Parallels 6 on Mountain Lion - Supported?

It seems you are still not getting that my commentary was sarcastic. Do you understand joke?
I agree with you about the reason of that difference in the prices of software, but I certainly believe that parallels should change its business model.

 

For the record: I upgraded to Mountain Lion, got all pissed that I Parallels 6 wouldn't work, but NEEDED it and wasn't able to revert back to Lion (backup drive was at home), so I paid to upgrade to Parallels 7. Then I went to run the program (20-20 Design) that is the only reason I use/have Parallels, and now it wouldn't work. I use a USB security key/dongle, and Parallels would not recognize it. Said I needed to upgrade the security drivers. (so I did, no go.)

Called 20-20 support, they suggested I get Parallels to help me, because 20-20 is a Windows program, and they offer no help for people such as myself. Got websupport from Parallels. Girl had me do some ridiculously simple things I'd already done 20x already, and finally took over remote control of my computer. After 2 hours, she suggested I try 20-20 support again, cause she couldn't get it to work. Fact is: 20-20 works in Parallels 6. Now, if Parallels 6 worked in Mountain Lion, I bet my program would work there as well.

I reverted my OS back to Lion and requested a return of my money from Parallels, since I didn't need Parallels 7 if I couldn't use it on Lion. They were surprisingly quick.

So now I'm going to give VMware a try and cross my fingers. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll wait til Parallels 8 comes out and try that one. If it still doesn't work, I'm stuck with using Lion and Parallels 6 for as long as I can stand it, and then maybe I'll have to buy a fricken PC laptop for work. I hope not.

Moral of the story: even if you do upgrade to Parallels 7, your windows program has potential not to work like it did in 6.

Lame.

 

Time line – purchased Parallels 6 end of July 2011 for Lion iMac following advice from Apple store that this product was fully compatible with OS X Lion. Follow up email from Parallels support that PD6 was fully compatible with Lion.

Beginning of September 2011 PD7 released – no offer of free upgrade or upgrade at reduced price.

Exactly 12 months later Apple release MINOR upgrade to Lion, I install Mountain Lion on my Lion iMac. Result – PD6 no longer works – Parallels want a further £35 GBP in order for Parallels to work again (Mountain Lion £13 GBP).

One week later after declining invitation from Parallels to upgrade I’m now trying out their competitors product – problems so far NONE, quite impresssed.

Parallels now claim only partial compatability with Lion – strange? Personally I have had no issues with Parallels and Lion.

This debacle has all the hallmarks of Vista i.e. third party developers failed to upgrade their products seeing instead a great opportunity to sell more product to their customers.

This smacks of sharp business practice and a cynical attempt to get more money out of Joe Public and reflects badly on Parallels.

Two work colleagues are in the process of making the “jump†to Mac, both want to still use Windows. I have told them to avoid Parallels at all costs and I will be doing the same in the future – result three more lost customers. I am also going to refer this issue to UK consumer bodies for their opinion.

Excellent business model Parallels.

 

What about the users (myself included) that bought PD6 during the "free upgrade to PD7 period" that, because we bought 6 before 7 came out, via physical media and fully registered, missed out on our free entitlement because you neglected to notify us of eligibility just because we dont frequent your website!? Thats bordering on discrimination - against people that probably paid extra for the disc and box. I feel we should be eligible to upgrade to 7 for free at the very least, as we were originally entitled to

 

Bootcamp with Virtualbox

Hello to all left-over consumers of Parallels 6,
I solve the problem by switching to Virtualbox. It was tough, but it is now working good, and I am going to remove the whooooole Parallels data from my computer.

For those who only need to use a bootcamp partition like me, I specially recommend this tutorial:
http://phaq.phunsites.net/2011/03/05/sharing-windows-7-between-boot-camp-and-virtualbox/

Actually, you don't need to migrate any vm for this special case, just to configure a new vm for bootcamp in Virtualbox.
Everything is fine, but I had issues because I am using XP and not Windows 7.
This solution from sofianito saved me (using shortly Vmware to grab the -pt.vmdk file):
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19866&start=30

It is now all over between me and Parallels, no more 50 euros (by the way, 50 euros is more than 50 dollars) for PD 7, 8 or 9.

 

Only downside to VB is that you don't get a full screen VM like you do with Parallels. VM that only fills half the screen isn't much use really. I too like chocobogamer purchased the physical media from an Apple store so didn't get any emails with free update offer - thanks for that one Parallels.

 

Dictation feature under Mountain Lion not supported?

