Parallels Desktop 5 Upgrade

Dear Parallels,

I noticed that the new version is out. Congratulations. I know software development is a huge effort and you want to recoup your costs. I started supporting this product back when it was in beta but $50 for the upgrade from any version? What about a break for long-time users?

I tried emailing sales@parallels.com that is listed on the Parallels Desktop 5 page and it bounces.

Thanks,
Dana

 

Upgrade help

Is there a good "How to" guide to update from v4 to v5. For example, when I start to install my version 5 upgrade, I get a message that says, "Parallels Desktop 4 will be removed from your Mac. Parallels Desktop 5 and Parallels Desktop 4 cannot be simultaneously installed on your Mac. You will need to upgrade your virtual machines before starting to work with them. This process may take some time to complete."

What does "upgrade your virtual machines mean"? I don't want to blithely proceed with the v5 installation only to discover that my XP and Windows 7 virtual machines and all their associated programs, settings, and files have been wiped out.

I love Parallels, but I have ALWAYS found their installation documentation to be sketchy and incomplete. It seems to me that there should be a step-by-step guide upgrading from v4 to v5 including instructions that preserve one's existing VMs and their associated data. Maybe there is one and I just can't find it.

 

I recently bought VMWare 3 upgrade (cheaper than the PD5 upgrade and also VMWare 2 was a FREE upgrade), and although their point of sale system got wedged for the first ~24 hours, they responded quickly and fixed the issue. VMWare 3 works great with Windows 7 Boot Camp (which Apple doesn't even support yet) and requires minimal troubleshooting.

It seems like it wasn't really that long ago that PD4 came out, and I paid for the upgrade, only to find that it was a much bigger disaster than PD3. For me, PD4 spent much more of its "life cycle" not working than working, and these boards were flooded with complaints and requests for help that largely went unanswered. Parallels claims to offer a 30-day money back guarantee, but I asked for a refund within 30 days and was denied without explanation.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but even if Parallels 5 is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I won't be giving another penny of my hard-earned cash to Parallels after they mistreated customers this way. Fool me once, shame on you - fool me 5.0 times, and, well I'm not even going to try to see what would happen if I installed the new version.

Version 5 should be a free upgrade anyway since version 4 was largely non-functional.

 

I got an email today with a $40 offer. But if you wait for the dust to settle, there may be better offers. I've used PD since version 2 but only upgraded to 4 this summer after it had become very stable. And at that point I was able to buy a boxed copy from Amazon.com for a mere $7.

I'll be watching the Forum about PD5, but probably won't buy until it's been reved a few times, if my past experience is any guide.

 

I don't mean to be cheap, but $50 for an upgrade to an $80 product (when the top selling point is that it's compatible with the current-gen OS) seems like a bit much, especially to have to pay that every year. I just upgraded from v. 3 to v.4 in May, so I don't really feel like shelling out for it again. I'll wait and see how things shake out.

The other thing you guys should consider is that the upgrade is so expensive, I have no incentive not to switch to VMWare if they offer a better product in a given year. The motivation of sticking to Parallels because I've already invested money in previous versions is kind of moot.

 

PD 4.0 --> 5.0 Upgrade a Disaster

I just upgraded from the latest version of PD Mac 4.0 to PD 5.0.

After the upgrade, when I launched my Windows XP Pro (SP2) VM for the first time, I got the following error (PDF Attached).

I tried booting into Safe Mode, to no avail.

Tried calling PD Support and got the infinite voice mail loop from hell, and could not reach a live body, which is disgraceful.

This is extremely disappointing and totally unacceptable. They obviously learned nothing from the myriad of problems encountered on the last upgrade. This is seriously making me consider going to Fusion, and I have been a PD Client since essentially day-1.

 

i uninstalled 4 because of a problem. if i upgrade, do i have to reinstall 4 to install 5???

 

Parallels 5 so far is working just fine. Install was straightforward, although it hung the system while trying to upgrade and install Parallels Tools.

Rather then throw my Mac at the wall, I rebooted the system and just reinstalled Tools from the menu. Went fine, works fine. Even Drag and drop between OS's now works like it used to.

 

Same problem...

I have the exact same problem. But I haven't even tried calling parallels because of previous experiences...

 

This helped me...

I just found an answer that helped me with this problem: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=95571

 

I experienced exactly the same malady and it really drives me nuts :-(
Starting a Windows XP VM immediately freezes everything on the Mac.
In the PD5 VM window it says something like "creating snapshot", the machine slows down significantly
(but is still working somehow) and later the lovely "blue screen" of my crashed Windows XP appears.
I specified to use only 1 CPU by the VM, but this doesn't help a lot.

However, after fiddling around with the configuration for a while, I found the solution:
Simply DO NOT allow the VM to start in "coherence" view ! That's it !!
Define the "window" view for startup and once the VM is up and running, one can safely switch to "coherence".

When starting Fedora 10 and 11 in other VMs, I didn't encounter the problem, since there is no "coherence" mode available.

Funny, but hopefully this is helpful to the one and other.