Parallels 4.0 - Windows Vista Aero?

So, Parallels 4.0 is out. I was told by Parallels Tech Support quiet a while ago that 4.0 would support Windows Vista Aero interface. So does 4.0 support Windows Vista Aero?

Don't see any mention of it on the Parallels website, do notice that DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0 is supported in 4.0. I don't automatically assume that Aero will work.

 

* a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1 GB of system memory
* a DirectX 9 compatible graphics processor with a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, and a minimum of 128 MB of Video RAM
* 40 GB hard drive with 15 GB free space
* DVD-ROM Drive
* audio output and Internet access

The minimum requirements for graphics cards from the major vendors include the Radeon 9500 from ATI Technologies, the GeForce FX series from NVIDIA, and even the Intel GMA 950. Though the last driver from NVIDIA to support the GeForce FX series on Vista was 96.85 [1],[7] Microsoft's WDDM drivers for NVIDIA graphics continue to support the GeForce FX series;[8] NVIDIA's current WDDM drivers support the GeForce 6 and later series. Though some of XGI Technology's Volari GPUs supported DirectX 9, no Microsoft WDDM drivers shipped with Vista and XGI has exited the graphics card business, so Volari cards apparently will not work with Windows Aero.

Not at least in initial release, we need to make it stable, probably we will add it, if we find it stable

 

I appreciate the specs here, but I would like a simple yes or no answer. I have a new Aluminum Unibody Mac Book Pro with a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor; and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.

Will Aero work or not?

 

No, in this initial release we didn't include it, we are working to include this, and once we find it stable we do, but if not we will prefer to omit this function, Stability is guarantee for customer data

 

OK, then I will wait to purchase upgrade until you have this support. It has been promised for a A LONG TIME, I believe over a year ago it was promised in 4.0, so I see no reason to upgrade from 3.0 until them. Thanks!

 

No problem, we support Parallels Desktop version 3

 

this is a big problem with this company that refuses to include with bold letters on their poduct that Aero Vista is not possible...

 

Agreed. I tried looking everywhere on the Parallels website to get that info, of course, it was nowhere to be found. I Emailed Sales and Tech Support to inquire, and neither has replied, of course, because they don't want to advertise that Aero support, which was promised LONG AGO for version 4.0 still hasn't materialized.

 

We are working on it, we didn't want to include unstable implementation

 

I should have read this first. I've been trying for the last hour to make Aero work in Parallels 4.0 on my new MacBook Pro.

 

That's why I did A LOT of looking around on the web and on Parallels website, and then finally posting to this forum, BEFORE I purchased the upgrade.

I've decided after today to get rid of Parallels 3.0, and just install Vista on a Boot Camp partition. I know it's a hassle to have to re-boot into the different OS's, but at this point Vista has been around long enough now that Parallels should have had this figured out by now.

I understand the whole "stability" issues comments made by the moderator, but really, wait to release 4.0 until you "get it", it's been long enough, and there have been plenty of "promises" from Parallels on 4.0 and Aero....

 

To be fair, AFAIK there are no VM solutions that support Aero. So that tells me that its not a trivial thing. As much as I'd like to enable it too - I'd much prefer stability.

 

i'm sure once aero is supported, it will be feature #1 in big bold letters. until then i think it's safe to say not supported.

 

Is Aero the most important thing?

Although I would like to enable Aero as well, I think the feature is way overrated. For whatever reason, Microsoft implemented it so badly that it requires newer hardware to even run. Compare this with Leopard that was still able to run on legacy PowerPC machines just fine. My guess is that getting Aero to run in a VM environment such that it makes the Microsoft's WEI roadblock engine happy is no small feat. Understand that I'm not trying to perpetuate a "bash Vista" mentality, but when all is said and done, do you really need Aero to comfortably use Vista? For folks who develop for and evaluate software targeted for Vista, I can clearly see this as an issue, but for others, it's probably more of a "nice to have" feature. I run a Vista VM and, while I would "like to have Aero," I "don't actually need Aero."

Having said all this, the new features of Parallels 4.0 are quite nice. The ability to utilize the multiple cores of the host processor is particularly a welcome addition. I've been using the software throughout the beta testing cycle and have not been disappointed.

You folks need to make your own decisions, of course, but don't overlook the other features of 4.0 just because they don't have Aero yet.

 

in terms of "must-haves" i'm quite certain most people would put it at the very bottom of the list. however, seeing as how no other vm product on the market for macs currently supports aero, parallels would certainly win the headlines race.

useful? no. i'd end up turning it off i'm sure. i've become quite used to the "basic" windows vista and find all the fade-in / fade-out / glass effects annoying. flip-3d? gross.

tighter integrated with os x would be much better than aero. skinning app windows to mimic os x windows would be nice. however getting aero to run would certainly bring most games into the realm of possibility since aero requires direct-x, as do a lot of windows games.

 

I'm also longing for Aero Glass

Hi everyone. First I just want to let the team at Parallels know that I LOVE your product. You were the first to bring tight Windows integration with my Mac when Microsoft were dragging their feet in getting an Intel-compatible build of Virtual PC released.

Regarding the missing feature of Aero Glass, I think you should consider adding it to the website that it is not yet supported. I also searched all around Google and this website to find info on this. Aero Glass is much more attractive than the flat Aero theme, and I think this is something that Mac users care about.

Thanks for letting us know that you are working on adding Aero Glass support at some time in the future I look forward to seeing what your company puts out there.

 

I'd like to add my voice to this.
Parallels Desktop 4.0 indeed doesn't support Vista Aero - I checked it out today.

For me, the lack of Aero is not a deal breaker, but as I use Parallels to test out software and take screen captures of various operations, being limited to the Basic theme is a bit limiting.

The only other alternative is to just purchase a fresh copy of Vista, upgrade to Leopard, and install Vista on the Boot Camp partition. But I'm not sure if I'm willing to pay out the $400 or so required to do this.

While some people don't like Aero, I rather like the glass feel, and the ability to change the color of the window borders and so on, to match the theme. So again, it is a bit of a letdown that Paralells Desktop 4.0 didn't support Aero out of the box.

I do look forward to seeing the further developments on this, though...

Jeff Chapman

 

Aero gets disabled in Boot Camp too

I am personally fine with not having Aero under Parallels in OS X. I use the Coherence mode and Aero just doesn't make sense there.

However, it seems that Parallels has also disabled Aero when I boot the same Vista partition with Boot Camp. Technically, it kind of makes sense, since they do the changes in the same operating system which I try to load via Boot Camp, but it's no good. I would expect to be able to use Aero when not in Parallels, but it turns out, I can't even enable it back, all Aero related stuff is missing in the Vista settings (no Aero theme, etc).

Hopefully, this can be resolved with time. Otherwise it ruins the whole experience.

 

Aero via Boot Camp Does Work

I don't know what type of machine you have, maybe an older one. But I removed Parallels from my machine, and installed Windows Vista via Boot Camp, and it works perfectly WITH Aero interface.

 

My Boot Camp partition works fine with Aero. In my Parallels 4 VM, (via Boot Camp) it does not. I don't believe, then, that Parallels 4 has zapped Aero in any way in Boot Camp.