I am surprised that the new Mountain Lion Dictation feature is not supported in latest build of Parallels 7 regardless of mode? This appears only to work in OS X mac applications. This is a great feature and Parallels should find a workaround!

 

Virtualbox Fullscreen

It is really easy to have fullscreen on Virtualbox, you just need to install the VBoxGuestAdditions.
Just google it, it is easy to add!

 

Yes thanks Alain243 - It's all up and working now. I had in fact added guest additions, however, it appears they had failed to mount successfully. I tried again and now have full screen mode and everything works fine.

In fact - Parallels please note! I have installed VirtualBox, and whilst it may not have all the whistles and bells that Parallels has, to be perfectly honest I don't need the whistles and bells. I have for instance never used "coherence mode" or many of the other features for that matter. I like to have Windows run as Windows and OS X as OS X. I realise some folk do use the advanced features, but not me. In many ways your failure to upgrade PD6 has then done me a favour, it has forced me to look at alternatives to your product. I have found one that does the job adequately and more importantly it is cost neutral.

My initial anger with Parallels wasn't actually about cost it was the way they have gone about their business and showed contempt for their customers. Well it has cost them at least one customer.

 

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I am strongly on the fence as well given Parallels sales tactics. I also find it interesting, given all the negative comments on this forum, that no one from the company has issued a formal statement or has commented on this issue. That said, I have over 200 users using this product with Snow Leopard and Lion (Version 6); needless to say, I will be taking out business elsewhere moving forward... $50 for a minor upgrade is simply a corporate rip-off; if you feel that strongly in your product and value your customer base, you'd offer upgrade options that are reasonable given the type of upgrade needed. If Apple can charge between $20 and $30 for the whole OS; there is simply no excuse why a software vendor such as Parallels cannot do the same...

Get ready Parallels employees; you're surely going to see the backlash from this asinine corporate decision!

 

Judging from their lack of response to this thread, I am guessing they have become used to it. They seem to have used the same practice with previous mac os upgrades. Most likely threads like this were created back then as well.

Nonetheless, people reach a threshold and those of us that are in this thread, will take our business elsewhere.

 

@Parallels - a somehow fair proposal

Dear Parallels team,

you may like to think about the following proposal.
You usually make some special $29 upgrade offer for every version for some period. A upgrade will be possible for the last 2 versions, otherwise you have to pay a full version. I am using PD6 and as satisfied with this version I was going to miss PD7 and upgrade to PD8 - waiting for the period offer $29. Now I would be forced to upgrade $49, even you promsided formerly on your website PD6 would be compatible with ML.
People are familiarized with your usual upgrade policies. So here is my proposal:

Give now a $29 upgrade offer to PD6 users INCLUDING your tech guarantee. So it would be possible for PD6 users to upgrade to PD8 for $29 as expected.
So finally nothing unexpected then for a Parallels customer.

This may not really stop this discussion, but may relax it a lot.

 

Congratulations Parallels on loosing many customers! I just bought VMware and I will never be going back to Parallels.


Another dissatisfied ex-customer

 

Good luck. Parallels

I buy 2 licenses (PD6) last year on my iMac and Macbook Air. But will move to VMware fusion tomorrow. Very disappointed !!!! Bye!!!!

 

Goodbye Parallels

Dear Parallels Team,

I just wanted to add my own to the long list of goodbyes. 14 months of PD6, purchased directly from you for EUR 80, and now completely unusable after upgrading to Mountain Lion.

If your corporate strategy is turning away all of your loyal customers, including me, you are doing an amazing job - keep up the good work!

 

Goodbye Parallels!

 

The Tech guarantee has been updated in accordance with your comments:

Customers who purchased a copy of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac from an authorized reseller on or after July 25, 2012 are eligible to request an upgrade to a new version of Parallels Desktop for Mac at no additional cost, subject to certain conditions.
The conditions covering eligibly for an upgrade include:
Upgrade to the next version of Parallels Desktop at no additional cost if you purchase Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac on July 25th, 2012 or later – up to eight weeks after the availability of the next version of Parallels Desktop.
Must be a qualifying product as mentioned in #1 below. Not qualifying products are mentioned in #2
Must be purchased from an authorized retailer. Not authorized retailers are specified in #2

Read further:

http://www.parallels.com/techguarantee2012/

 

This you mentioned already. What about the usual $29 offer upgrading now to PD7 incl. Tech guarantee I proposed?

 

UK consumer bodies

Excellent Idea. I would be very interested to see what the Consumer bodies say. Also, in that vein, perhaps someone in this thread has some connections into Which Magazine.