How to upgrade from 4.0 to 3.0

I have finally had enough with the incredibly slow V4.0. It is tolerable on an 8 core MacPro but today I am on the road with my laptop and it is absolutely unusable. Can anyone tell me if it is possible to downgrade a VM from 4.0 to 3.0? I upgraded to 4.0 as soon as it was released but waiting 10 minutes for it to resume windows and then waiting minutes for a window to open is plain stupid.

I can always reinstall Windows from scratch if I have to, but will my pre 4.0 upgrade 3.0 key still work if I install 3.0 in place of 4.0. Frankly 4.0 is beyond a joke. I have been patiently waiting for the Parallels team to address what is a problem for many people but so far there has been nothing more that reinstall, rebuild, repair and all that nonsense that frankly makes no difference at all. 3.0 flew on my system, I regret ever upgrading. If I can't go back to back to 3 then I will be ditching Parallels in favor of the competitor on all our systems.

 

Wait. Are you suspending / resuming your machine? I've heard that this feature doesn't exactly work as advertised.

I have never used that method, preferring instead to start / shut down the machine... is there any difference in Parallels' speed when starting and shutting down the VM as opposed to suspend/resume?

Dave

 

No it is exactly the same after a restart or a resume.

Now here is the really funny thing. Having finally lost it and deciding to switch I posted this message to get some help as a last ditch chance and 30 minutes later the Parallels updater popped up to say an update was available. So I installed it and guess what. My system is usable!!!!!! Not snappy but actually usable. The install did get itself in a bit of a mix up when the tools were installing as it changed all my settings to shared profile etc which I certainly didn't want. I changed them all back again and it fine. Given the confusion that the installer had I wonder if there was a conflict in my configuration that was slowing everything down. Previous reinstall had not cleared things up.

Well guess i will be sticking with Parallels for a while longer...

 

I'm wanting to go back to 3.0 cause I'm stuck part way through the conversion & locked-up with Windows XP screen that won't respond. Tech support isn't helping (14 hour turn-around on email exchanges, don't seem to be reading my situation descriptions, etc).

I have all the old 3.0 stuff backed up. Any give me clues as to how to go back to 3.0?
(Uninstall 4.0; Open up 3.0 dmg file and install... will it then find or work with my old 3.0 Windows XP file and all the data & applications I had there?).

 

Hello,

If you wish to revert back to Parallels 3.0 from 4.0 version, try to do the following:

You should perform an uninstall of Parallels 4.0 in the following way:

1. Locate and open the DMG installation image file that you used to install Parallels Desktop 4.0.

Note: I assume here that you still have this DMG package, if not - you may download it from our site: http://www.parallels.com/download/desktop/

2. When DMG package of 4.0 would be opened, click Uninstall Parallels Desktop.

3. In the Welcome dialog, click Continue.

4. In the Select components to uninstall window, select both of the components you want to remove and click Uninstall.

- Parallels Desktop. Selecting this option removes Parallels Desktop from your computer.

- Application Settings. Selecting this option removes the Parallels Desktop settings,
network settings, and the list of registered virtual machines from your computer.



Note: The operation of removing Parallels Desktop doesn't remove the virtual machines and their files from your Mac.

5. In the next dialog, confirm your choice of the components to be uninstalled by clicking
Uninstall.

6. Enter your password when prompted and click OK.

7. The uninstaller removes Parallels Desktop from your Mac.

8. When the removing is complete, click Close to quit the uninstaller.

After that, reboot your Mac and install the Parallels 3.0 version which you had previously.

You can download the latest build of Parallels 3.0 from the following link:

http://www.parallels.com/download/file/v3/en/GA/Parallels-Desktop-5638-Mac-en.dmg

In case VM would not be detected automatically, please, do the following:

1. After installation of Parallels 3.0 create a new VM with a custom installation
2. Choose "use existing hard disk image" on one of the steps
3. Locate your hard disk, try searching for an .hdd file called something like "winxp.hdd", by default it is in the following folder: /Users/<username>/Documents/Parallels/<VM_name>

That file is basically your VM in which Windows is installed, so it should have a decent size, more that 3 Gb.

In case you can not locate hard disk image (.hdd), try to locate .pvm file, this is your Vm in 4.0 format, (by default in /Users/<username>/Documents/Parallels/), right-click on it and choose "show package content option". The hard disk image is stored inside that bundle. Simply move the .hdd file from the .pvm bundle and proceed with the instructions.

That way, your Parallels 4.0 should be uninstalled for sure.


Thank You.


----------------------
Anupama
Parallels Team

 

Thank you!
I'll give it a shot if Tech Support can't help me by 1pm today.

 

Thanks, it worked

Thanks for your info. I was able to successfully return to 3.0 from my backups.

You are one shinning light in the disaster of the Tech Support trouble report handling system!

The 24 turn-around on responses to emails on an open trouble ticket is simply not satisfactory.
I've contacted Customer Service and they are issuing a refund.

Until such time as I have assurances that Parallels has improved their Technical Support process, I will not consider upgrading to 4.0.
Meanwhile I'll be exploring competitive solutions. Parallels has a history of not doing well in keeping up with upgrades of Mac's OS and I want to be prepared to go elsewhere considering the poor quality of Tech Support at Parallels.
It's a shame, really, as the basic idea of being able to run Windows on my Mac as just another application is a great one.

Grandpa Jim