Parallels ver 4 OS/2 tools again broken

Thank you for your efforts. eCS & OS/2 are still in use in some commercial scenarios and it's just a good idea to have a virtualized environment for it. I appreciate your work.

 

using full-screen resolution

Thanks to 'liv2cod' for posting his solutions to getting the eCS 1.2R virtual machine working under Parallels 4.0 for Mac. Now the mouse works in mine as well (I'm using PD4, build 3810, on a Mac Pro).

I'm wondering whether anyone else has run into these other problems (beside the inoperative clock and timer that others have already noted) that I've encountered with PD4:

- clipboard doesn't transfer to the Mac side
- the Ctrl-F1 and Ctrl-F8 key combinations don't work
- Acrobat Reader 5 comes up frozen, has to be killed by PID

All these used to work under Parallels 2.5 for Mac, which I had been using (tho that VM froze daily, requiring a reset, and lots of frustration control). The Reader freeze is not problem, since I can use Lucide.

The VM now runs full screen in 1.333 aspect ratio (1400x1050), leaving unused screen space at the sides of my 1680x1050 screen. liv2cod's post states that I should be able to run full-screen at my nominal Mac screen setting of 1680x1050. But following the instructions (I'm using the latest SNAP driver) doesn't seem to do anything. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

- Dushan

 

Make sure you have clicked on the "+" in the corner of the display page to see the monitor selected. Click on the checkbox that says "widescreen" to add widescreen resolutions. Then exit and restart the OS/2 or eCS instance. (Suspend/resume won't work -- the OS needs to "boot" again.) Then go back to the display panel and you should have the 16:10 resolutions added (1920x1200, 1440x900, 1280x800).

-- Joe Barnhart

 

Yes, I did that just as you suggested, but my results aren't what you found. In fact, they were pretty weird.

When I first tried it, I added a checkmark to the 'Widescreen' option, and left the checkmark already there on the 4:3 Aspect Ratio option just beneath it. Then I exited and re-booted eCS (but I didn't restart the VM - should I have?), and it came up just as before. Looking at the Screen page, there were no new resolution options at all, just the same 4:3 ratios. That's when I posted my original question.

Then after reading your reply above, I got inspired to try again. This time on the Screen page in System Setup I left the Widescreen checked, but un-checked the 4:3 Aspect Ratio option. [ I could not find my particular monitor in the list, a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (22 inch 16:10 ratio), and chose one that I guessed might be a compatible stand-in. Maybe this is the problem. ] Then I exited and re-booted, and eCS came up as a small window. Looking at System Setup -> Screen showed exactly _one_ available resolution: 640x480, and nothing else. On the next page the settings were as I'd left them: Widescreen checked and 4:3 Aspect Ratio unchecked. Apparently the system couldn't find any widescreen capability for that monitor, so it resorted to baseline, which was 640x480. After re-checking the 4:3 option, I got back all the 4:3 resolutions, and am now back to using 1400x1050.

I will experiment with the monitor choices - I wonder if there's a way to update the monitor list. This Mac Pro's video chipset is an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, and I notice that SNAP's list of supported NVIDIA chipsets stops at GeForce 6600.

- Dushan

 

The graphics chip support of OS/2 is irrelevant here since it uses an abstraction layer to communicate with the Mac's graphics. The actual graphics implementation is hidden from the OS/2 (or eCS) side.

The monitor selected should be Parallels Vu. When I installed the newest graphics driver on the OS/2 side, it came up with Parallels Vu as the automatically-detected choice. Are you sure you have the latest SNAP driver? It should say "build 505" on the screen settings page. For the monitor, I have checked:

DPMS -- on
GTF -- off
Widescreen -- on
4:3 -- on

monitor selected: Parallels Vu

 

I verified that the monitor selected is Parallels Vu, and that the SNAP build is 505, according to info on page 1 under System Setup -> Screen -> Screen. Also, the video memory is set at 16 MB.

But there is something strange: on page 2 the checked settings are just as you show above, _except_ for 'GTF', which is ON. I've unchecked it, exited, rebooted, gone back to that page, and found it checked again! In fact even without rebooting, I exit 'Local System' entirely after unchecking GTF, then go back in seconds later, and find it checked again. I wonder if this is in some way related to the widescreen resolutions never showing up on the first of the 'Screen' pages.

 

No, your settings are fine. My machine also has GTF checked "on". I was writing from memory earlier. (Guess we proved my memory isn't what it used to be...) My resolutions page shows 4:3 resolutions up to 1600x1200, then 16:10 resolutions of 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200.

