I'll probably change to VMware Fusion...

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by Johncoffee, Oct 13, 2008.

  1. Johncoffee

    Johncoffee Bit poster

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    I bought Parallels Desktop 3.0 for my 15" Macbook Pro a couple of months ago. I'm running Windows XP to do SAP mainly and Outlook 97 from time to time. Autodesk Design Review never really worked smooth - redraw errors and other problems occurred. Frequent blue screens appeared recently during SAP sessions - I had to reboot Parallels sometimes 2..3 times a day. This started to bother me since I don't have the time to really dig into this problem e.g. to find out whether it is XP's or Parallels fault. I decided to give VMware fusion a try - 30 days of test trial.

    Conversion of the Parallels Virtual Hard drive to the Fusion Virtual image was easy and flawless. It took about 1.5h for a 35GB partition.
    Fusion booted without problems right into it after conversion - and since then I haven't had any blue screen. What's more - I can run Autodesk Design Review without any problems.

    So what are my options here - I could buy VMware fusion and continue to work without problems, or I could stick with Parallels and wait for updates for these issues to be solved. I think that my installation of XP is fine, since no problems occur with Fusion. So it appears to me that there are some issues with Parallels Desktop 3.0. (Where I'm using the newest build 5608).

    Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

    JohnC.
     
  2. John@Parallels

    John@Parallels Forum Maven

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    Probably changing VM settings will help you?
    Video memory to 64 mb
    DirectX Shaders on
     
  3. Johncoffee

    Johncoffee Bit poster

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    Thanks for the Input - I'll give it a try and let you know the result.

    JohnC.
     
  4. Johncoffee

    Johncoffee Bit poster

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    I tried again changed memory settings, increased Video memory and the DirectX Shaders.

    Result:
    - Autodesk's Design review now works fine (Probably due to increased Videomemory and DirectX Shaders on?)
    - However the SAP GUI still causes a Blue screen of death. (Page memory fault or something, the blue screen just appears a second until it reboots). This happened after a couple of work with the Mac and using SAP GUI for 20% of the time.

    Then:
    - Rebooted into VMWare again for the rest of the day, where I haven't had any Blue screen at all so far. It just seems to be rock solid compared to Parallels 3.0

    My trial period for VMWare has soon finished - and I'm unsure what to do now. Since I'm not a Windows expert - I just need to run the SAP GUI basically, the rest I do on my Mac - a solution is needed....

    Any recommendations?

    JohnC.
     
  5. majortom

    majortom Member

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    I can just recommend you what I'm doing in a pro situation: both Parallels and Fusion with license and (in my case) winXP with Fusion and Kubuntu in Parallels. If Fusion just had OpenGL support it would be my preferred.
     
  6. Berknip

    Berknip Bit poster

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    Just as an aside, you can run the Java version of SAP GUI natively in the Mac if you like.
     
  7. John@Parallels

    John@Parallels Forum Maven

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    BSOD is not related to Video resolution, I suppose problem is out there, in Windows itself, why not to try new Windows installation to make sure Windows is not causing problems.
     

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