Parallels 6 on Mountain Lion - Supported?

You can get parallels 7 for $35 at OWC computing if you buy other qualifying products. I have been thinking of upgrading my HD to a SSD so I think this is an opportunity to do so and sort out the incompatibility issues for less than the upgrade to 7 solution offered by parallels themselves.. It would be nice of parallels to offer at least this level of discount. I am actually shocked that there is no update that will allow parallels 6 to work in OSX 10.8. I had been running it in 10.7 with no problems. The fact that from August to October 2011 Parallels were offering a free upgrade to 7 is news to me. I bought and registered parallels 6 in July 2011. I personally think that anyone who bought parallels 6 should be offered a free or at the very least heavily discounted upgrade to parallels 7. It is bizarre that this is the only software (out of maybe around 100 that I use) that I own that is incompatible with 10.8. I understand that running a VM requires integration with the OS, but given that 6 worked well enough with 10.7 I can't see how it can be too much of a leap for it to work in 10.8. In any case, I am as upset with Apple as I am with Parallels, in many cases more so - as Apple's contempt for their customers is becoming more and more apparent with each software/hardware release.

 

R U kidding me parallels?

This is the worst way to rip clients of money !!!! Who does that ? I have freeware from 2005 that still works on M.L. , I have free updates for all other programs no matter how expensive or cheap they are... This tastes like an italian mob practice to me. I am willing to use pirated copies, spread pirated copies, or go to your competitors ( i.e. fusion, virtual box) rather than paying one more penny to this vicious company. You SUCK Parallels !!!

 

Blame to go around

I truly hope Parallels is planning to do something to resolve this mess.

I had thought about upgrading to 7 a few weeks ago when I saw it on sale, but decided to wait for 8, because 7 didn't have any major new features I was super excited about. So I thought anyway, like the rest of you.

Right now, I'm quite annoyed that because I upgraded my OS, I don't have access to my VM at all. This is really unacceptable.

I understand that Parallels wants to get people on the latest version. I understand that a software package like this that is deeply integrated with the OS takes a lot of maintenance. But having the current version basically expire with an OS upgrade isn't the way to do it. I've never had this happen with a major piece of commercial software before, and I feel like appropriate warning was not given.

To be fair, Apple deserves a chunk of the blame too. As soon as I booted up Mountain Lion, my system identified my incompatible apps (just Parallels). There's no reason this couldn't/shouldn't have been done before upgrading my system. Heck, since Mountain Lion is sold only through the App Store, I should have been warned even before my credit card was charged.

In any case, right now, I'm really upset. If I had known in advance, I simply wouldn't have upgraded to Mountain Lion. My plan right now is to:
1) hope that Parallels updates v6, just to provide 10.8 compatibility
2) wait for v8, since presumably it will be a worthwhile upgrade from v6 all around
3) if I desperately need to get a VM, I'll do the free trial long enough to migrate to a competitor

There's no way I'm going to spend the money to upgrade just for compatibility. Right now, I'm a very dissatisfied customer.

 

Hi,

sitting in the same undergoing boat. I purchased PD 5 and then 6 for my first Mac (Imac with lion), because I think doing a good Job should be sold. But a license for one year. Sorry the new IOS cost 15€ and I dont´t purchase PD7 after one year.
I want to chat with the support, but the site told me: "Purchase a ticket". This is all an impertinence. The support and the paid upgrade.

Goodbye Parallels

 

I don't usually chime in on these sorts of things, but the level of apathy Parallels has shown to its customer base is very disappointing. I used to recommend Parallels to my IT organization but there's no way we can justify multiple upgrades a year and outages like this. I would at least expect customer support to acknowledge the issue and push engineering for a patch.

This kind of bad publicity could be devastating if they don't get a handle on it - I don't think they fully appreciate the gravity of the situation. We will certainly be looking at alternatives, be it VMWare's solutions or others.

We don't treat our customers like this and I wouldn't want to work for a company that does.

 

if I allready upgraded my os x to mountain lion, how can I upgrade my parallels 6.0 to 7.0 ?
The software does not work...

 

What a mess parallels managed to bring itself in

Just read what a customer rep. has told me in a chat. I have posted that on my blog. I still can't believe that they are treating their customers this way.
http://www.bartkowiak.de/archives/422

 

Really feel the need to spam the thread with the same link twice? Oh wait, this is like the 5th time you posted it. Yeah, it's not that interesting. This guy has a better write up anyway.

 

A suggestion

I'd like to add my frustration to all the others who have voiced theirs. PD6 stopped working on my machine post-upgrade. What is even more upsetting is that Parallels made absolutely no real effort to inform users of the impending lack of support. I track Mac sites on a daily basis and there was no mention of this at all, which just indicates the lack of goodwill on their part.

I totally agree that Parallels has every right to charge an upgrade fee for new features. What I'm asking for is for the current version that I have to work. I'm not asking for an upgrade to 7. If the only way they can make money is by breaking compatibility to a piece of software that's 10 months old then obviously there's very little innovation happening.

