Parallels v 3.0 Released

[artifex]

I do believe VMWare will be much more expensive. Last time we bought a copy of workstation for Windows it was about $250 I think. That was a while ago, so maybe things have changed. I surely wouldn't fork out that much myself, though businesses might.

dang, ok, P still has a market.

 

[macinfojunkie]

I think you need to keep some things in perspective.

You are right, it was wrong of me to assume that everyone would see the $80 retail and $30 upgrade prices as trivial.

First and foremost virtulization in general is nothing new. Its been going on for a heck of a long time.

Again you are so right. VMWare have had solutions out for years. Have you ever tried ESX server? fantastic piece of hardware. And the new offerings from IBM and SUN are dramatically changing the way the clients I work with run their data systems. And as for i386 emulation on a Mac, things have come a very long way since the 286 softPC I used to run on an LC.

(the) ONLY reason Parallels gets away with their "cheap" price of $80 for something that is free from WM is because they are the only game in town. (*1). .for now. Their software isn't anything revolutionary(*2). Its simply the first in class on the Mac. That sure as hell doesn't warrant a price premium(*3). They simply got there first. Heck look at Parallels own site. Parallels for PC: $50. Parallels for Mac: $80. Why do you think that is?(*4)

*1: I think that is called being "first to market", and in most walks of life that usually means a premium price, although by software standards Parallel's premium is IMHO minimal. I pretty sure they have priced it very affordably in order to increase adoption ahead of VMWare releasing their offering. Makes business sense.
*2: I agree, up to a point, but if there many other options in the market place which could do everything that Parallels does, then the price would be even lower would it not? And they must be revolutionary in a small way, otherwise why claim they are the only game in town?
*3 & *4: Let me guess. Development cost vs. potential market (a fact of life given that 90%+ of the world runs on windows) might enable greater economies of scale for the PC version? Possible perceived lesser value of virtualisation of Windows on native Windows hardware vs. Windows virtualisation (with almost seamless cross platform operation) on a Mac. After all how may so mac fan-boys have been crying out over the last 12 months for better Windows integration (mainly to play games I suppose). Heck. Maybe there is a perception that Mac purchasers are more wealthy off!

Second just because Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple have premium products doesn't give license to everyone who develops on the Mac to make their prices outrageous. Heck all three of those companies offers an upgrade path to existing users. Parallels? Nope. Sorry we don't give a rats rear about our existing customers. Buy it or don't. We don't care.

I hardly think that Parallel's price is outrageous. I recall paying many times more for SoftPC, SoftWindows, Connectix Virtual PC aka Microsoft Virtual PC. Each of which cost me over $250 a piece in their day and were in the main the only games in town at the time.

In my case I won't. I'm going to hold out until VMWare releases Fusion. I originally was hoping to wait for them however Parallels was calling. Now? Screw em. I'm going to wait until VM releases then I can use images on both my Mac and PC that I can store on a thumb-drive. Oh and the PC software is free any-ways.

Have you had a bad personal experience with Parallels or something similar? Regardless, it is your right to choose and I applaud your exercise of that right. I tried the first VMWare beta and found it not do what I needed (at the time). I'm aware that they have made great progress since, but I've been happy with Parallels on the whole, although I don't use it that much to justify worrying about it. If, once the final VMware product is released, reviews and feedback indicate that there are substantial advantages to moving to VMware I will be happy to do so. I don't usually care which particular badge my software has, so long as it does the job and offers value for money. Luckily I believe both Parallels and VMWare have tools which allow each other's VM format to be translated to allow easy migration between the two applications. So you are not tied in.

EDIT: OK it does appear there is an upgrade path for Parallels to the latest version. Its in an odd location. Instead of having it under the buy online. Its under the product description, the under the buy it now. They should have it under both and under the buy it now on the front page but that's neither here nor there on the subject of price. $50 is definitely a reasonable upgrade. My bad.

Indeed they have provided several substantial upgrades in the last 12 months at no extra cost. I've seen few other commercial software company that develops for the Mac which has progressed their offering so quickly and asked for so little in return. I don't count "free' beta downloads in this as it is not like for like. Once the beta goes "live" you'll be locked out unless you pay up.

Peace!

