Mac Product Should be in APLHA Stage

Hello,

I am impressed with the Parallels technology, and I even pre-ordered a license. However, the truth of the matter is that the current product should really be considered an "ALPHA" release, and should only be distributed to a select few. There are numerous performance and panic problems still left to be ironed out. I believe it is somewhat dangerous for people to be installing the current product on their systems assuming it is of "beta" quality. I would prefer to see Parallels doing their own internal testing and get the product up to speed before releasing a "beta", let alone the production product. Just my $0.02.

- Eric

 

Parallels team, thank you for making your software available to us now, while you work on the final version. I'm ecstatic with what I've been able to do with it so far.

 

I'm glad it's beta and I can use it - it's actually pretty stable for me and I'm even using it to work with - I still have a PC under my desk to VNC to if need be, but haven't needed to use it since the day Parallels was made available and I got it installed on my MacBook Pro…

 

I've generally been pretty pleased with the beta of Parallels. I agree that it has some problems, but I'm happy to be able to help iron things out by test-driving it. I'm not using it for anything that I'd be afraid to lose until it's more stable, but in the meantime, it's letting me do a few little things that I'd otherwise have to turn fully to the dark side to do.

 

I don't disagree that people can use the software and find it useful. It's just that as a software developer myself I have a disagreement with calling this current software "beta" quality. It just tends to mislead people in my opinion. I can't get Windows 2000 to function at all (in fact the system hangs) when Flash Player, or Media Player are running, and that's under beta 3. I've also experienced multiple kernel panics.

Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the final release. I just don't want people getting the wrong idea and hosing their hard drive after a kernel panic.

 

For those of us who haven't experienced any kernel panics or any other issues, and find that the performance with beta 3 where the mouse and screen jitters are gone is excellent, we probably feel it should be in beta. Obviously it depends on your experience.

It seems to me people trying to run 2000 and people on macbook pros are having more problems than those running xp or linux and running on imacs or mac minis. However, it could just be that more people are trying this on macbook pros than other systems. I don't know.

 

I had hangs in XP on Flash content. I upgraded Flash to the latest version and that solved the problem.

 

Me too, I am always happy to try public beta's and report back what I discover.

 

Troll !!!

I for one am very appriciative that Parallels decided on releasing this as a pre-release.

Alpha it is not!

 

Useful? I'm already using it productively - for my particular needs, it might as well be officially finished. I've already put my Delphi and MS Visual Studio 2005 on it. As for your definition of alpha vs. beta, I could point at an awful lot of released (and often expensive) software that I could argue was not in fact ready to be released. This is no less a "beta" than a ton of other well known "public betas" put out my extremely well known companies!

D

 

ZMONSTER right ! i do think that alpha grade, parallels dont do anough internal test before release it for beta, i do love the soft but a dont use it just look-over quickly.

If all programmer make release like that a lot of people gonna crash their systems.

No hard feeling here a love the soft just like all of you
sorry for bad english.

 

Well, I was initially disappointed at the early kernel panics, but I REALLY need to have this capability. Once understaning how the kernel panic ALMOST took out my main volume, I installed the PW drive image inside a sparse disk image to contain any possible corruption in case of another panic.

So far so good. Have not had another panic since beta 3. Better than that, I have a fully configured and updated XP image now with all my required apps on it. I do some Access development work on the side and have always done it within Virtual PC. Since getting the MacBook, I needed a new solution. Tried Q, but they are still workig on getting the MSI installers working, so there was no way to install Access. However, I was impressed because Q on the Macbook was faster than VPC on my desktop system. When Parallels annouced thier beta, I said YES. As of right now, I've got a fully configured and operational system. I've also got it set up so that it is eay to share a folder on the XP side and get to it from the Mac side, thus it is easy to move data files back and forth. Since I don't plan on installing any other PC software, I made a copy of the fully configured drive image (just in case I encounter another "beta issue" or if by some remote chance the XP system is infected).