If the effort to maintain compatibility truly is as significant as they claim, then they should factor the cost of future compatibility into their price when they sell the software.

 

This is becomming a joke!

Come on Parallels. You can do better than this!!!

Since the first page of this thread where YanaYana mentioned that we all recieved a free upgrade option - Which was deceptive to say the least - no one from Parallels has posted any definative post one the company stance.

Please make your stance clear. Customer service should be at least be expaining your action/inaction.

Unfortunately, I think I know where this is heading and I too, like a lot of people on this thread, am unwilling to subscribe to your annual $50 subscription model. I've paid you for 4 versions already.... I think that should prove to you that I am a loyal customer.

But I am not going to pay yet again for a new version for this minor Apple upgrade. And if that means that I have to move to another VMware -- I will.

 

You upgrade to v6 less than one year ago? PDM 7 was released on September 6, 2011 and you could get PDM7 for free if you bought v6 close to v7 release (not sure but I think 60-90 days before it was released).

I have +1500 posts and consider myself to be a Parallels veteran. My opinion which is worth as much as anyone else's is a little bit different than most people here. I don't mind the ~2 year support for each version of Parallels. In fact, people are getting and paying for ML now and many of you payed for Lion a year ago (I actually didn't, my policy is to skip a version, going from SL to ML, but that's a different subject). What I think it's wrong with all this is the pricing policy, it doesn't make sense for an upgrade to cost 50$ when ML costs 19$. Apple is opening up a new era of software prices, in this new era the product cycles are faster but the price is much much more cheap.

A new version of Parallels should be priced at about 35$ and an upgrade at 16$.
Also, Parallels has released a new version every year around the same time, pretty much like Apple, I suppose this says something about next Parallels version.

 

Found a tip online: Change Parallels VM to a plain (non-expanding) image; use the free trial of VMware to import it to that application; use VirtualBox to import the file created by VMware. Afterwards I needed my Windows XP disk to get internet drivers but that was the only hitch.

 

I saw that one, but it was old and newer ones say that the VMWare step isn't needed.

 

When I tried it without the VMware step the file type was not recognized by VB; I'm sure there's a work around but I did not try to find one. This method was tedious but effective. If you succeed with the shorter method please post the steps.

 

Leave an amazon review

Just a thought guys, if you're as dissatisfied as I am (and I know most of you seem to be here) then why not leave a negative review on amazon or other site. Companies rely on positive word of mouth and us (as their loyal customers) are relied on to provide it. A wave of more public criticism may finally force Parallels hand in providing more support, or at least lose them some of their ill-gained profits.

Hopefully some representatives of Parallels are keeping tabs on this thread & are aware of how irritated we are.

 

Spread!

Just started the topic on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/x8xz9/are_you_kidding_me_parallels/

 

Thanks!

I just wanted to thank the Parallels team for taking my money screwing me over with lack of support and to all of those who suggested Sun's FREE Virtualbox as an alternative. What an amazing app! Not only was it easy to install it works BETTER than Parallels ever did. Can't believe it's free! That means no more bloated upgrade fees! Yay! (AND I get to stand true to my values and keep 0 pirated software on my mac, 'cause believe me after I got screwed it was pretty tempting to revert to my old ways)

 

I'm as frustrated as you, but if I were Parallels, I would not help you. You were really rude to their rep.

Good idea. Just left a 1-star Amazon review on Version 6, which I will update when this situation is resolved. Even though it's out of date, I felt that would be more fair to comment on Version 6, not Version 7.

Let's keep the pressure on, they need to resolve this at minimum by patching Version 6 to be compatible with Mountain Lion.

 

Nice one. I left a review on Parallels 7 purely because sale volumes would be higher than 6. Thinking about it, I might leave a review for 6 too. I encourage people to do the same, we might (if we're lucky) get a patch.

As I upgraded to 6 straight after the Lion upgrade I've also emailed Parallels to enquire about this free upgrade to 7 that the Parallels representative YanaYana was talking about. I certainly didn't get offered it.

 

He didn't actually get rude until after it was obvious he wasn't getting any help other than the pathetic 10% discount. I probably would have been rude too! I think it's rude to take the amount of money that Parallels did and then not release a patch to at least WORK with Mountain Lion. Nobody ever said they needed to give away new features for free, but WORKING with an updated OS isn't a feature, it's a given. Like so many others Parallels was the ONLY piece of software on my mac that wasn't compatible. That's just plain irresponsible on their part, and shows what a lazy and greedy company they are.

However, like I said in an earlier post I'm really happy with Sun's free Virtualbox. So happy in fact that I've just uninstalled Parallels 6 and deleted my win7 image. I'm to the point now that even if they offered a free patch I'm completely lost as a customer. Way to go Parallels. I didn't even know Virtualbox EXISTED until after I had to come here for support and found there was none.