Setup: 2.66 intel core i7 MBP with 8 GB memory running OS 10.6.8 and Parallels 6.0.12904. Optimization set for Faster Virtual Machine and Tune Windows for Speed. Windows 7 64 bit allocated 2 GB memory and four cpus. Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 32-bit (law office management software will only work with 32-bit Outlook). Boot Time to Windows Login Screen: 2 minutes. Password entry to availability of Windows menu: 2 minutes Time to load Outlook: 6:42!! Deleting an email message can take as much as 30 seconds. In addition, opening the Windows menu can take 2 minutes, and often results in crash of Windows Explorer. Changing folders on Outlook can take over 2 minutes, and may require restart of outlook. Similar performance of other programs. Performance is so slow I am actually considering buying a Windows machine. TIA.
Windows 7 Programs Not the Issue I don't see anything in the Windows 7 Task manager that is a problem. In fact, Task Manager reports CPU utilization as zero or near zero most of the time. Yet it consistently takes more than five minutes to open Outlook and all of the Windows programs often take 30 seconds to a minute to react to a click or command.
I have nearly the same configuration as you and am encountering almost exactly the same problems. I had a Core 2-based MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard with no performance issues at all. When I migrated to a new quad-core i7 based MBP running Lion, the exact same virtual machine became completely unusable. There's something to do with the combination of the Sandy Bridge MBP's and Parallels that is not getting along. Not sure if Lion is a part of the problem as well, but it needs to be resolved -- I've moved to Boot Camp instead, where the machine completely flies.
Same here... Actually, everything is slow in the following : deleting/creating snapshots, booting Windows, acquiring network (IP) address... However (!), once it is booted, everything works like a charm... MacBook Pro core i7 / 8GB RAM... What more do you want to know?
Oops! Important matters : I run the latest and greatest version (Parallels 7) and only install security fixes on my Windows 7 image (Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bits)... MacOS X Lion 10.7.2.
I had much the same problem. I've a 2008 MBP with 8Gb and was running Parallels 6/7 (upgrade didn't change anything): Win7 VM set up with 4Gb & 2cpus. It seemed to improve when I dropped the vm down to 3Gb and 1cpu but was much better when I simply took Parallels out of window mode and into coherence mode! Still find prl_vm_app process will grab 80%+ of cpu for longish periods, making the fan run mad, before dying down again for a while. Just tried killing Live Mesh on the VM - that may have been grabbing the processor - who knows! Cheers, Tony.
Mesh? Curious. How many people with Win7 running slow are using Live Mesh? Stopped it here and have just been running Win7 under PD7 for an hour with no slow down, no fan overrun, no probs. Tony.
Thebeerbaron's response helped me start my virtual machine just fine. @Tony, I do seem to have Windows Live Mesh on my machine. I haven't had to use Windows 7 in a while so I don't even remember if I used it.
