Parallels 4.0 / Windows Vista = Nightmare, Slow start/shutdown, Stallin/Not Resp Apps

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WilliamM

Bit poster
I am running Windows Vista on three work machines here at my office.

Each MBP is running Parallels 4.0 with Windows Vista Business.

Each system is experiencing incredibly long start up / shut down processes (sometimes upwards to 15 minutes to shut down).

Applications are slow to respond, stalls, or not responding period after 10 - 15 minutes of attempting to load the program (ie. Office 2007, etc.).

Are there any suggestions, tips, tweaks out there that others may have to correct this issue? It has created an unbearable working environment with trying to go through the workday without having a user not being able to access a required software application inside Windows.

System Specs:

Macbook Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.53 GHz
4 GB Ram
360 HD

Parallels Specs:
4.0
Build 4.0.3844
Windows Vista Business
Virtual Memory Allocation, 2086mb
HD, 40gb
Video Memory, 250mb

Any help would surely be appreciated.
 
Hello WilliamM,

I have a user who has upgraded from Windows XP to Vista x64 and she is experiencing a performance degradation as well. I have tried adaptive hypervisor, allocating 2 cores, defragging (it is a boot camp partition) and none of these have helped. Can a parallels support member please look into this?
 
No answer - no help

Our issues just seem to continue to get worse or more problematic as time goes on. The experience with Vista and Parallels has been a frustrating one at best.

You would expect someone from Parallels to issue a response, however, customer service is a direct reflection of a companies morals and principles. I'm sure that either my account will be blocked from this OR that they will finally provide some input as to what can be done to correct this issue.

I have found one solution for myself, as I use Windows soley to have Outlook. Microsoft announced that with Snow Leopard they will be releasing a Mac version of Outlook (not Entrourage) late next year. SO, my solution is to not purchase any further updates for parallels nor windows, and just convert completely to Mac software once the release occurs next year.

If you have to stick with Windows, I've heard that both boot camp and FusionVM work far better and provide a little more stability.

Best of luck.
 
I must admit, I am begining to regret ever buying Parallels 4.0.
It is almost unusable on my MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard) with Windows Vista VM.
Vista runs at a snails pace and my Mac gets extremely HOT! Very worrying as it's a brand new computer.
 
BernardH - I just did the same and I ended up doing the full upgrade to 8GB! It cost me US$1200!! But...it was like (as we say in the UK) "chalk 7 cheese". Don't worry about the temperature issues - look in the apple forums...they report temps up to 90 deg C with no major issues as long as the fans are operational.

Good luck...there are a few companies who offer memory U/G cheaper but no guarantees (obviously)!
 
Thanks George,

Since my last post I have upgraded my 13" MacBook Pro to 4GB. The speed of Parallels has improved a little but it's still nothing to write home about.

For the time being I have given up on using Parallels and have resorted to using my old PC to run Windows.

Parallels just doesn't cut it!

Wish I could get a refund. Parallels does not live up to the hype in the advertising.
 
Parallels configuration can be a real challenge to get correct. I use Parallels with my Bootcamp partition, and I've been plagued by the windows xp shutdown process taking 10 - 15 minutes.

Here is how I fixed it -- it now takes only 15 seconds for windows to shutdown, like it should.
Maybe one of these solutions will work for you:

1. Disable "Terminal Services" using services.msc

2. Disable "Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile" setting using gpedit.msc to change the group policy for:
Local Computer Policy->Computer Configuration->Windows Settings->Security Settings->Local Properties->Security Options

3. make sure your antivirus is not scanning the floppy on shutdown.

4. if all else fails, make a shutdown icon with the command: "shutdown -s -t 0"

Hope that helps someone. Cheers.

Rick
 
BernardH said:
I must admit, I am begining to regret ever buying Parallels 4.0.
It is almost unusable on my MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard) with Windows Vista VM.
Vista runs at a snails pace and my Mac gets extremely HOT! Very worrying as it's a brand new computer.
Click to expand...

I ran Vista Home Premium with both Parallels 3 and 4 and experienced VERY slow operation as well. When Win 7 came out last month, I installed it in a separate VM, again with Parallels 4 and I have to say, it was night and day. Win 7 ran very quickly with Parallels 4 and I would have remained with that configuration except that about 5 days ago, I received an email from Parallels offering an upgrade to 5.0 for $39.

Tonight I installed 5.0 which deleted my 4.x. While I see a few nice features, I can't say that I see any real speed gain with 5.0 verse 4.x.

I think your problems is strictly VISTA! Get Win 7. As far as I can tell, Win 7 has about as much "flash" as OS X.

Now, if it just won't bog down like every other version of Windows that has come down the pike.
 
Office 2007 upgrade conflicted with MAC OS 10.5

I have a iMAC running a lepoard OS 10.5, Paralells 4.0,windows XP home premium edition and avast antivirus.
Previously I ran Office XP but did not use Outlook. I had no problems. I upgraded to Office 2007 ultimate.

I setup to run groove and outlook on my virtual computer and with the exception of the groove program which could not contact other members, all other Office programs appeared to run OK, including Outlook 2007.

However problems soon arose on my MAC. I first lost my email account setting and had to re-imput my account settings. Later I had a slow computer with a "wake-up" from sleep that took a long time, which progressed to a difficult restart (spinning grear ran for minutes). Eventually I could not boot up the computer and got the grey screen. I thought my HD failed although a disk utility test and systems test said all harware was fine.
I re-installed the HD files from a time capsule date prior to the Office 2007 installation date and later perform an apple OS repair, permissions repair from disk utility on the OS CD.

Upon sucessful reboot I found lost my avast function (ugrades trhough email), and my apple mail (due to a corrupt library file?) and the XP listed many conflicts and errors that were self corrected by XP disk check during startup.

Although I do not have all the answers to my problems, I strongly suspect the Office Outlook (which cannot have another email program or earlier outlook version on the system and/or the groove program are in conflict with apple OS mail.
 
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