac. Right now I have one for games (although I barely ever boot into it) and I have Parallels for Windows development that I use almost daily. For development purposes it is perfect. One button and I have Visual Studio... and then with another button I'm back in the safe comfort of Mac OSX.

 

[xli_ne]

Was or is there bluetooth support yet?

Directx support?

 

[fishkorp]

just an FYI, the bootcamp integration only works for Win XP (i.e. not Vista) and on an NTFS partition. if you XP partition is FAT32 this won't work. Parallels are working on the problem.


can't wait to get home and try the coherent feature, sounds awesome.

 

[robbieduncan]

Downloading it now...

 

[robbieduncan]

Downloaded, installed, updated Parallels Tools and restarted Windows.

On the upside: it works!

On the downside: Coherence is strange (at least with Win2k). Whenever you resize/move the Window you see the bit of the Windows desktop behind until the move/resize event finishes then the Windows window snaps into place. Weird.

Edit: I've found out how to fix the above: I did not have "Show Window contents whilst dragging" turned on in Display preferences. Now it works as expected. But I've found a new problem: Expose still treats Parallels as though it had one huge window.

 

[swiftaw]

But I've found a new problem: Expose still treats Parallels as though it had one huge window.

It's not really a problem per se, more a consequence of the implementation. What they have done is made the Windows desktop transparent, thus it is really still there, just invisible.

 

[robbieduncan]

It's not really a problem per se, more a consequence of the implementation. What they have done is made the Windows desktop transparent, thus it is really still there, just invisible.

Yep. But it'd be nice if they made each Window window have an underlying Mac OSX Window that it draws into so as Expose would work. This would also fix the very slight visibility of the Windows desktop you see when you drag stuff around with Coherence on.

Still it's a step forward...

 

[swiftaw]

Yep. But it'd be nice if they made each Window window have an underlying Mac OSX Window that it draws into so as Expose would work. This would also fix the very slight visibility of the Windows desktop you see when you drag stuff around with Coherence on.

Still it's a step forward...

Absolutely, quite a but of progress. Plus, i think showing Win XP under Parallels under OS X has a certain wow factor. Certainly works on my PC loving friends

 

[robbieduncan]

Absolutely, quite a but of progress. Plus, i think showing Win XP under Parallels under OS X has a certain wow factor. Certainly works on my PC loving friends

I used it to run 2 weeks of demos of an Application we will be delivering to Australia earlier this year. It worked seamlessly which was fantastic. It's a really great piece of software.

 

[cb31]

I just bought Parallels from the UK Apple store today, it should arrive next week some time. Does anyone know if I will be getting the latest version and if not can I upgrade it for free?

Does my copy include updates for a certain period as it is still beta software?

 

[plinden]

I just bought Parallels from the UK Apple store today, it should arrive next week some time. Does anyone know if I will be getting the latest version and if not can I upgrade it for free?

Does my copy include updates for a certain period as it is still beta software?

Updates are free until Parallels releases version 3.0, probably early to mid 2007.

 

[robbieduncan]

I just bought Parallels from the UK Apple store today, it should arrive next week some time. Does anyone know if I will be getting the latest version and if not can I upgrade it for free?

Does my copy include updates for a certain period as it is still beta software?

The copy being shipped to you is not beta. Parallels went production some time ago.

The updates discussed here are in the latest beta copy of a free update to the production software. Your copy will not have them as these are only in a beta state. If you want to risk using them you can download the beta update and use it. If you'd rather wait till these features are fully tested then you can do that too.

 

[Guy Incognito]

One of the most potentially useful features of this new beta release--the ability to use a copy of Windows XP installed via Boot Camp from Parallels in OS X--doesn't work correctly. Several users, including me, are reporting that booting the OS via Parallels appears to XP as a change in hardware configuration, requiring reactivation with Microsoft. Be careful if you try to use this beta release with an existing Boot Camp installation.

 

[dongmin]

Yep. But it'd be nice if they made each Window window have an underlying Mac OSX Window that it draws into so as Expose would work. This would also fix the very slight visibility of the Windows desktop you see when you drag stuff around with Coherence on.

Still it's a step forward...

Has anyone tried Parallels with LEOPARD? Apple is really pushing Parallels as THE virtualization solution for Macs. It'd be nice if they (Apple + Parallels team) integrated Parallel's virtual desktops with SPACES.

 

[NATO]

I too am very impressed with the Parallels team - I never expected them to be quite so regular with updates etc, especially ones with such new and useful features. I haven't tried coherence yet, but the ability to use a boot camp partition is fantastic and works great - I use Parallels when I'm working on 'normal' stuff and when I fancy a bit of gaming, I reboot into the same partition but with full 3D support.

Biggest update for me so far, but keep it coming!

(Regarding the Activation issues mentioned by Guy Incognito, I can't comment on these I'm afraid as I'm using a MSDN Volume Licence which doesn't require activation)

 

[Phatpat]

Any word on how soon an update for FAT32 boot camp will come? I need the ability to easily transfer files between OS X and Windows, and FAT32 does a good job of that.

 

[elbirth]

This is really a big step in the right direction. I've got it running just fine on my MacBook Pro, other than the slight sluggishness from time to time with only having 1GB of RAM installed at the moment.

Here's a screenshot I took to reference it in a thread on another forum:

My OS X dock is on another monitor, but the dual-os effect is really freaky!

 

[Aniej]

What are the black thing and the long silver thing in the menu bar on the far left?

My OS X dock is on another monitor, but the dual-os effect is really freaky!

 

[Westside guy]

One of the most potentially useful features of this new beta release--the ability to use a copy of Windows XP installed via Boot Camp from Parallels in OS X--doesn't work correctly. Several users, including me, are reporting that booting the OS via Parallels appears to XP as a change in hardware configuration, requiring reactivation with Microsoft. Be careful if you try to use this beta release with an existing Boot Camp installation.

Well, of course this is the case - it makes perfect sense, and likely IS working correctly. You see the same thing with VMware's similar feature on a dual-boot Linux/Windows box.

When you use Parallels to run Windows inside of OS X, some of the hardware is virtualized. When you use Boot Camp to run Windows natively, all of the hardware is what's actually on your machine. So what you have to do is use two different hardware profiles inside of Windows - one for your "virtualized" hardware set (running under OS X) and one for your "native" hardware set. Just be sure you name them in a way that makes it easy to distinguish at Windows boot time.

P.S. There are three different threads (at least) all talking about this. The mods should merge them perhaps?

 

[elbirth]

What are the black thing and the long silver thing in the menu bar on the far left?

The black gear-shaped icon is the Yahoo Widget engine, which gives me the weather on my desktop you see at the very bottom left, among other things. The long bars beside Adium's icon is for iPulse, a program that monitors your network bandwidth, cpu, ram, hard drive space, page ins/outs, etc. The colorful circle in the bottom left of the screen is the same thing but floats on the desktop and is a little easier to read once you get used to the style of it.

 

[GraceMolloy]

Be careful with this one. I ended up re-installing my bootcamp (was faster than "fixing" whatever this did to it)

Wait for the bugs to get fixed. GREAT concept though. Can't wait for it to work right.