Build 3540 works for me, but still sticking with v3 for now

The new build (3540) can be found here.

I had, unlike many on these forums, a painless initial upgrade experience. Version 4 backed up and converted my old version 3 VM. While it took a while, I left the upgrade process to do its stuff, and I was left with a working VM. That's not to say it was plain sailing - I had to do a lot of tweaking and restarting to get it going. However, there was a problem with copying and pasting which didn't seem to work, which I mentioned in this thread (I won't go over it again here). As I needed this functionality, I was forced to go back to version 3.

Then I noticed a new build available, so I reinstalled and tried again. And I have to say that it worked. It upgraded in the same way, and after an hour or so, I was left with a working VM. The copy and paste seemed to work within XP, and I could paste into OS X from XP - but I couldn't paste from the Mac to XP. However, I had seen on other threads that some people solved the problem by removing certain utilities that enhance the clipboard features in the Host OS. I had one running in XP (called Flashpaste - it allows you to paste text with a keyboard command to save retyping oft-used text) which I removed - and it worked! Incidentally, I had an older version of this software; I upgraded to the latest version and in now works with it installed - even better! So, though a combination of Parallel's new build and the updated Flashpaste, full functionality was restored.

However, I'm still sticking with version 3 for now.

Why? Because I noticed an issue with version 4 that, while not as important a fix, is still needing to be addressed. Also, the speed of XP isn't as fast as with version 3 (though not by much, to be fair). Now, these two problems aren't, in themselves or even together, enough to prevent me from using it. The main reason I've reverted to version 3 is because I use Parallels and XP to run our online store. I need to test it thoroughly but I can't use it to download any orders because, if I have to go back to version 3 for any reason, I have - in effect - lost any orders downloaded in version 4. Therefore I have to keep running version 3 until I'm confident that I won't have any problems. Also it's the busiest time of the year before Christmas; any other time, and I would have stuck with v4.

So I mentioned an issue? It's a fairly bizarre one, but it can be quite serious. I noticed it with the previous build, but I was more worried about the copy and paste issue at the time.

If you have any aliases to a shared drive on the network sitting on your desktop, when you start v4, it connects to all of them, and mounts them on your desktop. You might not think this is a problem, and it's not a big issue - except if the volumes are not available (for example, if the relevant computer is switched off). Then Parallels locks up while it tries to connect to them. You get the rainbow wheel of death spinning away and, while Parallels hasn't crashed, you can't do anything with it until you quit it. Also, the Finder shows as being unresponsive, so you have to relaunch that as well.

But there is a simple fix - remove any aliases to shared volumes off your desktop. Even if you put them all within a folder on your desktop, that fixes the problem. However I don't feel I should have to change the way I work in order to run some software.

I should mention that I have send a bug report to Parallels about this (ID 14748), and I don't suppose it's a major issue to fix; but, along with the other reasons above, I will stick with v3 until the new year.

Note to Parallels staff: I just thought I'd say thanks for fixing the issue I had. I appreciate you have had a tough time over this release, and I feel sorry that some people have been downright rude to you on these forums. I think people have a right to be frustrated, but that's no excuse for rudeness. I trust that you'll get these issues sorted out in the end, and thanks for your efforts. I know some will take issue to the above comments, but I feel they're justified.