Parallels Workstation 2.1 for Mac OS X Beta4 is ready for download!

Were are working hard on USB and going to deliver it prior to release.

 

Beta 4: Lockup during install/upgrade, no panic

My iMac Core Duo 1.83GHz locked up during installation of beta 4 just as for previous betas. Is this still expected/known?

That aside, beta4 looks good! I just tried to print, since my last kernel panic under beta 3 occurred during printing. No panics this time, just nice printed output

 

Are need to update the Parallel Tools

Hi,
just curious if there is ever an implicit need to un-install & re-install the Parallel Tools inside my Windows VM instances? I just did this because I was paranoid, but should I assume it isn't necessary unless otherwise stated?

With Beta4, I'm also getting the "another app has already enabled VMX mode" warning. I never saw that with Beta3 but I haven't tracked down which other app might have enabled it.

And thanks for the quick turnaround on the networking kernel panics!

 

1. No need to reinstall Parallels Tools yet. We definetely notify you when it will be needed.
2. Does cold host restart fix "another app has already enabled VMX mode" message?

 

I second this, my MBPro 2.0 locked up during "Finishing installation", only a hard reset helped. Was the first time though, Beta 1,2 and 3 installed fine.

 

Simply beautiful! I've been running XP in beta 4 since yesterday afternoon and haven't seen a single kernel panic. With beta 3 I would get several by noon, even when the machine is sitting idle. The mac/windows integration is BEAUTIFUL! Copying & pasting between the OSes is great.

I also saw the lockup during installation on my MacBook Pro, but it unfroze on its own after a few minutes and finished the installation successfully.

The only thing I don't like is full screen mode is UGLY on my MBP. The screen is blurry at non-native resolutions, plus it screws up the window positions on my mac desktop when it changes screen resolutions. On my iMac, I get the Windows screen centered with a black border - why doesn't it do the same on the MBP? That would be a lot less ugly than switching resolutions. The ideal way would be to change the guest OS resolution to the native resolution when going full screen and switching back when going back to a window.

 

Same here with beta 4, my mac mini locked up solid during install. Hard booted, tried installation again, and it worked fine.

I do have to concur with the statements about the full screen mode - can't wait for the native resolutions. As is, it's not real useful. I need 1920 x 1200 for fullscreen mode with my monitor.

 

Full screen method optimal?

I really appreciate the full screen support and am looking forward to the native resolutions.

When I was playing around with this, I noticed that my hot corners for Expose still work, even though I can't click on a different window and have it end up on top - no big deal there when I am running in full screen.

But this led me to wonder if Parallels is just making a borderless window with exclusive ownership that uses the full screen or if they are taking advantage of the special calls that really dedicates the entire display space to Parallels. From my understanding this second method gives a noticiable performance enhancment to an app that needs excluse access to the full display.

Perhaps this is the case and I just am not understanding things. Works well regardless.

jim

 

I agree with the desire for USB support. I have a USB Floppy Drive and other USB devices I'd really like to use with XP in a VM. Otherwise, this thing is really shaping up nicely, I love it!!!

Steve

 

What is this floppy of which you speak?

 

RE: Apple USB Modem support under WinXP

Given that the bootcamp drivers specifically state the Apple USB Modem will _not_ work, I'd guess there are no WinXP drivers for that device.

 

Andrew, thanks for the info on Parallels Tools.

And yes, a restart of my iMac eliminated the VMX mode message. I tried restarting all the apps that were running at the time I first got the message, and after the reboot even with all of them running, I don't see that message anymore.

Thanks!

 

Spontaneous reboots in OSX Beta 4

I'm relatively new to the Parallels world for the MacIntel. I installed beta 4 a few days ago and have noticed one recurrent problem. I am required by my work to attend a "virtual" meeting once per week. This meeting is video streamed and must be watched using MSIE and WMP 9 or higher. I've got WinXP SP2 installed as the guest OS on my MacBook Pro. When I fire up MSIE and find the video feed, WMP loads and the feed starts playing for about 5 - 8 minutes (typically this feed is 3 hours long). About 10 minutes in, with nothing else going on, I can hear the hard drive start up and all the sounds that go along with rebooting an OSX machine. Then in a span of a few moments, the system reboots, OS X returns and any hint of Parallels having been loaded has vanished. Since this is one of my MAJOR needs for a WinXP install, I'd like to see this software combination work. If it is any comfort, I have problems with this same combination if I use BootCamp. There is something unwholesome about MSIE and WMP that keeps tripping up OS X.

Here's hoping you can get to the bottom of this problem.

 

Thanks - we will try to reproduce.

 

Sorry to interject, but if you are having the problem under Boot Camp, then it has nothing to do with OSX or probably even Parallels, it's a glitch in the interaction of Explorer and WMP. Under Boot Camp you are running straight on the hardware, no emulation at all, and OSX is not even part of the picture.

 

You misunderstand. The spontaneous reboots ONLY occur under Parallels while running MSIE and WMP. The problems with MSiE and WMP in bootcamp are completely different and involve unstable video. I was merely commenting that the combination of MSIE and WMP is toxic to both Parallels and Bootcamp, but in entirely different ways. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer. In Parallels, I don't have any problems with MSIE and WMP streaming the video; just the problem that after about 10 minutes, the machines spontaneously reboots. In Bootcamp, the video quality for MSIE and WMP is so poor that it is useless to try using them.

 

I'm sorry if I wasn't clearer. The problems with MSIE and WMP are completely different in Parallels and BootCamp. In Parallels, the video quality and audio quality work fine; it is just that after about 10 minutes into a stream, the computer spontaneously reboots OSX and returns me to a fresh state. In Bootcamp, MSIE and WMP suffer from garbled video and audio and no amount of tinkering can produce a useable stream. I merely remark that there is something toxic about the combination of MSIE and WMP right now, but that it affects Parallels and Bootcamp in different, but equally unusable ways.

 

Driver support

Will you develop a graphics driver that will enable Windows to visually function the way it would with the correct video driver? Meaning, a native ATI driver? Users would also be able to change their settings to 32 bit instead of 24. Your team is developing fixes and such at an accelerated rate, I figure it is only a matter of time before this software is fully stable and heavily distrubuted.

Keep up the good work!

 

Does Beta 4 support sound input??.

Thanks ^_^.

--
Isaacj

 

Unfortunately not. But this feature is in our roadmap.