I wonder if something didn't get updated properly when you installed the video driver. I had one VM where I couldn't get the video to work no matter what I did. I finally reinstalled it from scratch and it worked perfectly the second time 'round. Hate to sound like the typical tech support monkey, but "have you tried re-installing your operating system sir?" (That's usually how they get rid of me after a couple of hours on the phone... ;-)

-- Joe Barnhart

 

Grin, on your last comment.

No, I haven't tried re-installing SNAP, but I will. Tho re-installing my OS I think I'd give a pass on - too much to re-build. Will let you know what happens.

- Dushan

 

Just to be clear, I propose you reinstall OS/2 or eCS in a virtual machine, not Parallels itself or OS-X. (The latter could be a big effort!) I had one eCS 1.2 machine I could not get to work with widescreen resolutions no matter what I did. I finally nuked it and created a new VM using my installation ISOs for eCS and it works fine now. Just one anecdotal data point...

-- Joe Barnhart

 

I would like to notify you, that we are closely look on this, and developers are working in that direction

 

John, is the stuck clock on the same list? It's really annoying.

 

After finishing one important worksheet I couldn't afford to interrupt, I finally did re-install SNAP and the wide-screen resolutions appeared, just as you suspected they would. So now I'm running full-screen at the monitor's native 1680 x 1050.

One other piece of info I ran across, too late to try it out first, was to use the SNAP tool 'gamode', with parameters '1680 1050 32', to introduce a new resolution. Don't know whether this would have eliminated the need to re-install SNAP.

Joe, thanks much for your help. It's nice to have that extra screen real-estate.

- Dushan

 

Latest Update does nothing better!

Well, after more than 5 months, the Update a few weeks ago did not change anything.
So far I have not switched to Leopard (may skip 10.5 altogether and instead install Snow Leopard aka 10.6).

I am currently on Build 4.0.3844 (Tue, 05 May 2009). Even the readme states, that for OS/2 the drivers should not be installed.

You are close to losing me as a user, OS/2 Support was the main reason for buying Parallels instead of VMWare. Now, there is one other product which supports OS/2, but requires more work during installation.


I also have 2 minor errors with XP which I had not bothered to bring to your attention - but currently I am working at home and the errors where there since the update to V 4 of Parallels. I will use "Report a problem" to get another problem ID.

The problem ID 27467 is still not solved

 

Any progress made? The stuck clock is a major problem for me.

 

And here is the same issue, back in January 2009. That's, what, 7 months ago and still no word on a fix?

 

further fixes by Parallels in doubt

I've gotten an increasingly strong impression that OS/2 and eCS as guests on Parallels ver.4 have been dropped entirely,
so no further fixes will be forthcoming. I hope I'm wrong about this, but here is my reason for thinking so:

Trying to ferret out possible work-arounds to the no-USB and no-clipboard-sharing-with-Mac-host problems, I pored
over the Parallels-provided PDF documentation for ver. 4. The only mention of OS/2 and eComStation in the main
User Guide is in the list of trademarks, and there is _no_ mention of either in the Tools readme.

If any users have stumbled on any solutions the three problems I'm aware of (clock, USB, clipboard), I would much
appreciate learning of them so I could mention them at Warpstock.

- Dushan Mitrovich

 

I'm afraid you are right about the abandonment of OS/2 and eComStation. It's too bad, too, since VMware abandoned OS/2 quite awhile ago. I have submitted a bug report regarding the clock issue and I have been aggressive about asking "how's it coming." All to no avail so far, as nobody in Parallels support will acknowledge or reply.

 

further fixes in doubt

Interesting: my original post with subject "further fixes by Parallels in doubt" was edited (by the moderator I assume).
I had actually spelled out three separate reasons for my impression, and these were deleted. I wonder why. For brevity?
Because one of them named Parallels staff by name? If the latter, the actual names could have been left out but the rest
of the text left alone. Other than possibly the names, I can't see any other reason for the censorship.

- Dushan

 

Parallels still viable?

John@Parallels has not been active since Feb 12, 2009. I've looked at posting histories of other Parallels employees and I'm finding a dearth of active posts from any. It's beginning to look like Parallels has perhaps had a RIF (reduction in force) and they are nursing the product along with a skeleton crew.

I hope I'm wrong.

 

Update 3846 -- still no relief for OS/2

I suppose I'm not surprised. The latest release of Parallels Desktop still doesn't work for OS/2. What bad non-support for a SUPPOSEDLY SUPPORTED GUEST OS. Stuck clock remains stuck forever, I guess.