I was pretty impressed by Parallels. But build 3186 is a giant step backwards. It takes longer to launch, XP is slow to boot. Even shutting down XP is slow. My Macbook Pro performance is severely impacted even when Parallels is idle. Maybe the Parallels team should have focused on performance rather than pointless graphical effects.
I don't know what is happening on your system but, on my system, performace is faster than with prior builds (including 1970) and many new features are essential to me -- like Coherence.
I find performance with 3186 to be better as well. Rather then make sweeping statements perhaps you could provide more accurate information pertaining to the performance on your computer?
I concur with Drval, 3186 is very good for me, booting is much faster, graphic update feel faster then 1970. It sounds to me llike a classic case of worm/virus/crap infection on your windows XP session. Are you running antivirus, anti worm and some cleanup on our windows XP?
There's no virus or av infestations; the protection is up to date. As soon as I installed the latest, my Powerbook Pro essentially is unusable while XP is starting up. XP takes a lot longer to shut down as well. I'm sure it could be subjective, but a coworker remarked as well that things were slower. Once XP is running, it's fine but I never have had to wait so long to get to an XP login screen or to log out.
I had the same problem with trying to migrate my 1970 image to the new version. Luckily I had a backup image (basically XP right after I installed it on a virtual hard drive). I used that copy and created a new parallels machine. Just had to reinstall new parallels tools and all my programs. Kind of a hastle. I like the new version, it is much faster with the new image drive I had to use. I'm not sure what caused the slowness to the previous image. Perhaps it was the typical windows programs conflicts... I dont know. It works great on XP w/ Office 2007 now.
I actually upgrade from 1970 to 3186 and had no problem on my MacBook Pro (Core duo) using XP. The only thing that I was encountering with 1970 is the iSight. Once I upgraded to 3186, the iSight is working fine now. The speed to boot or shut down XP is pretty fast.
How many of you are using 1 Gb for XP, this is what I use on mine since I'm running VS2005 which is really a pain with 512Mb. Maybe this is why mine feels very fast and responsive.
the upgrade from 1970 to 3186 solved my networking problem (shared network) with Parallels. Besides this everything else ist woking fine (MacBook Pro, XP pro)
Since upgrading to 3186, I've had experienced half of the problems you see in this forum. I've reinstalled countless times following procedures right down to a T. When one problem is solved another one crops up. My last episode was the black screen and, no, holding down F8 does not help. I'm back now to 3170 and happy!! I'll wait 6 months and upgrade. Hopefully all the bugs would have been resolved by then.