Every since installing OSX 10.4.10 upgrades, I have had numerous problems with Parallels. The initial problem was inability to recognize USB devices. This is essential to me to run a dongle protected program - the reason I run Parallels. On advice of support personnel here I upgraded to 3214 from 3188. At that point I began to have random crashes in Windows, and random crashes of Parallels itself. These are frequent enough to make the program unusable. And the USB problems are far from solved. I felt that 2.5 was a great program. Today it is useless to me. I would be happy to upgrade to 3.0 if that fixed the problems, but is sounds like there are as many issues there. It is impossible for me to downgrade OSX back to point 9. Is there a way to downgrade from build 3214 to 3188? Is Parallels still working on fixing these problem in 2.5, or is all the effort going into 3.0?
You can retrograde to the earlier version of Parallels but it is completely incompatible with your current version of OS X. I take it from the swarf in your nick (HSM member??) the dongle is for a CAD proggie? If so, do they by chance offer software licensing such as FlexLM? There's a rumor floating here in the Seattle area that Rhino is writing a native OS X version of their tool.
I am having the same problem, but with 3.0. Parallels will just vanish suddenly, not shut down, just instntly stop windowss xp as though it was never started. HEEEEEELLLLLPPPP!!!!!
Curious that the completely incompatible version is much more stable (other than the USB problem) than the compatible version. Yes the dongle is for a CAM program (OneCNC). I don't believe they offer alternatives. I consider dongles to be the Embodiment of Evil on Earth, worse even than having to run Windows to do something, but here we are. If Rhino or anyone else ported to OSX I think they would have an audience - though the investment in these things is very large and hard to change. But I do run some other things on Windows, and the sudden cliff of instability that we just went over (with 10.4.10 and Parallels) gives one pause. I guess I should go back and install Boot Camp so at least I can continue work at times like this. Parallels worked so well 'till now. I'm hoping it is just a bad hair day, and things will get better soon. I did downgrade to 3188, not too difficult, and confirmed that: a) USB still does not work and, b) that other than USB it seems to run very reliably.
I agree completely about dongles. They were a PITA over 20 years ago in Autocad and nothing's changed. One of the Parallels team today announced a pending release of 3.0 that promises to correct a lot of problems (no such promise for 2.5). It may provide some relief if an upgrade is acceptable. Another option is Fusion from VMWare which is now a release candidate and which has been pretty solid here.
I don't mind upgrading at all if it fixes the issues. Haven't tried VMWare, seems like is has been long promised. Parallels did everything I wanted it to do, until it broke. All the problems seem like they were introduced by the dot 10 OSX release, but that is required for my iPhone
