Parallels & MacPro-- the bottom line as of now

S

stevej2001

Junior Member
I've got a Mac PRO w/ 2gb, otherwise 'stock'. I'm using bootcamp and it works ok for my needs, but the capabilities of Parallels gives me serious urge to buy this SW. Reading this forum, however, ceratainly makes me pause.

Given the fact that bulletin boards emphasize the extremes of experience, just how unstable is Parallels at this time on the Mac PRO? If there are many out there for whom it's working fine, please chime in.

Thanks,

Call me cautious.
 
I was doing fine with 1848 and the -legacy workaround. Then I installed 1884. Long story short, I'm pretty sure my image is now fried. I'm extremely disappointed.
 
Try before you buy. Most of us, it seems, have to go through hoops to get it to run at all without kernel panics, so it's definitely not a painless process for all. Since you have only 2GB, you're probably a good candidate for it to actually work for you.

If you're concerned, just download a copy and get a trial key. If it works fine for you, you can safely spend your $79. If not, wait a little while for the next beta version and see if that improves the Mac Pro experience.
 
Works "OK" on my Mac Pro, with workarounds

I am fairly happy with Parallels on my Mac Pro -- but I only have 2 GB of RAM...apparently you may get kernel panics more frequently with greater then 2 GB of RAM.

I had to use the workarounds to enable VT-x support and networking support, but with those in place, Parallels runs WIndows XP well for me and I have been using it for a few days now without any problems (KNOCK ON WOOD)

So, give it a try...
 
Pleiades said:
Most of us, it seems, have to go through hoops to get it to run at all without kernel panics, so it's definitely not a painless process for all.
Click to expand...

While it's obviously true that many of us are having problems, it's by no means clear exactly what the percentage of users with issues may be. I wish there were some way of determining whether this problem actually involves most Mac Pro users of Parallels or not.
 
It's a beta product folks, give it a ltitle time. In all likelyhood, parallels was ready to go gold with this thing when the MacPro came out and screwed that up, it's only been a few weeks with the MacPro.

1884 has been pretty decent so far, I'm not going to buy it until it's worked out the major outstanding bugs and at a bare minimum boots the vista RCs...
 
jelevy said:
It's a beta product folks, give it a ltitle time. In all likelyhood, parallels was ready to go gold with this thing when the MacPro came out and screwed that up, it's only been a few weeks with the MacPro.

1884 has been pretty decent so far, I'm not going to buy it until it's worked out the major outstanding bugs and at a bare minimum boots the vista RCs...
Click to expand...

Not crazy about paying $79.95 for beta. I'll be less than impressed if I have to pay for a stable/robust version down the line.

It's quite clunky. Just to switch from internal networking to bridged networking requires a shutdown of the VM. And a potential re-install of the tools. That should be a simple switch, fix up the network settings on the machines, and roll on.

I had high hopes for this, but based on my experience with the Mac product, I certainly won't be replacing my VMWare on Windows install with Parallels on Windows any time soon.

My 2c
rickb
 
I purchased Parallels when I bought my Mac Pro, but held off installing anything on my machine until the RC beta came out. I haven't had any problems so far in either DOS 6.22 or Windows 2000.

I have 2GB of RAM, which may be one of the reasons I haven't seen problems, or because both VMs were created entirely within ver. 1884.

I'm not trying at all to say there aren't problems with the build, or pooh-pooh anyone who's encountering bugs. The 3.5GB alone is troubling. But I just wanted to share my experience...
 
There are still significant problems on the Mac Pro - just check the workaround thread to see the sorts of hoops you might have to jump through. My workmate is trying to get it going because we need XML Spy, we're now evaluating Crossover Mac because of these problems.

BTW I disagree with people's assertions that it's a beta product. I paid for it, therefore it's commercial. To quote the Parallels website: "The Final Release Version of Parallels Desktop for Mac is Now Available for Purchase!" IMO Parallels' reaction to this Mac Pro problem has not been adequate, it took them a long time to put up a notice about the Mac Pro problems, that notice is now gone and there's nothing that I can see on the webpage to suggest problems with Mac Pros, in fact it claims that they are fully supported. This is simply not true. I'm a developer, I understand why they are where they are and I'm sympathetic to the difficulties they're experiencing, but their reaction has not been adequate.
 
Depends what ou want to use it for

It all depends what you intend to use your hosted OS for. I have minimum requirements for hosted XP. Run Outlook, MS office, VPN and a browser. For that Parallels works great. I also have only 2GB.

I'm not trying to use it as a dev environment or connect USB devices to my hosted OS. I gladly paid $79 to avoid booting back and forth between OSes or avoid carrying around 2 machines.
 
I only absolutely need it for quicken... that's about as minimal as you can get. While I'd like the ease of use of Parallels, I don't need headaches installing/configuring it. Book Camp works, albeit requiring the rebooting step...
 
I can not get it to run at all on my Mac Pro. It just crashes the computer when you try and start the Parallels program. I have a quad 2.66 with 5 GB of ram. No go.
 
Thanks.

Andrew @ Parallels said:
We are working hard on Mac Pro issue and we will deliver fixed version as soon as possible. We apologise for inconvinience.
Click to expand...

I appreciate that Parallels has this forum and has been willing to provide us with workarounds.

Two things:

(1) It would be better if you had disclaimed Mac Pro support widely and publicly at the beginning. Deflating expectations is what has generated most of the frustration here. If you had said flatly it doesn't work, and then had posted that -legacy workaround, people would have been stoked at the workaround. Instead, many people thought it would work, it didn't. A warning box in the installer is all it would have taken.

(2) Take your time with the next release and make sure it works.

I still believe Parallels is the best solution. CrossOver is too primitive yet, and BootCamp defeats the purpose of owning a mac. Just make it work, and hopefully, make it work before VM Ware comes out.
 
Mac Pro -- No Go

Been waiting for this build for a month. Still only able to ever see grey curtain requiring restart, on two Mac Pros.

Purchased two copies of the product thanks to text saying it worked "on all Intel Macs" -- that language was later changed. Still unable to use the purchased product.

Very very unhappy.
 
If only it wouldn't panic

My biggest concern with this right now, and the only reason I'm not prepared to test with it, is that it doesn't just crash, it panics the machine.

I can afford to launch repeatedly and find the software doesn't work, but I can't bring my machine down - I've got too much else always in flight to risk losing data.

I'm also in a position where I can wait patiently. I've got no issue with having bought it while still in beta, and I'm sure there won't be a pay for the release version issue, I don't get the impression that this is that kind of company.

When compared to the let down I had buying VirtualPC for significantly more money, and upgrading it many times expecting it to get more usuable, this is nothing but promising.
 
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