Thanks Parallels!

You wasted my Saturday with your incompetence.
It took me all day, but I've finally gotten back to the where I will be able to do actual work on Monday.
To everyone else out there struggling with the p4 mess, here's how I did it:
http://vmwareelearning.blip.tv/file/1259426/

VMware has a whole library of these videos.
No more technical support people who don't speak/write English!
Competition, gotta love it!

 

I actually wasted *2* days on this junk! Each time reverting back to the v3 backup I had made myself - I don't trust the internal backup system!!!
At least the second time I didn't waste my time validating Windows before the install bombed out

 

I got you guys beat..

Im on call this weekend, hopefully things dont go south or there will be a few million people who's internet may be broken until i drive my happy ass an hour into work.

 

Lessons...

An update:
1) VMware is running smoothly on my MacBook Pro and I am back to work.
2) Parallels has yet to even officially acknowledge that there is a problem.
3) I'm happy I made the switch and I'm urging my Mac-using colleagues to do the same.
4) I plan to contest the charge on my credit card. I'll update on how that goes.
I hope that by now everybody has recovered from this sh1tstorm.
There's a lesson here somewhere.
Probably too late for Parallels to learn though.

A lesson for me as well.
I should have checked this forum for views regarding the "upgrade" *before* I tried it.
Like other non-techies who have commented on this mess, I naively expected consumer software to "just work".

"And I get on my knees and pray we don't get fooled again!"

 

I got mine to work. . .

I was on the verge of demanding a refund and switching to VMware, when I thought to trash the .HDD file that wouldn't work, and replace it with the backup that Parallels made. This time the upgrade worked, so now I've got my XP VM running again. It does run faster, too.

But no thanks to Parallels Support, who didn't get back to me until after the fact, and then with gibberish (see here: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=133097#post133097 ).

/Mr Lynn