Looking for Cool Parallels Stories

GREAT but have some questions??

Excited!! Sold my powerbook and had to go back to windows laptop for work. now went back out and bought MBP after 3 months of PC. Really pumped but still a tad sceptical of a total switch due to newness of software. Questions though. I sawy someone mention they liked "The ability to use the clipboard to copy between OSX and (P) has been an real advantage." how the heck can you do this? How do you "right-click" in parallels? When is drag and drop coming? Can i save files in parallels to a designated file on osx?

parallels definitely runs smoother and faster then VPC...yuck. i'm excited about a full migration but taking it slow.

thanks in advance.
 
not really a cool story for other people, but very cool for me.

I'm in a work environment where it's all windows computers networked together. My mac plays very well with the network, but quick network browsing to new data on other computer, or connecting to new computers requires that I know the network IP address of my source or have it automounted or present in the dock.

Parallels has provided me with the opportunity to use windows networking ease on a mac. I can navigate my workgroup and the computers on it quickly and easily dragging and dropping from mapped network shares from the OSX environment and the PC environment.

I prebought the product months ago as I am one of the new mac-converts Stevo is catering to, and it's been invaluable for me for this and not having to by a mac version of rosetta-running adobe acrobat, as my windows version works great.
 
Hi,

I am most of the way through converting a small Arts charitable organisation from Windows to Mac. Five of the Mac's are running Parallels and Windows 2000, to run accounting and fund-raising software that is not available for Mac, and to use Explorer to update their hosted web site as the host site only supports Windows + Explorer. So far the transition has been quite smooth, five of seven employees and volunteer workers have been moved over. I will document the process completely when it is done on a web site.

I also support Mac's at a large hospital based research establishment and we have moved to users, who previously had to run a Mac and a windows XP machine to one Mac, running Parallels and Windows XP to access Outlook and specialized databases.
 
Hey Patrick Lee, not to pour any water on top of the great success youv'e had, but I also work at a non-profit and we use some fund accounting software not available for the Mac. Instead of using Parallels with a full-blown windows install on each system just so the users can access that, I found it to be probably even more convenient to set up one shared Windows Terminal Server box that all of our staff connects to in order to run that application. Even better, it only requires Apple's X11 on the desktop and the open-source rdesktop software. Or you could use Microsoft's RemoteDesktopConnection. I like X11/rdesktop because the 1.5 beta has seamless support which means that I can have just the application window for the fund accounting software floating on my desktop, mixed in alongside the Mac windows. Very cool stuff, and at least hte client-side software to do this is free, we jus thave to worry about client access licenses from Microsoft/etc. Maybe a solution for you, maybe not, and it does of course require they have a connection path to the windows server in order to use it, while in your case they always have their windows install with them.

Parallels is great to have in the toolkit, and there are some applications for which I can't imagine a better solution. However, like anything, it isn't always the *best*, especially from a management side. Using terminal services I only have to update ONE server and all users get the benefits, no images to keep in sync, etc. I suppose you could have a standardized Paralells image you update all client computers to use, but then you'd have to re-key and re-authorize it for each workstation which can be a pain too.

Just my $0.02, and none of it pours any cold water on Parallels.
 
I'm running SAP R/3 4.7 SR1 on Windows 2003 Server in Parallels. It's wonderful! Presentations on Keynote and then switch to SAP GUI pointing to the local instance of R/3. Fast and quick. It's been a life saver.

-David
 
using Parallels for web development

I use a MacBook for developing websites at the office and on the go (at the moment I am working from my second home in France, normally I work from Amsterdam, NL) and use Parallels with an XP install to check if my css/xhtml works okay in IE6.

Parallels has saved me a lot of deskspace and gained me a lot of mobility. All I need to have now is a MacBook and an external disk for backups. Before I had a huge pc-tower plus monitor, an iMac G3 for checking web sites in OSX and another pc with Linux (webserver). Now I have everything in one tiny shiny MacBook hooked up to a 24" widescreen. I am very happy with parallels, I no longer have the need of three machines on my desk.

As a result of having only one machine I am restyling my office to have a full shiny white look. First purchase is a shiny white Ikea table to use as my new desk.

I wrote a howto for web developers working on MacBook's or MacBook Pro's. The howto includes using Parallels in conjunction with VirtueDesktops. Howto is here.
 
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How about this?

I am a poker player. My online playing has been limited to Macintosh compatible sites, which are few and far between, not to mention underpopulated. I got Parallels Desktop so I could play on the more popular sites and within 2 months I won about $3000 in cash and a $10,000 seat at The World Series of Poker. Sadly, I didn't make it to the money at the WSOP, but at least I got a free vacation in Vegas out of it.

Thanks Parallels...
 
Virtue+Parallels=head turning

In my view parallels is nothing without Virtue Desktops as I run both OSes simultaniously for different tasks, and can switch between the "sides" of my computer seamlessly. If you really want to market this product, you should demo it with Virtue where you can "flip" back and forth.
 
