Parallels Desktop for Mac build 3036 Beta is available for download.

Hello community!

We are continuing our efforts for bringing you even more feature-full product and we are making our latest Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 early available to you. It will be one more FREE update of the currently available version.

Heres a short overview of the new features and enhancements introduced by this Beta:

* New Look and Feel and Improved Usability. Completely redesigned windows and dialogues to make them even easier and smooth. Too many changes to describe just check them out yourselves

* Virtual Machines Catalogue. A very useful feature for those having more than one VM now all of them are available through centralized VM catalogue which appears on each Parallels Desktop for Mac instance start in case you have more than one VM

* One-click Virtual Machine Aliases:
* Automatically created by OS installation assistant or by drag-and-drop from title bar pressing Command-Option keys combination
* Clicking on Alias automatically starts the Virtual Machine
* Shutting down the VM automatically closes Parallels Desktop for Mac application

* Resizable Main Window. Resize Parallels Desktop for Mac main window as you do with any other Mac application

* Auto-Adjusting Screen Resolution. Your Windows auto-adjusts the screen resolution to the actual Main Window size.

* Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac. A long awaited feature that lets you seamlessly drag and drop files and folders from Windows to Mac OS X and vice versa.

* Read/Write BootCamp partition. Since this build, an Apple Boot Camp partition with Windows XP installed could be used as a virtual HDD for Parallels Desktop for Mac.

* Boot from BootCamp partition. Another long awaited feature that lets you boot your 32-bit Windows XP residing on Boot Camp partition directly in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
IMPRORTANT! You need to boot in your Windows XP natively through Boot Camp and install Parallels Tools for Boot Camp package in it before your first boot in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
NOTE! It is not possible to suspend Virtual Machine connected to Boot Camp for integrity reasons.
NOTE! Running Boot Camp in Virtual Machine will need to reactivate your Windows XP installation.

* Parallels Transporter Beta bundled. Migrate your Windows PC, VMware or Virtual PC VMs to Parallels virtual machines. Please visit Parallels Transporter forum for details.

* Coherence. Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS.

* Improved graphic performance. Up to 50% on different applications.

* Connect/disconnect USB devices schema improved. No more wait 5-10 seconds message on USB device connecting to Parallels Desktop for Mac.

* Up to 5 Virtual NICs. Now Virtual Machine can have up to five virtual network interfaces.

* Enhanced Shared Networking Mode. Run Cisco VPN and many other complicated networking applications in conjunction with Connection Sharing Mode.

* Switch between networking modes on-the-fly. Switch networking modes while the virtual machine is running.

* Transparent mapping of Command-AZXCV key combinations. Now you can also use Mac copy/paste key combinations in Windows.

* Power On/Power Off/Suspend/Resume/Pause animation. Just try and see. Were very interested in your feedback about the feature.

* Shared folders configuration on-the-fly. Add/remove/configure shared folders on-the-fly via menu or Status Bar icon without the need to stop your Virtual Machine.

* Drag and Drop CD/FDD images and folders to the Parallels Desktop statusbar. Just drag and drop CD or floppy image you want to connect or Mac folder you want to share onto a respective statusbar icon.

* And dozens of other not that evident enhancements.

Just download Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 to have them all available on your Mac! It will be a FREE update once it becomes Generally Available.
IMPORTANT! Resume and shut down all suspended Virtual Machines prior to upgrade.

Please remember that this is beta software, and like any other beta software you should treat it very carefully. Do not install this Beta into the production environment yet. Do backup your virtual machines before starting them.

If, for any reason, you would like to downgrade to previous stable build, use this link to get it.
IMPORTANT! Uninstall Parallels Tools from the guest OS prior to downgrading and install them again after finishing the downgrade procedure.

As usual, any feedback is extremely appreciated at beta@parallels.com mailbox.

