Vista keeps crashing after upgrade

I am running Parallels 3.0, and upgraded 5160 recently after which started to have problems. Hardware is MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz, with 2GB of RAM, and VM OS is Vista Home Premium. Every time I do a regular Vista is upgrade, the sytem pauses and crashes towards the end of completing the next boot up sequence. I have had to restore the system each time back to prior to the Vista upgrade to get things to work again... can anyone help shed some light on how I can avoid this?

Also do note that processors are running at c50% each even with minimal (web browsing) functionality in Parallels mode... is that normal?

Many thanks!

 

As I said in my reply to your other related post, this isn't normal. It sounds to me that there is something going on in Vista which is putting a high load on the processors and also preventing the Vista Updates. I am not an expert on troubleshooting Vista, but I would start by launching Task Manager in Vista and seeing what processes are running. When Vista is steady state (ie after all the start up things have finished and with no apps launched) the main process running should be the "System Idle Process" which should be using around 85-95% of the CPU. If some other process you don't recognise is using a lot I would Google its name and see what comes up.

I assume you have checked in Mac's Activity Monitor that there isn't a Mac process running which is pushing up the usage. Assume Activity Monitor reports Parallels as using the 50%, not something else?

Finally a tip I have read here but don't full understand (as it doesn't show in Windows as a high usage process) is to stop iTunesHelper.exe in Vista, assuming you have iTunes installed of course. You can stop the process in Task Manger but need to remove it from the Start up list too. Seems to work for me. Parallels usage drops.

If none of the above helps I would head off to the Microsoft Vista forums and look for help there.

Also as I said in the other thread you aren't allowed to run Home premium in Parallels. Need Business or Ultimate to be legal.

Mike

 

Just by way of a PS to emphasize the point. I noticed while checking a few things for my reply above that both my Vista and XP VMs have got iTunesHelper.exe running again (after installing the latest updates), and that Activity monitor was showing high usage. I stopped iTunesHelper.exe in both and Activity Monitor immediately showed Parallels usage halve!

 

Thanks Mike for the tips and the info...

New to all of this so this info very helpful. Wish I would have asked before buying and loading up Vista and Parallels! Anyway you're right about waiting for Leopard, will do that and see how we go. Cheers!

 

after long evenings of rebooting and trying...

upon advice of a colleague, I downloaded and tried VMWware... and i have to say it, its so much simpler and easier to use. No issues with Vista. No issues downloading Gutsy_rc AND installing it... and even with both running, low loads and temperatures on my MacBook Pro.

i'm sure parallels may have various features or facets that are great, but i want simplicity and something that works... not hours of rebooting and debugging. i'm spending the extra $79 to keep VMWare and writing off the Parallels... its worth it!

 

anoolio, the solution proposed to you by Mike Boreham might help on Vista Ultimate or Vista Business.
Please, do keep in mind that the most serious issue here is that one cannot run Vista Home edition on any kind of virtual hardware (regardless of vendor). This is Microsoft's regulation explicitly stated in Vista's EULA. Thus, neither we, nor any other vendor tests or tunes the virtualization products usability and performance in Vista Home edition.
We cannot provide any guarantee and support in that case.
Again, please, keep the discussion to the legal standards.
Thank you!

 

Not using Vista Biz anymore, XP more stable

Stan O, I realized from Mike's first advice to me that Vista Home Business was not to be used so have reverted to using Windows XP Professional (my old platform)... which has turned out to be a lot more stable anyway (which I realize is probably re-stating the obvious). I decided to try VMWare Fusion after I had problems with even a basic installation of Gutsy Gibbon (-rc) on Parallels... by which time, you can understand, I'd spent far too much time trying to fix my Parallels issues.

Both XP and Gutsy run very easily on the VMWare platform, and at much lower temperatures (even at the same time) than I was experiencing under Parallels on my MacBook Pro. I'm not sure why this is, maybe just bad luck, but for a novice user, I just want it to work... sorry!