Frustrated...

Y

YADDERS

Junior Member
Dear Parallels team
After much research into VM ware, Boot camp and parallels - i decided the Parallels product looked the best. i originally installed it around 6 months ago, and since installing it i have had many problems, usually resulting in me having to re-install parallels and winXP at the same time.

This obviously means i lose all my data, but more frustratingly means i have spend hours reinsatlled windows, all my windows apps, windows updates etc. i went through this cycle a couple of months ago, and couldnt get WinXP to boot sucessfully throughout the various installation processes. after much perseverance, its worked fine for the last couple of months, but now i have the same problems again. i get the disc read error that i have seen posted by other users. i am unable to create a new VM using the old disc image, and i have been through all the various forums and cannot see a way around it.

This this a common experience of all users?... this constant need to keep reinstalling windows? surely not? i dont believe i am doing anything non standard. i have a macbook pro (1st release), 2gb ram, plenty of disc space etc. . . the only thing i can put it down to is that when i am running my virtual machine, there are occaisons that it does NOT shut down properly... (IE when doing start, shutdown)... or even if it shuts down.. parallels seems to hang, and leaving it, and force quitting it does not seem to close it... the only option is to hard power down the mac (hold power button). then usually upon rebooting my VM machine is no longer working. but, there is usually no other option to shutting my mac down ... other than holding down the power button. shutdown etc doent work....

now i had been taking snapshots of my machine a couple of install cycles ago... and that did save me a couple of times in that i could revert to an older machine. but i have had instances where the snapshots wont work either

so, i believe i have to re-install one last time... and sorry to say, if this VM does the same thing i will have to rethink the VM software i use. it bains me to say that, i really want this to work!...

please try to shine a light on this. is there something i could be doing to make my VM more reliable and stable?

I can post more detail back on this thread as i go through my re-install...
 
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The only way I see for now, is to perform Windows repair using integrated SP3.
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/Slipstreaming_Windows_XP_Service_Pack_3.html

However, if you have some kind of software installed in Windows, which make affect Windows at kernel level you may try to boot in Safe Mode, and disable corresponding service.

Actually, it is very hard to detect what is causing this , without knowing what is on WIndows side
 
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Machine crash - what to do

OK - i have been using my VM infrequently since re-installing and it has been fine on the whole. i now have a situation where it has crashed. norton was doing a scan (scheduled) in my mac environment, and windows xp was installing updates... now that its crashed. norton has hung and i cant close or force quit it. and i cannot restart or shut down windows. so now i am concerned. i also have the spinning wheel on the mac, so i cant click shutdown in mac os x

in the past. i normally have to hold down the power button to shut the machine down, and then when i reboot the mac and try parallels - normally windows doesnt run. the profile is corrupted etc.

what do you advise i do in this case? i have saved snapshots of my machine until now. so if i power down and windows wont run, i should have a snapshot that i can reload...
 
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The problem with snapshots, John, is the name itself for a start, it's not the first time people use snapshots as a form of backup. Parallels should reformulate how this functionality appears to the user.

Why is the name a problem? Because people associate it with a still image, a quick photograph, of a certain state.
 
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Parallels Desktop for Mac user guide from http://www.parallels.com/en/download/file/doc/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac_User_Guide.pdf on page 147
Snapshot is a state of the virtual machine saved at a certain moment. Snapshots can be created
when the virtual machine is running as well as when it is stopped, paused or suspended.

You may need to make snapshots in the following cases:
Make successive backups as snapshots and thus save space on the hard disk of your
Macintosh computer.
Configure software that requires a lot of configuring stages. Since at each stage you can
select alternative settings, you may want to explore which settings to select. Create
snapshots at branching points.
In development process, mark milestones as snapshots. If something goes wrong, you can
always revert to the previous state or create a branch of snapshots starting with the particular
milestone snapshot.
 
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"Snapshots are for keeping some state of VM, not for backup"
vs.
"Make successive backups as snapshots and thus save space on the hard disk of your Macintosh computer."

So, Parallels actually recommends snapshots as a backup method.
Personally, I couldn't disagree more, snapshots reduce redundancy, one bad snapshot in a succession of various snapshots can ruin all snapshots from that point forward.
 
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Sorry, I'm not following your logic or your english here.
And page 147 of the User Guide (the one I have) doesn't refer anything about snapshots, that information is on page 150.

"Instead of keeping several instances of VM"
Where does this phrase come from? What are you trying to say? That Parallels recommends snapshots as a backup method instead of keeping several instances of a VM?

I reiterate my disagreement at Parallels recommending Snapshots as a backup method, as it does in the User Guide.
 
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