Upgraded To Parallels Desktop 4.0 NO PROBLEMS At All !!!

T

The Duelist

Member
Hi Parallels Team

My PD4 Upgrade Experience Has Been Smooth & Problem Free. (As It Should Be ;-)

Just Upgraded From Parallels Desktop 3(5608) To Parallels Desktop 4(3540).
NO Problems At All :-) (It IS Possible !!!)

My VM Is Bootcamp XP SP3.
Both VM & Bootcamp Work Fine.

After Reading About All The Problems That Other People Are Having With PD4,
I Was A Very Apprehensive About Risking An Upgrade From A Stable PD3.
I Even Took The Opportunity To Evaluate VMWare Fusion,
Before Upgrading Or Spending My Money.

I Think Parallels Coherence Integrates Into The Mac Desktop
Much Better Than Fusion Unity.
These Are The Different Parallels 4 UI Features That I Like:
- Able To Launch VM Directly In Coherence Mode.
- Bootcamp Disk/Partition Mounts On Mac Desktop.
- XP Start Menu Can Be Accessed From Parallels Dock Icon.
- XP Taskbar Tray Icons Can Now Be Accessed From Mac Menu Bar.
One Thing I Would Like In PD4 Is Support For DirectX 9c.
(Or Confirmation That DX9c Is Already Supported)

So Far The Upgrade Is Solid & Performing Well.
'Seamlessly' Integrating Windows Apps & XP Into My Mac Desktop.

You Have A Great Product Here.
You Do Not Need To Rush To Release Upgrades
Before They Are Properly Tested & Ready For Distribution.
But You Do Need To Look After Your Customer Base.
A Smooth Upgrade/Update Process With Good Customer Support,
Is ESSENTIAL For A Consumer Product.
Even More So With When Dealing With Apple Consumers.

Keep Up The Good Work,
The Duelist
 
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Worked flawlessly for me too

And no I don't work for Parallels.

I was surprised to read an article on The Register today saying there were problems. Thought I would look in to say that it's not all doom and gloom.

I upgraded on the day it was announced. Simply followed the instructions and am very impressed with the better performance. I didn't install any of the 'free' security stuff as from past windows experience that is going to kill performance. I wonder if that is the main factor in the performance issues people are seeing
 
Me Too! I have had no issues

Me Too!

I just I should post to let Parallels know that not everyone is having issues. I have had no issues at all with PArallels but there again I have not had any issues with prior versions except my Blackberry would not sync using USB but in 4.0 I have had no issues at all and my Blackberry sync without any issues using the USB cable now.

Awesome!!!

I do not work for PArallels.

:)

thanks,
a Happy Customer
 
I'm having good results too. I consider myself lucky or fortunate or whatever. I have upgraded two computers and several VMs across those computers. Knock wood.

I don't use boot camp however, and it seems like a lot of problems are related to that particular use case.

Paul
 
People rarely pop in just to report success, but have a failure, and watch the indignant venom flow. I would be willing to bet that for every failure reported here there are hundreds of completely non-eventful upgrades.

I would also be willing to bet that for most failed upgrades, there was user fault involved in some way. The VM drive was corrupt ( run chkdisk and repair before upgrade ), The mac drive was corrupt (fix perms and verify disk) and probably a fair share of hacked or modified OSs on the VMs. Some people didn't even cleanly shut down their hosted OSs before upgrading.

Parallels gets flak for several OSs failures, give them a break. They have to hear bitching about Vista, XP, Leopard, Linux. What they are doing is practically black magic, and frankly amazing that it works at all, not to mention working quickly and flawlessly on my machines.

But then I have 32 years programming experience, I am not a typical user.
 
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nice for you guys... But I installed parallel 4 on 6 different machines and got troubles for all of them... It is nice to bring some balance here but you should admit that there are numerous flaws in PD4 as judged by the number of issues reported here and elsewhere. It was released too soon, that's a given...
 
MugsyMD said:
So, do you work for Parallels - this sounds too good
Click to expand...
No, I Don't Work For Parallels ;-)
(I Still Haven't Actually Purchased The Upgrade Yet.)

