Hello all - I've seen a number of questions posted on the forum about Mac Pro compatibility. Rather than dign through and answer each individually, I thought it would be best to make a single announcement here. We are working as hard as we can on making Parallels Desktop for Mac fully compatible with the newly released Mac Pros. We're testing builds now, and should have a fully Mac Pro-compatible build very, very soon. When we do have a Mac Pro build, you'll be receiving an email (if you're a registered user and signed up to receive news), and I will be posting links to the download page both here on the forum and on my blog. We have not forgotten about the new Mac Pro users. We are not "taking a vacation" as some have sarcastically suggested, nor are we experiencing "problems up on high". We're as committed as ever to the Mac community, so I ask that you please be patient and know that we're working as hard as we can on this!
. It has always been the case that Parallels has let the community know as soon as any update is available. .
That said, it would be nice to have some kind of general ETA or a little bit more information as to what is causing the incompatibility issue. I bought Parallels with my Mac Pro. If there is some kind of deep design issue in Parallels that may not be resolved in the near term then I would like to be able to return the software while the store will take it back. How about it, Ben. Can you give us a little more detail? Thanks.
Parallels and Windows XP Well, ok I purchased a Macbook Pro and have been less than thrilled. Guess I wasn't prepared for the learning curve. In hopes of at least being able to tolerate this machine and not have a complete loss of capital, I purchased Parallels and a new Windows XP OS. I was able to install the Parallels just fine however, the XP stops when I get to the "F8" acceptance page. The only thing it will allow me to do is hit the esc key which of course aborts the install. Any thoughts, or should I just go back to my Dell. JD
This should probably have been posted in the technical discussion forum, not here, but to answer your question, the MacBook Pro uses the function keys to control certain hardware functions such as screen brightness, etc. To use the function keys for software, you have two choices: If your function key needs are infrequent, you can just press and hold the "Fn" key at the lower left of your keyboard just before you press the function key. This will switch its role for one keystroke. Note that the "Fn" key acts on the next key you press, so shift-fn-f2 and fn-shift-f2, for example, are different. The other choice is to change the setting in the system control panel to use function keys in software. This will allow function keys to be sent to the current application, and you will need to use the Fn key to get the hardware control. And just in case it wasn't clear, the MacBook Pro, and the Mac Pro are completely different computers. The first is a laptop, the second is a state of the art desktop. And FWIW, that question has been asked and answered several times in these forums. A serach in the technical forum on function key would have gotten you an explanation or three. It's usually considered good form to search to see if your question has already been answered before asking again. (So if you find, for example, that you need to expand your virtual hard disk, that issue has been addressed several times, so a search will get you several sets of instructions).
Yes - the same compatibility problem for Mac Pro and iMac Core 2 Duo. Both will be supported in upcoming build.
Andrew, it seems to me that all your efforts are going towards the Mac and not to us Windows users of Parallels. Those constant postings of bug fixes and enhancements for Mac users, makes me thinking of changing my preferred virtualization software again and re-switch to VMware...
Roaster, Please don't worry. We are working on Windows/Linux builds with a same efforts as on Mac ones. The upcoming Parallels Workstation 2.2 RC will have excatly the same feautures as Parallels Desktop update. Development of version 3.0 is going simultaneously for 3 platforms (Win/Lin/Mac) and will be released at the same time and with same functionality. IMHO because of adding Mac product to our product line our Win/Lin products will win in features and usability because we learn a lot during our work with Mac community.