Long Pauses in Outlook and Office 2003 & 2007

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by jtbe, Oct 17, 2007.

  1. jtbe

    jtbe Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    I have been having major issues with running parallels 3.0 newest Build 5160 and Windows XP Professional. I have experienced long pauses when working with Office especially outlook. I'm at the point of giving up on parallels and trying VM Ware Fusion, or just running pure bootcamp which I don't have any issues with.

    Let me try to outline when I have had problems etc.

    1.) Originally installed Boot Camp, Xp Pro and Office 2007, had some issues with pauses and performance with office 2007 so I uninstalled Office 2007 and went back to 2003. That eliminated all performance issues with office while I was in boot camp. everything worked fine and I was able to run parallels using the bootcamp partition without any problems except I could not use Coherance mode. From my understandind since my Bootcamp partition was NTFS Coherance would not work, due to support of Bootcamp being ended with the release of 10.5 I decided just to do a clean install of a Virtual XP Pro. This is when I experienced all kinds of performance issues.

    I do not know if this is because I am a heavy user of windows and have a lot of programs and files in Windows. I am using about 50GB of space in windows.

    I have stopped the sharing of files / folders, tried closing paralells tools in windows and still have the long pauses.. I am hoping someone can help or give some advice. Thanks in advance for your time.

    My Setup:
    Brand new MacBook Pro 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo
    4GB DDR2 Ram (2GB allocated to Parallels)
    200 GB 7200rpm HD (80 GB allocated to Parallels via virtual drive)
    128mb Nvidia Video Card (64mb Allocated to Parallels)
    OS 10.4.10
    Parallels 3.0 Build 5160
    Windows Xp Professional SP2 (All Updates installed)
    Office 2003 SP3 (All Updates Installed)
     
  2. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    try to cut your Guest OS amount of memory down.
    If it won't help, please write me back.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  3. ReneS

    ReneS Member

    Messages:
    22
    set memory for VM to 768 mb

    Hi,

    I'm also using Office 2007 VS 2005 etc.. No problems. Just set your memory for XP in VM to 768 MB. That seems to be the "egg of Columbus" (seems to give the best performance)

    You can also find this in previous postings, 768 does the trick for a lot of people.

    Good luck,

    Rene
     
  4. jtbe

    jtbe Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    This seemed to work.. Logic would say the more memory / resources you allocate to the VM Guest OS the faster it would run and the slower the Mac OS would run.. Why on earth would this not be the case? I actually use some more memory intensive programs in Windows still like Photoshop etc, and hate to run on only 768mb ram. I wonder if this issue is being addressed?
     
  5. Stacey M

    Stacey M Parallels Team

    Messages:
    908
    Hello,

    the issue is that while working, Mac OS allots some piece of RAM to every application. But these pieces are conventionally arranged in different parts of RAM, not one after another. So, when we run our VM, it needs all amount of memory, that you allocated to it, to be taken from RAM in one piece, and if that amount is too big, there won't be spare RAM piece for it. Therefore the VM can start to act slow.

    Best regards,
    Stacey
     
  6. jtbe

    jtbe Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    I am experiencing the same problem again, now the pauses are even worse... Any other suggestions?
     
  7. Xenos

    Xenos Parallels Team

    Messages:
    1,547
    jtbe, our developers are aware of the repeated slowdown reports from our users and we gather all the information to investigate. Thank you very much for the information you've given.

    ReneS, could you send me as Personal Message the scenario of slowdown and your system description (type of VM, guest OS, amount of RAM specified for the VM, what applications are affected). Thank you.

    Best regards,
    Xenos
     
  8. WilliamM

    WilliamM Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    This post is from 2007, yet the issues seem to be still occurring (especially with me). Has there been a resolution found - and if so, can it not be posted so that other users experiencing the same issue can find support?
     

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