Hi everyone.
I've got an issue which is extremely repeatable, but I'm not 100% certain what is causing it. I *believe* it is something to do with installing .Net inside of a virtual machine, but I'm not completely certain. It's manifested as breaking a number of games which I had been trying to run inside of Parallels 6, preventing them from running at all.
I have used Parallels 5 in the past, creating a brand new XP 32-bit virtual machine from scratch (IE, just putting the disc in and installing it brand new) and have never encountered this issue. It has affected me, however, in VMs for both XP 32-bit and Windows 7 32 and 64 bit, either as a virtual machine or as a virtual machine created from a Boot Camp partition.
So here's a quick overview. I originally created a Boot Camp partition and installed 64-bit Win 7 on it. After installing the partition, I rebooted back into OS X, set it up as a Parallels 6 virtual machine, and began installing/updating/setting up Windows through that. After I'd run Windows Update and had everything up to date, I started installing games -- the sole reason I got Parallels was for gaming, so that's all I wanted on the Windows partition. I first noticed that there was an issue when I went to launch Global Agenda. The launcher crashed immediately, giving me an error I'd never seen before starting with System.Unauthorized.AccessException, complaining that access to a configuration file located at User\AppData\Hi-Rez Studios\SteamGlobalAgendaLauncher.config had been denied. Here is a screenshot of the error under XP, but it was identical to the one I had in Win 7:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1749333/global-agenda-crash.jpg
Googling around the few hits I found suggested a problem with .Net, but installing it and reinstalling it never dealt with the problem.
Keeping in mind this was under the Boot Camp partition, I rebooted into Windows and tried to launch the game natively, only receiving the same error as before. I got varying strange behaviour from a number of other games -- Fallout 3 would load, showing the game launcher, then as soon as I pressed play the launcher would reappear as if I'd just run the game. Every time I pressed play the same thing would happen. Battleforge's patcher would download to a certain point, start patching, then fail with an error. In both cases I googled and the only culprit seemed to be a problem with .Net that was fixed on reinstall. However, uninstalling/reinstalling .Net never fixed the problem for me.
Frustrated, I wiped the Boot Camp partition and started over with a straight 32-bit Win 7 virtual machine. I installed Windows into it, patched everything until it was up to date, then tried again. Without fail, I got the same exact issue in every single game. For attempt #3, I did a 32-bit XP virtual machine (just to isolate the problem as not being down to Win 7 incompatibilities), ran Windows Update, and got the same problem as before. My final effort was to do a 32-bit XP virtual machine but NOT run Windows Update (instead leaving everything completely unpatched and fresh), instead just allowing the games themselves to run the .Net installers, but once again I got the same problem as every other time.
Following all of this, the last thing I tried was to create a Boot Camp partition, reboot off of the Win 7 64-bit CD, install the operating system natively, run Windows Update natively (IE, not creating a VM whatsoever at this point) and then install/launch the game. I got no problems this way and was able to load the game without any trouble. I rebooted into OSX, created a VM from the partition, and lo and behold --- the same games which failed to run before now loaded without any trouble inside the VM.
So, clearly there seems to be some trouble with Parallels 6. I'm not completely certain that it's .Net specifically, but the internet suggested that the problems I was having were .Net related. Installing Windows on its own partition and only creating a VM after the system was completely patched and up to date solved the problem, but obviously this is seriously unrealistic to do on a regular basis.
I don't recall having this problem under Parallels 5 and had run a number of games under it in the past (although not these specific titles), so I can't say for 100% sure. At the moment I'm creating a fresh Parallels 5 32-bit XP virtual machine, will attempt to run the games again, and if they load fine I will back up the VM and upgrade to 6 again and see if the VM survives that upgrade without trouble. If it does, I can clearly state that the problem is around 6, even if I'm not completely certain of what the problem is.
Is anyone at Parallels aware of this issue or has anyone else been affected by it? As soon as I test the Parallels 5 VM, I will post the results. Thanks.
