Parallels 6 on Mountain Lion - Supported?

Hahaha, it's so true.

 

"...former Apple senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet has joined the board of directors at software virtualization company Parallels. Serlet left Apple in March 2011..."

http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/16/forme...f-mac-osx-joins-parallels-board-of-directors/

For those that don't know, Mr Serlet was instrumental in the development of Apple's OS X.

To say that there is a close relationship between Parallels and Apple at the highest level is perhaps an understatement.

 

I can't believe that Parallels hasn't changed their tune about this issue. This post is now sitting at 13 pages long with mostly unhappy "former" customers. Apparently they have enough customers that they can choose to alienate existing Version 6 customers who didn't upgrade to Version 7 before this issue.

This choice has made it easier for me to decide to abandon Windows and go native Mac.

</Sarcasm begin> "Thanks for the support Parallels" </Sarcasm end>

 

I was about to upgrade to mountain lion and a light bulb went off.. there was a software that stopped working when I upgraded to Lion.. what was it.. ahh yes Parallel. So before I hit upgrade, I decided to do re-search.. and Bingo! Its not going to work.

Has anyone even noticed real improvements from Parallel 4 to 5 to 6 to 7? Using Windows still sucks.. so how could it lol. I only use windows for programming devices over serial.

FYI: there is a Macbundle that gets re-leased for $50 every year and it includes parallels as a part of it. I guess we could all hold out for that one!

 

Check out virtualbox, a lot of disgruntled Parallels and VMware users seem to be migrating to it. It isn't as good, but it is free.

 

Talk about sucked in! I upgraded to ML a few hours ago and as soon as my mac restarted I received that lovely msg that some of my software wouldn't work with the new upgraded system. The only piece of software that wouldn't work...yep you guessed it and that's why I'm here!

I bought PD6 last year when I bought my MacBook Pro, only because my accounting software that I run my businesses through is windows based, it's the only thing I use in PD6 and thanks to the non-support of Parallels, can't run my accounting software.

What to do? Forgive me, I only read to page 8 of this thread to see if there was a response from a Mod or some other company rep and I'm gathering from the posts on this page non have been forthcoming since the "My Dear Users" post within the first few pages.

As I'm not a tech head could some kind person let me know if I download either VM Fusion or Virtualbox, will this integrate with PD6, or will I have to wipe it, install Fusion or VB, then windows7 and then my accounting software?

Any help will be very appreciated as I have to run payroll in the next few days.

Oh and btw...I WON'T be upgrading parallels - what a rip off and if I treated my customers in this manner, I wouldn't have a business!

 

The tutorial here: (but might be easier for you to just install virtualbox then windows, then your software)

http://benfrain.com/osx-converting-p...-or-vmware-to/

1. Download the trial of Parallels 7; and install Virtual Box
2. Uninstall Parallels tools from your virtual machine. Also take note of how much RAM and CPU, etc is assigned to the Virtual Machine in Parallels.
3. Shut down Parallels and your VM
4. Download trial of VM Ware Fusion 4
5. Import your Parallels Machine to VMWare Fusion 4 (takes over an hour)
6. Shut down VMWare Fusion
7. Search for .vmwarevm ... and Command-Left Click to open the folder containing the file.
8. Right click and hit "Show Package Contents"
9. Highlight all the package contents and copy and paste into Users/YourName/VirtualBox VMs/Win7 (You may substitute Win7 for whatever you want)
10. Open Virtual Box
Click "New" then "Next", then name your OS e.g. "Windows7" and choose the relevant settings on the two drop downs below (Try to match your original Parallels VM settings -- make sure your Windows 7 is 64 bit if you use 64 bit!!).
12. Now click ‘Next’, accept the defaults on the next screen and click ‘Next’ again.
13. On the next screen (headed as ‘Virtual Hard Disk’), click the ‘Existing’ button.
14. On the window that opens, click ‘Add’ on the top menu and browse to the folder you made in Step 9. Choose the file name e.g. Windows7.vmdk (don’t choose the numbered ones e.g. windows7-s016.vmdk) and click ‘Open’.
15. Back on the main screen now, click ‘Next’ again and then ‘Finish’.
16. Before starting your Virtual Machine, you may have to go to Settings...System..Motherboard... and put a check in Enable IO APIC

 

I agree

I too will be moving away from Parallels. It is not acceptable to pay for every and each update that is released whenever a new version of MacOsX is released.

Bye bye parallels!

 

I don't remember receiving a notification regarding a free update before Mountain Lion was released. If that's the case, can you please provide me with a code that allows me to get it for free from your upgrade page? Thx.

 

It's really easy. In fact download VMWare free 30 day trial to make sure it works for you before paying for their license if you like so there is zero risk.

