Parallels insanity... Initialising Parallels Desktop

How I hate Parallels! More than any program I run, Parallels brings the worst of windows to the Mac.

Mostly, I hate the way that Parallels tries to trick the user into "upgrading" all the time, without stating that an upgrade will trash a previous installation big-time, rendering most of the virtual machines unusable.

I upgraded my OS to 12.5 Monterey some weeks ago and today, I tried to run Parallels. It immediately made a grovelling suggestion that I upgrade to the latest version, which like all previous versions, is about 22.3333 faster than anything before. I hope I declined. Parallels froze. So I came here and downloaded the latest version of P16.5.

As soon as I started the upgrade, it suggested I upgrade to P17 (even though the current version is P18) where the options to deny the offer were limited to something like Install Upgrade, and Install latest version... deliberate confusion. Finding a way to cancel this upgrade offer, I was presented with a dialog requesting a password for installing something (installing what? New, Old?) and now I'm stuck waiting for a dialog which reads "Initialising Parallels Desktop". No mention of installation of anything at all.

I only use Parallels once a month or so to use an obscure piece of software which only runs on Windows and every single time, without fail, there's some weasel attempt to trick me into installing something I don't want or need. I'm so over it.