Best regards,
Tim and Parallels Team

------------
Download links:

Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 - http://download.parallels.com/beta/Parallels Desktop 3036 Mac en.dmg

Parallels Tools For Boot Camp - http://download.parallels.com/beta/Parallels-Tools-Bcp-1.0.3-Win.exe

 

Damn, that is one ambitious beta release. Kudos to Parallels for not resting on their laurels!

 

Awesome!

One question - does the booting from physical partition work for Vista as well as XP?

 

So far, so good.

I do appreciate the new method of selecting and launching VMs. It drove me nuts before that my existing VM would loose full screen when I was launching another VM.

It's also nice that Parallels doesn't change my Mac screen resolution from 1680x1050 to 1680x1050 when I make the VM fullscreen. Yeah, those are the same numbers, even with the "don't change the mac screen resolution" setting, it would still set the Mac. I'm glad its fixed now.

I haven't had the guts to try Coherency yet. Since I keep 3 VMs running all the time, I'm assuming that I would only turn it on in one.

 

I noticed the new mini window views in the dock. nice. But since I run Visual Studio in all 3 of my VMs, its kind of hard to tell which is which. I would kill to see the name of the VM as a tool tip on the Dock, or even overlay the VM name across the Dock icon.

 

Problems w/Mac Pro

Tim -

It looks like one of the old Mac Pro bugs is back. When attempting to launch an existing VM under the new beta, I get a spinning beachball, and my system becomes unresponsive. I have to do a hard shutdown.

I will try creating a new VM and see how that goes.

My system is a Mac Pro, 2.66 GHz CPUs, 2 gigs of RAM, X1900 video card.

Thanks!

Edit: I have attempted to create a new VM, and as soon as it is to the point where it tries to access the DVD (I was installing Vista) it again gives the spinning beach ball and locks up.

 

sdwr98,
This is not an option with actual Beta. You can boot only Windows XP Home or Pro installed with Apple Boot Camp assistant.

rufosx,
Thanks for the suggestion, I think it won't be hard to implement

Best regards,
Tim

 

Problem on Mac Pro

Tim -

Upon further testing, I have found that the problem seems to stem from allowing Parallels to automatically set the amount of system memory. If I set it manually, the VM boots up just fine.

 

miker51,

Thanks for report! We will fix it soon.

 

OK the "Coherency" feature, just slaughterd VMware. Damn good work guys!

 

Still NO 64bit enhancement. That would be a very big and improve feature to have, but none-the-less, thanks for all the efforts. Slowly but shorly.

what-if I have a 64bit version of windows XP Pro on my mac windows partition .... would this version of Paralles boot that 64bit version?

 

First use report...

Bunches of notes from first use of this beta are posted here, including a nasty video driver bug. Excuse the text, which I'll clean up as the day progresses.

 

Boot from bootcamp partition seems great but, does it has to be be a FAT32 format, or does NTFS bootcamp partition will work also?

 

Both NTFS and FAT32 should work.

 

Wow!

You guys are GOOD! I'm just starting to play with this version, but I have a question right off the bat: how do I use Coherence?

 

Direct graphic card acceleration?

Man, can't wait until the headline reads

"Latest Build of Parallels Desktop now supports direct graphic card acceleration"

 

Nice work

Wow, what a difference a couple thousand build numbers can do. Looks good so far, the usage of the animations are cool. Go Quartz/Core Image.

My XP VM runs smooth and fast. Waiting to boot into Boot Camp to try it there. Can't wait to get rid of one of my Windows installations. Such a waste of drive space.

--
Danny

 

does this mean that i'll finally be able to use windows to keep in touch with family via MSN? i.e. logitech webcam? or even, the embedded iSight driver in bootcamp? if the latter is true, i'll seriously install bootcamp and delete my parallels-installed windows this instant.

 

With Coherence you can run Windows applications directly on top of Mac desktop and achieve really full integration between OSes.

 

Convert a VM to Physical Partition

Now that we have the ability to boot a physical partition, is there any way to convert an existing VM machine to a physical partition or do you basically have to start over from scratch?