Parallels in small office

In my client's case, the software "Raisers Edge" only runs in a Windows environment, the SQL database on an NT server, and clients in Windows 2000; the pricing is based on number of clients in use, not number of installs. The client had the option of upgrading the software (multiple $K), and upgrading to Windows Server 2003 and XP also costly. The client is happy with the current solution as they had no problem with the NT/2000 software, only the hardware, which was old. So for this client, I think this is the best solution, although not perfect- but what is. I am now testing moving the NT server to a Parallels VM.

n9yty said:
Hey Patrick Lee, not to pour any water on top of the great success youv'e had, but I also work at a non-profit and we use some fund accounting software not available for the Mac. Instead of using Parallels with a full-blown windows install on each system just so the users can access that, I found it to be probably even more convenient to set up one shared Windows Terminal Server box that all of our staff connects to in order to run that application. Even better, it only requires Apple's X11 on the desktop and the open-source rdesktop software. Or you could use Microsoft's RemoteDesktopConnection. I like X11/rdesktop because the 1.5 beta has seamless support which means that I can have just the application window for the fund accounting software floating on my desktop, mixed in alongside the Mac windows. Very cool stuff, and at least hte client-side software to do this is free, we jus thave to worry about client access licenses from Microsoft/etc. Maybe a solution for you, maybe not, and it does of course require they have a connection path to the windows server in order to use it, while in your case they always have their windows install with them.

Parallels is great to have in the toolkit, and there are some applications for which I can't imagine a better solution. However, like anything, it isn't always the *best*, especially from a management side. Using terminal services I only have to update ONE server and all users get the benefits, no images to keep in sync, etc. I suppose you could have a standardized Paralells image you update all client computers to use, but then you'd have to re-key and re-authorize it for each workstation which can be a pain too.

Just my $0.02, and none of it pours any cold water on Parallels.
Click to expand...
 
virtue desktops hopefully is spaces on leopard (as they recently switched domains and the transitions seems to be similar) I just hope that they can fix the universal access enable assistive devices because I use GUI scripting alot and it needs to be enabled.. sadly this means that full screen in virtuedesktops cannot be switched out of without releasing input or exiting full screen first.

Spaces... parallels got a copy of Leopard this week so hope it'll be seemless.
 
Not much of a cool story, except that I've been an IT professional for more than 15 years, worked on the original Macs back in the 80's and even know how an AT/XT works. I've been mostly forced to work in the Windows world for years, but had to support and manage Mac networks too, so I've been able to keep up with the evolution.

I tried to make a switch a few years ago with one of the first TiBooks, and what a great machine that was. But I just couldn't get enough of my software to work in the environment, and had to switch back.

Now life is great! I've got a brand-new MacBook Pro and what a phenomenal machine. Thanks to this forum, I've also got Parallels and Windows XP humming along nicely too with lots of tips like key mapping, hardware acceleration adjustments...my only problem is USB mouse tracking in Windows - it's still just not very smooth. Oddly, the trackpad is extremely smooth and almost perfect in Windows.

Great product, very happy with the switch!

Mark
 
My Step Mom is going to kill me....

Okay I sent the last 6 years weening my stepmom off here 12 year old mac.

"it's just easier, i can find things, i can stop a print" she would say
my response: "oh, but windows pc's are so much better, you can download stuff off the net"

i got her to make the switch FINALLY, after years

and now i'm getting a mac Pro with Parrallels, I'm a dead man:confused:

if she kills me she'll get the mac...

Charles Bittner
www.dontquotemeonthat.com
 
10 concurrent Terminal Services users under Server 2003

Hi-
I had a customer that was doing a weekend auto auction. There was going to be a lot of volume but just for a short period. They didn't want to install software on all of the workstations that would be working the auction. They just brought in 10 Windows XP laptops. I brought in my MacBook Pro with Server 2003 in a Parallels VM. Server 2003 was configured with Terminal Services. I also installed Microsoft Access and built a quickie database for the auction to run on. Long story short - high volume during checkout - 10 concurrent Microsoft Access users in Terminal Services on Server 2003 on my MacBook. Oh, and the whole thing was wireless - from the laptops to my MacBook. I'd allocated around 900Megs of RAM ( I have 2Gig in the MacBook ). Nobody ever said anything about performance.

It was amazing.

-Kiyu
 
I'm helping a QSR company (which I am very sure you tried their food b4) to migrate 2 Win3.1 base applications to Parallels. We are developing a brand new system to replace the existing 10 years+ systems. I intend to run the new system on Parallels as well.

Still deciding if I shall use Xserve, WindowsServer or LinuxServer OR the client OS as the host as I need remote access for multiple users.
 
she noticed today

i was helping her with a pc problem today, she was at my compy when she realises... "you got a mac" she yells
i reply "it runs windows
"I love it" as she slaps her knee

haha....

oh boy
 
You have freed the Civil Engineers!

For years I have been trapped by a certain piece of popular Computer Automated Drafting software that only is published for Windows. Now I can finally do most of my work in OS X, and only open Windows XP when I need to draft.
 
Three VMs at once!

We are a software company whose PHP-based software runs on just about anything that runs PHP. To do good QA, I needed to be able to easily test on Mac, Linux, and Windows. Got a MBP with 2GB of memory, Parallels, and started installing.

Linux Fedora Core 5
Apache 2.0.52
PHP 5.1.4
MySQL 5.0.21
PostgreSQL 8.1.3

Windows XP
Apache 2.0.52
PHP 5.1.4
MySQL 5.0.21

Windows 2003 Server
IIS 6
PHP 5.1.6
SQL Server 2005

The really cool thing is that our software has four, separable interfaces. I was able to have one in each VM, and the fourth in OSX. All three were open at the same time and I was able to have them all connect and flow information between them simultaneously. Needless to say, it was a bit slow, but it worked! My next project: Oracle ;)

--Mark
 
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