Just Giving A Little 'Encouragement',
Considering The Upgrade Process Worked For Me,
But Obviously Still Needs Work.

phesopheon said:
I don't use boot camp however, and it seems like a lot of problems are related to that particular use case.
Click to expand...
Since The Upgrade Was Going To Remove PD3 Anyway,
I Thought I'd Try To Make The PD4 Install As Clean As Possible.
Before Upgrading To PD4,
I First Removed Parallels Tools From My BootCamp VM In PD3.
(Edit VM -> Hard Disk (Advanced) Remove Parallels Tools)
Maybe This Helped.
 
I just upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0 and after a few hiccups, (install Parallels Tools asap), the one annoying thing that apears to be broken is this: In Coherence mode, the Windows XP toolbar/taskbar/systray used to automatically relocate to the top of the screen (yes, I have it checked to do that in Configuration) now it just stays at the bottom of the screen right above the dock.
 
Lucky for me...

As a veteran of the 2.0 to 3.0 upgrade ( http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=12625 ) I must say I expected the upgrade to be a total disaster costing me hours of personal time. I was pleasantly surprised. I dove head first into the upgrade. The only hiccup I experienced was about 15 mins post install figuring out how to get the network working again in my VM as some settings apparently didn't convert too well or something.

I converted both an XP and a Vista VM with only the network issue to resolve. Honestly it does seem a bit sluggish but i'm sure another update can help tweak that. I remember a similar scenario when I upgraded to 3.0.

Why did I stay with Parallels? Yeah it was painful to upgrade to 3.0 but once I got the initial upgrade issues resolved I never had any problems with the VM's or Parallels. For over a year i've been using Parallels 3.0 consistently without issue in my daily business production environment.

I also must commend Parallels for trolling the threads pretty heavily this upgrade. When the 2.0 to 3.0 upgrade took place it seemed like those who got a reply from Parallels were quite lucky. This time around I have been impressed with the speed and depth of responses by Parallels staff in the threads. I've seen plenty of Parallels posts made on the weekends also.

In the absence of perfect software the best we can hope for is timely and sufficient issue resolution from the vendor. It seems to me that they have made some improvements in customer interaction and product support. They should be commended for that.

As long as the 4.0 upgrade stabilizes sufficiently... as happened with 3.0 it will be a solid product.

I have a MBP 17", 2.33 Ghz C2D with 2GB of RAM running the latest Leopard updates.

Shaun
 
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I'm giving my report of success, too. Though there are problems, they aren't universal. Last night, I upgraded from Parallels 3 to 4, by download on a summer 2007 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.5. The installation took about 30 minutes and had no problems at all. My main programs, Cisco VPN, Remote Desktop, and MS Money 2003 all worked normally. I've checked BootCamp and there were no changes there.

What swayed me was an Information Week review. I had the same positive upgrade experience the reviewer did.
 
The Duelist said:
My VM Is Bootcamp XP SP3.
Both VM & Bootcamp Work Fine.
Click to expand...

I agree with your comments about PD4. My system is running great also using Vista Home Premium. However, I either don't understand your system or I don't understand exactly what PD4 is.

When you say "My VM is Bootcamp XP Sp3", I don't understand the "Bootcamp" part. I thought Bootcamp was an included part of OS X that allow a person to either boot to Windows or to OS X without having either Parallels or Fusion installed.

Does this mean you have your computer setup for the Bootcamp operation and ALSO for the option of going to Windows via PD4? I assume with a Bootcamp operation, Windows performance would be better since OS X would be mostly out of the picture.
 
Goodbar50 said:
I just upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0 and after a few hiccups, (install Parallels Tools asap), the one annoying thing that apears to be broken is this: In Coherence mode, the Windows XP toolbar/taskbar/systray used to automatically relocate to the top of the screen (yes, I have it checked to do that in Configuration) now it just stays at the bottom of the screen right above the dock.
Click to expand...

Mine does that too. However, I have my Dock set to disappear unless I move the mouse to the bottom and then it pops up over the Windows toolbar/taskbar/systray. If I'm working in OS X, the screen covers the Windows bar. If I'm in Windows, the toolbar is visible at the bottom of the screen.

