Parallels has picked my pocket for the last time

[JimC1]

I have not read thru all of the posts but I would venture to say that there are a lot of customers that feel the same way that I do. I am very unhappy with the way Parallels is treating me as a paying customer.

I was a Fusion customer years ago and then I migrated over to parallels with Desktop 7. I have been happy with the product however I am not so happy with Parallels always sticking their grubby hands in my pocket. I run 2 iMac computers in my home, one for me and one for my wife. Every time I have to upgrade Parallels I have to do it for both computers. Our work requires us to have Windows for our work.

As I stated we started out with Desktop 7 and found no complaints with the product. We paid for the upgrade to DP 8 only to find out that DP 9 came out and we missed the cut off by 2 days for the free upgrade. I had a bad taste in my mouth because we purchased DP 8 in good faith and felt that had we been informed that DP 9 was coming out we would have waited. No way was I going to spend another $100 to upgrade the 2 iMacs.

Then we get these emails from Parallels stating that we would have to upgrade to DP 10 to be able to run the new Windows 10. Really? We had to upgrade to DP 8 to be able to run Mavericks. I bit the bullet and upgraded both iMacs to DP 10 so we could run Windows 10. Another $100 bucks down the drain.

Now Parallels wants us to upgrade again to DP 11 so we can run El Capitan. Are you kidding me? We upgraded to DP 10 to run Windows 10 and a few months later you are in my wallet again. I paid to have one iMac upgraded to DP 11 so it could run El Capitan but refused to upgrade the other iMac. I gave Parallels $150 in less than 6 months and had I upgraded the 2nd iMac the cost would have been $200.

I can see that Parallels is trying to force people to upgrade every year to keep up a revenue stream and I am not going to play that game. I don't mind paying a subscription fee for Office 365 where I can run 5 devices. But to have to pay Parallels a fee for each device makes me a very unhappy customer.

Parallels has picked my pocket for the last time. I am converting my VM over to Fusion 8 where they will allow me to use one license for all the Mac products that I own and control. Congratulations to Parallels marketing team for forcing customers to their competitors. I'm sure that Management will be thrilled to lose so many customers in the future.

 

[RobinC2]

I agree! I have paid for all the Parallels upgrades since Parallels 4 and I have never had a problem until now of running Parallels on both my iMac and MBP laptop.
I now find that after doing a clean install of El Capitan on my MBP, I am unable to reinstall my permanent copy of Parallels 11. Furthermore, I also find that I can no longer buy a permanent Desktop version for a on-off payment, but I have to now pay $99 PER YEAR which means FOREVER, since I will be unable to keep data and apps if I want to opt out in the future!!

I'm reluctant to convert to FUSION 8 but Parallels has now left me with no choice!

 

[HowardL1]

It's not a big mystery... The Parallels software always gets updated every year, since version 6, around September / August. For the last 4 versions it has been released in August. This is also how Fusion releases updates, also around September / August. Also paid updates...

 

[JohnB12]

I know the feeling. I have used Parallels since version 3 or maybe earlier. While I was working, purchasing updates for my home computer wasn't a problem. Soon after I lost my job in June 2003, I purchased an update to Parallels Desktop version 9 then installed Solaris 10 under it so that I could use it to brush up on my Solaris skills in hopes of having a better chance of getting another job. No such luck. I soon discovered that my job skills are too antiquated and memory too bad to learn much new stuff (many common things I've never worked with) to have a chance at getting another one.

So, now that I'm a retired senior citizen, I would like to upgrade my MacBook to El Capitan but can't because I have been told that Parallels 9 won't run under it. And, without working I don't have sufficient income to be able to afford the $49.99 upgrade fee to be able to get Parallels 11. It's hard enough just getting food on the table.

As for alternatives to Parallels, I used early versions of Fusion (1 and 2) for several years on my work computer before I convinced my boss to authorize funds to purchase a license for Parallels for that iMac. After getting Parallels on it, several problems I had been having with Fusion (such as slow and patchy graphics upgrades) were gone.

Since then, a couple of my co workers were using VirtualBox rather than Fusion or Parallels because it is a free, public domain, alternative who's development is primarily funded by Oracle (who purchased Sun Micro Systems who had been backing it) to provide the ability to run Windows and its applications under Solaris. I tinkered with it a bit and noticed each version was better than the previous though not quite as elegant as Parallels. However, same virtual disks also worked under CentOS by using the RedHat Linux version of VirtualBox which was very convenient for part of the work I had been doing for the company.

That said, given my current financial situation (of having meager income from Social Security), I'm "stuck between a rock and a hard spot" trying to decide what to do. If I could convert my virtual disks so that VirtualBox would recognize them I would likely go that route because of my very limited income. Otherwise, I may have to give up on ever using any of the Windows Applications I have for use in Windows7 under Parallels. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with having Yosemite on my Macbook. And, when it eventually dies, I may be screwed as it is looking like there is no way I will ever be able to afford another Mac.

Bottom line is this is the thanks I get for using Parallels for over 10 years.