Once you download it, install like any other application. When you run vmware it will detect your existing parallels virtual machines and you can choose to import them.

Once imported they will be exactly like you had in parallels. No further setup, no reinstalling of windows etc. It's all there. Takes about 5 mins per virtual machine to import and it works flawlessly.

By the way you don't have to uninstall parallels at all. But once you have everything imported into vmware you may want to get rid of that cash parasite from your system once and for all.

Hope this helps.

 

Parallels, the thing you should most worry about is, that lots of people, who were very satisfied with parallels so far and had no reason to register to the forum (so they maybe need no support so far - me included), register for the forum just to tell you how bad your update options are. You make many very, very unhappy customers.

It took peoples time and extra effort to register and post a message to you.

Once your customers are lost, they will never come back.

 

Parallels Tech Guarantee - Upgrading to Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac

Mountain Lion is a significant upgrade to OS X. The technical changes between Lion and Mountain Lion, including the new requirements for how applications launch, were also significant. In order to ensure that our customers could continue to use Parallels Desktop, we invested heavily to be able to deliver our update so that customers could move to Mountain Lion right away. It simply wasn’t feasible for us to update more than the current version of Parallels Desktop. Because we understand that some customers will want to move to Mountain Lion and will need to upgrade to the latest build of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, we have put our Tech Guarantee into place so that when we ship our next version, customers who are upgrading due to Mountain Lion will receive our next version free-of-charge. This gives these customers two upgrades for one.

For complete details, please visit: http://www.parallels.com/techguarantee2012/

 

That is more like what should have been the marketing position of Parallels from the start. For me it's over, I've spent an unacceptable amount of money doing upgrade after upgrade in the last years. All my VMs are running VirtualBox now.

 

The virtualbox team managed to complete the changes to their product in about an hour to handle this change - therefore this doesn't seem like a real reason.

See above - doesn't seem to hold water.

Then why the limitation of six months? It isn't really a guarantee if you don't guarantee a release in six months.

Parallels pushes out lots of advertisements to paid users. Why wasn't a simple "Get ready for Mountain Lion" message pushed out?

There was a sale about a month ago, why not mention it then?

While this is partly about Parallels recurring upgrade fees (2.5X what it costs for the OS), it is mostly about the lack of communication that it was coming.

 

I completely agree. I've seen so many "Upgrade to Parallels Desktop 7 for half the price!" ad every time I open my PD6, but I've never seen a single notice/reminder that warns user that PD6 is not compatible with Mountain Lion. In fact, I found out today in other forum that Parallels had previously posted that PD6 will be compatible with Mountain Lion but removed that sentence from the website on the day ML was launched. I may be wrong on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was true.

 

Although I just had my earlier post on this topic deleted (thanks Parallels for the prompt attention!), I am also quitting. I've been paying the $50 upgrades year after year, but I've hit my limit. I downloaded and installed Virtual Box today and it looks great. It's fast, easy to install, and free. I strongly suggest that you all do the same.

As I said earlier, so long and thanks for all the fish. I wish Parallels would spend as much time on producing a decent product at a reasonable price as it does patrolling and censoring the forums.

Sean

 

Hello TEEdawt -After Mountain Lion was released, our Tech Guarantee went into effect. This means that if a new version of Parallels Desktop for Mac is released within the next six months, customers who purchase a full license or upgrade version of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, will automatically receive an additional upgrade to the next full version of Parallels Desktop for Mac.
There is more information located at: http://www.parallels.com/techguarantee2012/

 

Since there are two posts about the same "Tech Guarantee," I think it is only fair to have two replies as well.
As mentioned by RobertHa, in that "Tech Guarantee" page, it states and I quote, "Free of charge upgrade can only be claimed when new version is released and if released within 6 month after the tech guarantee starts with July 25th 2012."

This means, if parallel decides to release next version on Jan 26 2013 (6 month and one day later), then we all have to pay for it again. Nice try. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

 

You don't seem to have noticed that many people here are also complaining about this great offer (for Parallels only). What's is this 6 months crap about? Will Parallels refund customers if it's not released in 6 months? Why should customers trust a company that manages to make an offer like that, and act as if it's normal?

It seems to me that Parallels has failed to make many of the PD6 users upgrade to 7 (maybe because they felt it wasn't worth it) and now is trying to use the OS update to force them to buy the upgrade. If PD6 has got technical problems to be adapted to ML (which is not likely to be true) you shouldn't be punishing customers - the upgrade price should be much lower at least.

 

Parallels: speaking for myself, I have no interest in a next version with unspecified features. My virtualization needs are pretty simple and were satisfied with PD5 and PD6 until I upgraded to Mountain Lion.
They are now satisfied by VirtualBox