Seems to work fairly well this way.
 
Macaby said:
I agree with your comments about PD4. My system is running great also using Vista Home Premium. However, I either don't understand your system or I don't understand exactly what PD4 is.

When you say "My VM is Bootcamp XP Sp3", I don't understand the "Bootcamp" part. I thought Bootcamp was an included part of OS X that allow a person to either boot to Windows or to OS X without having either Parallels or Fusion installed.

Does this mean you have your computer setup for the Bootcamp operation and ALSO for the option of going to Windows via PD4? I assume with a Bootcamp operation, Windows performance would be better since OS X would be mostly out of the picture.
Click to expand...
Hi Macaby

Installing BootCamp Allows The Mac To Be Dual Boot.
ie Startup Natively Into Either Mac OSX Or Windows(XP/Vista).
Running Windows In A BootCamp Partition Is Essentially Running A PC.
You Can Run ANY Windows Program/Game Without Issue.

Parallels Is A Mac Application That Runs Virtual Machines (VM) With OSX As The Host OS.
ie Parallels Creates A Container That You Can Install/Run Another (Guest) OS In, eg Windows/Linux/OSX Server.

Rather Than Having To Create Another Installation Of Windows To Run Under Parallels (As Was The Case Up To PD2),
Parallels Also Has An Option To Create A Windows VM From A BootCamp Partition.

I Made The Comment:
'My VM Is Bootcamp XP SP3.
Both VM & Bootcamp Work Fine.'
To Report That After The PD4 Upgrade, I Was Able To Run Windows From Either Scenario.
(I Had A Previous Problem Booting Into BootCamp, When I Updated To WinXP-SP3 Inside Parallels.)

The Duelist
 
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The Duelist said:
Rather Than Having To Create Another Installation Of Windows To Run Under Parallels (As Was The Case Up To PD2),
Parallels Also Has An Option To Create A Windows VM From A BootCamp Partition.

The Duelist
Click to expand...

Thanks Duelist...

I understand most of your reply above. However, the quote above about "Parallels has an option to create a Windows VM from a BootCamp partition" is something I'm not sure of. Are you saying if I now install BootCamp, it will automatically recognize my Vista installation that is running GREAT under PD4?
 
Macaby said:
Thanks Duelist...

I understand most of your reply above. However, the quote above about "Parallels has an option to create a Windows VM from a BootCamp partition" is something I'm not sure of. Are you saying if I now install BootCamp, it will automatically recognize my Vista installation that is running GREAT under PD4?
Click to expand...
Hi Macaby,

No, Its Actually The Other Way Around.

Using BootCamp Gives You The Ability To Run A Native PC.
If You Have A Working BootCamp Partition,
Parallels Can Also Use It To Create A Virtual Machine (VM).

If You Don't Have BootCamp Setup,
You Must Only Be Running A Windows(Vista) VM Inside Parallels.

Hope This Helps,
The Duelist
 
Macaby said:
Are you saying if I now install BootCamp, it will automatically recognize my Vista installation that is running GREAT under PD4?
Click to expand...
No. Without Bootcamp, Parallels installs Windows into a custom file that mimics a hard drive installation, but isn't. This has nothing to do with BootCamp and BootCamp won't be able to use it for running Windows.

BootCamp uses a separate hard drive installation of Windows that allows the Mac hardware to boot into Windows -- it is a normal, Windows PC, with no trace of OS X in use. Parallels and Fusion can recognize and use a BootCamp partition for its Virtual Machine. The benefit is that the Mac user can use the same Windows installation whether running virtualized within OS X via Parallels, or running natively as a BootCamp partition. More simply: files used in BootCamp are the same files used in Parallels.
 
VM in BootCamp

Hi All, my first ever forum post, God knows how all this will work? So, I am trying to understand VM in bootcamp. I am currently running PD4 within OSX, with XP installed. If I now setup a bootcamp partition, I assume I can then direct the VM to use that?? Correct? What if any are the advantages of doing that?
 
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