Right now, I'm very happy I've got access to this functionality and will be pre-ordering my copy this weekend.

 

25 years.

I've been a software developer for 25 years.
Hardcore stuff, not script kiddy PHP etc.
In my opinion this is one the BETTER BETA's I have ever seen.
Alpha it is not.

Alpha would be where a select few "in the know" types could be expected to work around highly complex problems.

Beta would allow a wider audience, public Beta's more so.

Looking at this forum, the vast majority are up and running and only a few minorities are left not about to figure their problems out...

I have had zero kernel panics, I have Ubuntu, FC4 and XP running. I'm doing some heavy duty microcode for IXP network processors on XP, it's used heavily.

Just because one person can't get windows 2000 install doesn't mean it's not BETA.

Instead of complaining about it's status why not be constructive and figure out what's wrong (since you proclaim yourself a programmer) and help other, non engineering, types ?

 

Same here. I'm very happy with Parallels Workstation and I've been able to do actual work with it. In fact I'm now typing this from IE in Windows XP running on my MacBookPro.

 

Well, I'm a software developer too, and I've had excellent experience with Parallels so far. I think the fact that they call it a beta is completely acceptable. You should also note that other people are shipping emulators as final products that don't work at all!

 

I'm also a software developer of many years, and I've always considered "Beta" to mean that the software is "functionally complete" and that the purpose of the "beta" was to find and eradicate any bugs in the completed feature set. Obviously that is not the case with the OS X version of Parallels, since there are still features being worked on (such as USB support, full-screen support, and so on). So I, too, would consider this an Alpha, and while many people are obviously running it without issues, it's obvious there are many that still need to be hammered out, as well as the obviou missing features.

That being said, Parallels has done a great job so far and it's encouraging to see how quickly they've put out new releases with significant improvements. I expect this to continue and for the product to mature pretty rapidly and I'm very much looking forward to a staple, feature complete release version. Keep up the great work!!

..Al

 

I agree with AtariAge. Beta traditionally (at least at my company, which does a lot of software development) means feature-complete with no critical bugs (those that can cause data loss).

Parallels, as impressive as it is (and I've pre-ordered a copy too!) is not feature-complete and can cause data loss (via kernel panics and directory damage).

I'm pleased that Parallels has made a public release of these early versions, but I wish they had labeled it as an alpha release, or at least a "pre-beta" release...

 

Yeah, it's not a beta in any sense that I've understood. Beta means feature complete. The product has also not been stable for me. Beta 3 panics constantly on my MBP.

 

unless you compare it to Windows (or any Microsoft product for that matter) that ships with tons or documented bugs (or do they call them features?) as a complete product.

If you use that definition for beta, then I'll have to concur that this isn't one (yet) - but I'm STILL glad they've made it available to me to use/test - it's helped me to be able to unplug the Windows computer under my desk at work - and given me an alternative for VPC, which will not run on my new MacBook Pro

 

I'm a software developer too but I think this whole alpha vs beta thing is overrated. It's true traditionally that a beta is supposed to be a final test of all completed features and you could argue because there's no USB support (say) yet, it can't be called beta.

However, I would give the counter argument that Parallels could easily have said that the first official release won't have USB support and that would have been fine. I can absolutely use this program for everything I need to do on Windows (in the context of Mac OS X) without USB support. For example, access to Outlook with Exchange, the few Windows only internal corporate apps and so forth. I bet this applies to MANY users.

The other argument (which I don't like but that doesn't mean it's not true) is that the reality of the software world is such that companies NEED to get product out as quickly as possible or else risk being beaten by someone else. Everyone has to do this - and "beta", particularly "public beta" has simply become the euphemism for "it's not fully cooked but we want you to know what we've got so you don't go somewhere else".

As long as Parallels continues their approach to rapid updates to address problems found by the community, they're welcome to call it whatever they want - it works!

Finally of course there's the truism that software is NEVER feature complete - there will always be more - under that concept, EVERYTHING is beta!

Cheers,
David Jameson