I've got an issue which is extremely repeatable, but I'm not 100% certain what is causing it. I *believe* it is something to do with installing .Net inside of a virtual machine, but I'm not completely certain. It's manifested as breaking a number of games which I had been trying to run inside of Parallels 6, preventing them from running at all.
I have used Parallels 5 in the past, creating a brand new XP 32-bit virtual machine from scratch (IE, just putting the disc in and installing it brand new) and have never encountered this issue. It has affected me, however, in VMs for both XP 32-bit and Windows 7 32 and 64 bit, either as a virtual machine or as a virtual machine created from a Boot Camp partition.
So here's a quick overview. I originally created a Boot Camp partition and installed 64-bit Win 7 on it. After installing the partition, I rebooted back into OS X, set it up as a Parallels 6 virtual machine, and began installing/updating/setting up Windows through that. After I'd run Windows Update and had everything up to date, I started installing games -- the sole reason I got Parallels was for gaming, so that's all I wanted on the Windows partition. I first noticed that there was an issue when I went to launch Global Agenda. The launcher crashed immediately, giving me an error I'd never seen before starting with System.Unauthorized.AccessException, complaining that access to a configuration file located at User\AppData\Hi-Rez Studios\SteamGlobalAgendaLauncher.config had been denied. Here is a screenshot of the error under XP, but it was identical to the one I had in Win 7:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1749333/global-agenda-crash.jpg
Googling around the few hits I found suggested a problem with .Net, but installing it and reinstalling it never dealt with the problem.
Keeping in mind this was under the Boot Camp partition, I rebooted into Windows and tried to launch the game natively, only receiving the same error as before. I got varying strange behaviour from a number of other games -- Fallout 3 would load, showing the game launcher, then as soon as I pressed play the launcher would reappear as if I'd just run the game. Every time I pressed play the same thing would happen. Battleforge's patcher would download to a certain point, start patching, then fail with an error. In both cases I googled and the only culprit seemed to be a problem with .Net that was fixed on reinstall. However, uninstalling/reinstalling .Net never fixed the problem for me.
Frustrated, I wiped the Boot Camp partition and started over with a straight 32-bit Win 7 virtual machine. I installed Windows into it, patched everything until it was up to date, then tried again. Without fail, I got the same exact issue in every single game. For attempt #3, I did a 32-bit XP virtual machine (just to isolate the problem as not being down to Win 7 incompatibilities), ran Windows Update, and got the same problem as before. My final effort was to do a 32-bit XP virtual machine but NOT run Windows Update (instead leaving everything completely unpatched and fresh), instead just allowing the games themselves to run the .Net installers, but once again I got the same problem as every other time.
Following all of this, the last thing I tried was to create a Boot Camp partition, reboot off of the Win 7 64-bit CD, install the operating system natively, run Windows Update natively (IE, not creating a VM whatsoever at this point) and then install/launch the game. I got no problems this way and was able to load the game without any trouble. I rebooted into OSX, created a VM from the partition, and lo and behold --- the same games which failed to run before now loaded without any trouble inside the VM.
So, clearly there seems to be some trouble with Parallels 6. I'm not completely certain that it's .Net specifically, but the internet suggested that the problems I was having were .Net related. Installing Windows on its own partition and only creating a VM after the system was completely patched and up to date solved the problem, but obviously this is seriously unrealistic to do on a regular basis.
I don't recall having this problem under Parallels 5 and had run a number of games under it in the past (although not these specific titles), so I can't say for 100% sure. At the moment I'm creating a fresh Parallels 5 32-bit XP virtual machine, will attempt to run the games again, and if they load fine I will back up the VM and upgrade to 6 again and see if the VM survives that upgrade without trouble. If it does, I can clearly state that the problem is around 6, even if I'm not completely certain of what the problem is.
Is anyone at Parallels aware of this issue or has anyone else been affected by it? As soon as I test the Parallels 5 VM, I will post the results. Thanks.