 

[meagain]

I've been trying to get parallels working all night. My 24" imac is running at a snails pace and I can see now way to fix that. This is actually turning into a disaster for me. Pretty dissapointed they have no support forum.
I also have no idea why it's asking me if I want to start Parallels via boot camp. Right now I have 2 windows XP on this mac.
I usually don't jump the gun but a youtube video got me all excited about it. I think this needs more ram to run or something?

 

[Manatee]

The upgrade to 3.0 went pretty well for me. The only issue I had was that when it rebooted Windows XP after installing the Parallels Tools, it started up at very low resolution. I had to reset Windows to the high resolution that I normally use. This is on an original MacBook Pro.

Haven't tried any of the new features. All my Windows apps (Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, Office 2007) seem to be working fine.

 

[macinfojunkie]

Just downloaded the parallels 3.0 and activated using the upgrade key I pre-purchased when the offer was going. Update was painless and apart from the time spent converting the images and re-installing the p-tools no big deal. Everything seems to run OK with no issues and the 3-D architecture software I've been waiting to install worked fine with no hitches.

 

[Littleodie914]

Here we go ladies and gentlemen... I present, Half-Life 2. Granted, the VRAM is split between the two OS', even though dxdiag states it's using 64MB? It doesn't run as fast as it does under Boot Camp, I can tell you that. (It's actually very unplayable, I would assume 4-5 FPS.) Maybe it is because of the VRAM/RAM/CPU sharing, makes sense, but it DOES work. I'm running this on my Macbook, with 1GB and a 2.0 C2D. I'll try CS:Source tomorrow. Woo hoo!

Edit: HL2 is running at 640x480 full screen in windows, with all the specs at their minumum.

 

[PygmySurfer]

Again you are so right. VMWare have had solutions out for years. Have you ever tried ESX server? fantastic piece of hardware.

ESX Server is software, not hardware

 

[zugzuglani]

Unity rocks!

I installed the VMWare beta today, and unity is amazing. Much better than coherence. The other features in the release are shaping up nicely, and this beta is performing better (haven't tried games yet though).

 

[ogee]

I've been trying to get parallels working all night. My 24" imac is running at a snails pace and I can see now way to fix that. This is actually turning into a disaster for me. Pretty dissapointed they have no support forum.

They do have support forum. its here http://forum.parallels.com/

 

[screensaver400]

With Parallels 3, with DirectX turned on, and the maximum of 64mb of Video Memory allocated, I cannot get GTA:SA or MSN Virtual Earth to work. Virtual Earth just plain won't run, and GTA crashes the whole virtual machine after it finished loading from the savegame. Oh well.

 

[lad1509]

Meh, anybody wants to play 3d games on this they are wasting their time.
DeusEx ran smoothly but it took me almost 45 minutes to get the right full screen reselution, its a pain.
I cant imaging people trying to play f.e.a.r. on this.

 

[excalibur313]

Damn, Direct3D doesn't seem to work for me, dxdiag still says it's not supported:

EDIT: Oops my bad, it seems it is not enabled by default, you have to enable it in the VM settings.

Hmm I can get direct 3d to work but not directdraw, is that normal when 3d acceleration is enabled? I am unable to run sid miers pirates.

 

[OllyW]

Not sure why you would enter the original serial code key after you already put in the upgrade key?

Just trying to be helpful:

So on page 29 of their users guide it states that IF you have already activated Parallels, the all one needs to do is put in your new upgrade activation code which one gets in your email from element 5 after you purchase the upgrade.

You also have to put your purchase name in. Id' say make sure you use the same name from when you made your original purchase.

I did this and all went well.

Hope this is helpfull to some!

I am trying to enter the original serial because Parallels is asking me to!

From page 29 of the manual

Using an Upgrade Activation Key
If you purchased an upgrade activation key for Parallels Desktop 3.0, you will be prompted to confirm that you have a valid, permanent key for the previous version:

My name is still the same as the first time I installed Parallels

I think it is a problem with international versions of the serials not working with the software from the US download site.

 

[mixel]

Games shmames

Games are just a tiny part of what this is making possible.

Crossover has proven completely useless for 3D Studio Max and Virtools on my Macbook (both v expensive, both windows only - both TERRIBLE without 3D acceleration) Sofar i'm not sure about 3D Max, but Virtools seems to be working flawlessly.

