Powerpoint typing slows to crawl when Parallels is open

I configured my system to be able to launch attachments in Outlook in Office 2008 on the Mac.

Now, even if I launch a .ppt or .pptx file from Mac OS, Powerpoint 2008 takes about 2-3 seconds to display any character I enter.

If I suspend the VM, voila, PowerPoint works fine. Any ideas?

 

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An update: if I disable application sharing from the Mac PowerPoint runs just fine. This is a killer: the whole reason I run with the VM is to be able to implement a system where I can open Outlook attachments right into office Mac.

 

I suppose something is with Parallels Tools
remove Windows Applications folder from Documents/Parallels/VM name
Reinstall Parallels Tools

 

I just tried this. No luck. Powerpoint still grinds to a near-halt. Doesn't seem to interfere with Word or Excel.

 

Do you have shared profile?
Try to start VM without Shared Profile

 

We are checking this now, hard to say exactly , at least in beta 4 , this delay is gone

 

I thought this fixed the problem, but as soon as I posted, boom. It persists. I can suspend the VM, PPT works great. Turn it on and it goes SLOOOOOWWWWWW

So the current state: shared profile off. Mac apps shared to Windows On. Windows Apps shared to Mac OFF.

I even tried re-installing parallels and deleting the files in my user preference files, no go.

 

I would be happy to try Beta 4. This is killing my productivity. I totally rely on the combo of Mac PPT and Outlook.... I'd be able to live with almost any other kind of bug modulo corruption.

 

Looks like problem with huge Shared Folders, but you cannot disable them

 

On the shared Windows it's the disk, which is set for 20GB. On the mac side, I'm only sharing one folder, not my whole profile. Not very huge, <2G.

Can I get in the Beta program? Is there any hope for this in trying the new release?

 

Beta will be available in September

 

Ouch. That's it, then? This is a problem with shared folders interacting with PowerPoint? I don't know what to do now, this really is a big problem for me if it can't be resolved.

I guess my only work around is to turn application sharing off and just have to save every single document to my work directory then open on the Mac. That's going to waste 30 minutes a day of time, as I have to open many, many attachments a day. Is there any other workaround?

 

The problem is that we cannot reproduce situation.
I tested this yesterday, opening pptx from Windows in Mac, but no slowness.

 

Well, I sure appreciate that you guys are on this and looking into it. It's hard when you can't reproduce. Let me know if any logs or other data will help. I came up with one other option that works; I have Keynote and set .ppt and .pptx files to open in Keynote, which works fine.

I'll try a call to MSFT support, as well, and see if they have anything to say besides "we don't support VMs."

 

A quick update: I moved my hdd file to a shared location to create a new profile just to see if something in my profile caused the problem. The answer was no, it was still slow.

I exited, returned to my original profile, uninstalled and re-installed Parallels and tools, and the problem is gone.

 

This slowdown affects me bigtime as well. PPT is slow. And Excel data entry is PAINFULLY slow. As soon as I suspend Parallels, everything immediately goes to full speed.

Jim

 

Some tips

1. Set memory for Virtual Machine to less than 1 GB
2. Perform Mac and Windows side disk defragmentation http://www.xvsxp.com/system/system_tools_defrag.php
3. Set Adjust memory limit from Auto to Manual at Parallels Desktop -Preferences-Memory, and set limit a bit more higher than VM memory
4. Disable Themes in Windows XP serives.msc stop Themes service
5. If you are running in Coherence, try to switch to Single Window, or lower Mac resolution
6. Some antivirus software can load CPU when Heuristic Prediction is set, or Tamper protection (Symantec, MacAffey), adjust settings to risk you are supposed, high security settings is not always good idea, as it can also affect software running
7. Run msconfig , and disable unneeded startup items
See http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/msconfig_xp.html
8. Make sure that no VNC,or remote desktop connection is established to Mac, this can slowdown Parallels Desktop
9. Optimize computer experience for best performance
10. Make sure that at least 1.25 GB of Memory is free for Mac OS (it is Total Memory - Virtual Machine Memory)
11. Make sure that at least 2 GB +Virtual Machine assigned memory *2 is available on Mac OS partition where VM is located