Using Parallels for mac without being logged on

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by buse_de, May 29, 2007.

  1. buse_de

    buse_de Bit poster

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    I wonder, if there is a possibilty to start a virtual machine in the background without being logged on at my mac. I want to start a windows machine whenever the mac is turned on, but it should run without user interaction (just for a database). is this possible?

    :confused:
     
  2. Hugh Watkins

    Hugh Watkins Forum Maven

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  3. buse_de

    buse_de Bit poster

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    Guest System should be WinXP

    The guest System Should be Win XP or Win 2000 Server. The thing is, that this system should be used as a server, so i should run whenever the mac runs (also without a logged on user)
     
  4. rhind

    rhind Member

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    84
    But currently parallels has to create a window for the VM so if no user is logged on to the mac, then the app won't be able to create the window, so I doubt an apple script that launces parallels at mac boot time would work, as suggested by Hugh.

    My guess would be that you'd need a specific server version of Parallels that ran GUI-less, so we could just remote desktop in to Windows or VNC to linux or whatever OS you were using.

    I'd really like to see this functionality, and I think VMWare has this ability for its Linux and Windows applications so it may get added to Fusion at some point.

    Cheers

    Russell
     
  5. buse_de

    buse_de Bit poster

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    Hi Russell,

    yes i think this must be the way to go. Do you know, if parallels is planning such a feature or if this feature is at the wishlist?
     
  6. rhind

    rhind Member

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    84
    I've no idea if they are. I'm not to worried who provides this feature, VMWare or Parallels, as currently I prefer Parallels over fusion because of coherence etc.

    If the OS is running as a virtual server, then you aren't going to get coherence anyway, so performance is more of an issue in that case. VMWare already can already make use of both cores of a Core Duo, and Parallels is rumored to be working on this, so either would suite me for a virtual server environment.

    Cheers

    Russell
     
  7. aguydude

    aguydude Member

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    I don't understand the motivation. If you're using it w/o logging on, why not just use Boot Camp?
     
  8. buse_de

    buse_de Bit poster

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    5
    easy: i want to use the mac as mac. Windows should run in the background for some "special" operations, mainly database. I would use remote desktop to control it.
     
  9. darkone

    darkone Forum Maven

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    804
    if you dont want to use the mac interactively, why not have it auto login, start parallels and then lock the screen .. thus you will be able to ssh etc to the mac and rdp to parallels.
     
  10. rhind

    rhind Member

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    84
    I'm not aware of a way with OS X to have the screen saver lock as soon as you login in, so that there is no way for some one at the machine to move the mouse or something after a boot, and prevent the screen saver from starting, therefore gaining access to the system.

    Plus, a server version could be less resource hungry as the graphics card etc could be a bare minimum and not have to allocate as many resources (but thats an implementation detail and I'm no expert in virtualisation).

    I'd still rather wait for a dedicated server version though anyway.

    Cheers

    Russell
     
  11. bombastinator

    bombastinator Member

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    This is just an idea and I'm a hair short on Unix technical knowledge so this may be a naive thought, but why not simply set up a whole other user account that has access to nothing but parallels and set the icon to startup?

    You can have more than one user going at the same time. You should still be able to ssh in. That would probably be the only way you could access it though.

    Since you could go through and limit that account's access all to heck it could also have the advantage of allowing you to keep the nasty insecure microstuff away from your files.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2007

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