I dont have the HD space to install Halflife 2, but halflife 1 seems to run fine. XD It did in crossover though, so that's no big deal. I'm about to try installing Stalker (my macbook doesnt like it much in bootcamp so im not too hopeful in parallels!)

 

[gerygg]

Anyone tryied 3d Studio, Rhino or AutoCAD? How do they work here? I'm a bit tired of booting back and forth from Mac to Windows...

 

[MacinDoc]

Unfortunately, the Canadian price of the update is more expensive than buying a 2nd copy.
Why $58 CDN? Don't they know that the Canadian dollar is USD $0.94?

 

[arkitect]

Anyone tryied 3d Studio, Rhino or AutoCAD? How do they work here? I'm a bit tired of booting back and forth from Mac to Windows...

I have been running Rhino via Parallels 2 since February and it is doing well.
(Mac Pro 2.66 GHz with 4GB RAM, although standard NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT).

But Rhino has always been a very "light" load on the system's resources — just one of the reasons I love it.

Shaded viewports work nice and smooth — and I usually run it in Coherence.

3DS Max failed miserably… Parallels 3 might help with that… will see later.

I have checked the Parallels site, but can't find an answer…

Does anyone know if you are now able to make use of the Boot Camp partition if the BC partition is not on your primary HD?

I have Boot Camp installed on a second HDD on the Mac Pro and Parallels doesn't "see" that partition…
(Same thing with VMware)

A while back they did mention they were working on that issue. Has that been fixed?
Thanks!

 

[Jason_Bryan]

The only time I use Parallels is to open Lotus Word Pro and Coral Wordperfect documents sent to me by clients, so I don't think I will be upgrading from version 2.

 

[brkirch]

Does anyone know if you are now able to make use of the Boot Camp partition if the BC partition is not on your primary HD?

I have Boot Camp installed on a second HDD on the Mac Pro and Parallels doesn't "see" that partition…
(Same thing with VMware)

A while back they did mention they were working on that issue. Has that been fixed?
Thanks!

Yes, in fact it has been possible for a while now, see this thread on the Parallels forum. There isn't anything new in Parallels 3.0 to make this easier AFAIK though.

 

[xUKHCx]

Yes, in fact it has been possible for a while now, see this thread on the Parallels forum. There isn't anything new in Parallels 3.0 to make this easier AFAIK though.

I had problems with VMware beta 3 not seeing my Boot camp but as of beta 4 this seems to be resolved, for my setup anyway.

 

[arkitect]

Yes, in fact it has been possible for a while now, see this thread on the Parallels forum. There isn't anything new in Parallels 3.0 to make this easier AFAIK though.

Thanks. Yes that is the way I have been running it — editing my .pvs — but I was hoping that Parallels would "fix" such an obvious bug… Not everyone is running 1 HDD setups.
Also as someone in that thread mentions your HDD ID can change — I have had to go and change the .pvs twice already. I mean it is not a huge obstacle, but surely easy to fix?

Thanks!

 

[Flashtastic]

Can't get trial key

I have tried to request a trial key but I never receive any email. I have tried various emails but still doesn't work. I have also tried to activate my account, and reset my password, but again never receive any emails. I have correctly entered the email addresses.

Is anyone else having these difficulties?

EDIT: I see one other user who posted on the first page, can't get their serial number to work. I can't even get the serial number in the first place.

 

[chicagdan]

I suspect they're trying to make as much cash as they can right now... just in case Apple announces that a 'secret feature' of Leopard is built-in Parallels-like integration with Windows.

My thoughts exactly ... didn't the Parallels blog post the other day say it would be out in late June? Then they suddenly release right before WWDC? I think they're getting nervous that there's something in Leopard and they're trying to make cash fast.

 

[Flashtastic]

My thoughts exactly ... didn't the Parallels blog post the other day say it would be out in late June? Then they suddenly release right before WWDC? I think they're getting nervous that there's something in Leopard and they're trying to make cash fast.

I agree, I'm going to wait and see what Leopard brings before purchasing Parallels.

 

[slicedbread]

CnC 3 works. There are graphical glitches still, and the game runs dog slow (<10 fps i would estimate it at). Also sound glitches, and when more than one unit is talking it slows the VM down.

But at least it runs.