Quality Support

H

HendelTBD

Bit poster
I submitted a trouble ticket earlier this week, regarding problems installing Parallels Tools into a Boot Camp VM. Today I received a reply, sending me to download a new version just released. Fair enough - it even seems to have solved my problem.

What I'm concerned about is the message I received, and what it says about how Parallels is doing business these days. It's entirely possible that the individual who wrote this message isn't just competent, but a damned technical genius. I doubt that, but it's possible. However, the way this message is written reminds me of nothing so much as the slew of awkwardly phrased spams, trojans, and phishing scams that arrive in my email daily, trying to hoodwink me into downloading the malware du jour. Even if this fellow *is* a technical genius, if my problem wasn't a quick and simple fix, sooner or later we'd inevitably have had problems communicating. Trying to sort out technical problems can be difficult enough, without adding language barriers to the mix. Outsourced support isn't always a problem - some of the best support I've ever received came from Cisco's group in Australia. But warm and fuzzy isn't the feeling I got from this.

Here's the message I received:

Thank you for Contacting Parallel Techincal Support Team

Today we published new update, which is right now available at

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=31764
The most of problem were fixed.
Please navigate to that link, and download build 3540
In post there are various instructions, how to fix problems.
 
Unfortunately I've now abanonded the Parallels platform completely. I've never managed to get DRM video working with Parallels 4 despite a series of emails back and forth between Support and no resolution has been found. The new build does nothing.

They suggested I re-install Vista with the new build ("in case of any corruption") and that's when I decided to stop messing about and go back to VMware (especially as I had a talk with a Sunday Times journalist in the UK about video on demand systems and had to refer to VMware rather than Parallels because it just didn't work!).

That's the last £32 they're getting from me. I can understand that if I were using the beta that going to all the trouble of troubleshooting and re-installing would be worth my while. But as I've PAID to upgrade to version 4.0 and intended on using the VM in a production environment, this is inexcusable.
 
Dear HendelTBD,

Does Parallels Desktop update (3540) fix the problem?

Best regards,
Alexander
 
HendelTBD said:
Thank you for Contacting Parallel Techincal Support Team

Today we published new update, which is right now available at

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=31764
The most of problem were fixed.
Please navigate to that link, and download build 3540
In post there are various instructions, how to fix problems.
Click to expand...

Pretty bad indeed. It sounds to me like Parallels may have outsourced their development to a country where English is not spoken very well.
 
In my experience, video playback under Parallels has always been a lost cause - you just get obscure error messages that are impossible to troubleshoot, until you ultimately realize that Parallels is missing some sort of DirectX support or other underlying graphics functionality. (I'm speaking in terms of Parallels 3 and earlier, since I still can't get version 4 to work at all.)

Video often works in VM Ware, although the performance isn't very good.

However, I do have to point out that most EULAs for Windows say something like, "If you run it in a virtual environment, you may not use any DRM content." I don't remember the exact wording and it may well be legally unenforceable anyway, but it's worth taking into consideration.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top