Carolyn AnnG
Bit poster
I just thought I'd share the saga of my Parallels/Windows XP install...
I run OS X 10.6.2, on a Core Duo CPU, with a gig of RAM and a 75GB that's partitioned for one reason or another. The machine belongs to my wife. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, my MacBook gave a little "pfft!" and keeled over, little rubber feet sticking up into the air, with not even a Sad Mac on the screen. So I have to be careful - she would not be happy if her Mac stopped working, too.
For a variety of reasons, I need to use TurboCAD 12, some old home design apps and I'd also like to use AutoCAD 97LT - all of which run on Windows XP. I have my original XP upgrade disk, the old Windows 98 (full version) and a Windows Me upgrade, too. I decided to use the XP upgrade and the full version of 98. Along with Parallels 5.
I chose that because I've used Parallels before; I used Parallels 2 a few years ago, but as I haven't had any reason to use a Windows program since then, I haven't had a reason to use any other version of Parallels. I did try VMWare Fusion, once. But since my last experience with their parent company (EMC) was "not exactly amicable", I absolutely refuse to give them any more of my money. So, Parallels 5 it is.
Heading over to my nearest Mac store, I grabbed a copy of Parallels. Well, I would have, but none were out on the shelves. A chap came over, and after asking what I wanted, headed to the back room. He returned a little over a week later... (Okay, 20 minutes.) With a copy of Parallels 5! I grabbed it, paid for it, and skipped out the door.
Getting home, I opened the box - it's got a solid "rattle" to it. There's a printed manual in it! Things are looking up. I haven't seen a printed manual in a box for ages! I read it. Cover to cover. Literally. (The plot needs some work...)
The manual states that Parallels installs its virtual machines in /Users/user_name/Documents/Parallels. Oh... That's not good.
For one reason or another, I have a smallish partition set aside for Snow Leopard. Also, I don't perceive the guest OS's to be documents - they're operating systems! The /Users/user_name bit is okay, but after that - forget it. To compensate for the small home partition, I have a 320GB Firewire drive attached to the Mac. I decided to create two folders on it: "Disk Images" and "Parallels". The latter would be aliased to /Users/Carolyn/Virtual Machines. That took about 3 seconds to setup. (Note: it's not a Unix-level link; it's a Mac alias.)
I should note that my Carolyn folder is where I put my wiki development database (it's under Carolyn/Data/mysql) and my subversion repository (Carolyn/Repository). So it seemed reasonable to put the Virtual Machine folder there, too. If I had a larger disk drive, the folder wouldn't be an alias.
I installed Parallels from the 'net; it seemed the best thing to do. I then created a disk image for Windows XP upgrade and Windows 98. The book was useless for this. After a couple of missteps, I finally had my images, and I connected to it, and started the install from Parallels "New Windows Installation". I pointed it at the Carolyn/Virtual Machines/ "folder", and Parallels did its thing. XP asked for the Windows 98 disk. I wondered how I could connect the Windows 98 upgrade when it asked. It took me a moment, but I figured if I do a disconnect/connect, all should be well. The virtual machine froze. Hmm... I deleted all the files. I tried again, this time with the real CD's. I guessed that if I suspend the virtual machine, I should be able to swap the disks. That worked. I did it again to put the upgrade disk in. Meanwhile the book mentions nothing of this. Windows installs lots of files, and tells me it's starting on its reboot career. It froze. Hard. I let it sit for a couple of hours, in case it was just really slow. Nope, it was hosed.
Over the next couple of days, I tried various combinations. They all froze at the first reboot of the Windows install. It got really irritating. I clicked on "Report a problem" a few times, submitting "reports" (vents, really). Apart from an automated response (what, you really expect me to write down that reference number?), I think they vanished into the same place lost emails and socks eaten by the dryer can be found. I was reminded of Adobe's and Apple's "report a problem" systems - they don't bother responding to anguished cries, either.
Now, I didn't want frozen VM's littering my hard drive; I also didn't want them residing in the Trash. The files, however, are in locked purgatory until you reboot. There is literally no other way of getting them out of the Trash; you have to reboot, that frees the file locks (due to the way Snow Leopard shuts down), and once restarted, you can empty the trash. This got so annoying I almost did a quick and dirty Automator action.
By this time I was giving serious thought to Parallels 90-day money-back guarantee. And then I remembered something from older Mac programs and some Windows apps: no spaces in folder names.
I know I should be more fastidious, and test each permutation, but, frankly, I want a working system. Parallels is not paying me to develop an install method. Parallels is not paying me at all; I paid them $80 for the software. So I did a few things in one go. I trashed Parallels; I figured it might help to use the copy on the CD. I accepted Parallels odious, to me, placement in my Documents folder and I went directly to the drive images. (I forgot about the space in "Drive Images"; fortunately, it didn't seem to matter. Oh - Parallels also said it was putting the Windows "Start" icon in my Dock; I've yet to see it.) Back to the install. It took the system about 4 unexpected virtual reboots, but I finally had Windows XP running!
I was so elated I had a glass of wine to celebrate.
I'm now building up the courage to move the VM to where I want it, and see if it still works. I'll let you know...
Carolyn Ann
I run OS X 10.6.2, on a Core Duo CPU, with a gig of RAM and a 75GB that's partitioned for one reason or another. The machine belongs to my wife. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, my MacBook gave a little "pfft!" and keeled over, little rubber feet sticking up into the air, with not even a Sad Mac on the screen. So I have to be careful - she would not be happy if her Mac stopped working, too.
For a variety of reasons, I need to use TurboCAD 12, some old home design apps and I'd also like to use AutoCAD 97LT - all of which run on Windows XP. I have my original XP upgrade disk, the old Windows 98 (full version) and a Windows Me upgrade, too. I decided to use the XP upgrade and the full version of 98. Along with Parallels 5.
I chose that because I've used Parallels before; I used Parallels 2 a few years ago, but as I haven't had any reason to use a Windows program since then, I haven't had a reason to use any other version of Parallels. I did try VMWare Fusion, once. But since my last experience with their parent company (EMC) was "not exactly amicable", I absolutely refuse to give them any more of my money. So, Parallels 5 it is.
Heading over to my nearest Mac store, I grabbed a copy of Parallels. Well, I would have, but none were out on the shelves. A chap came over, and after asking what I wanted, headed to the back room. He returned a little over a week later... (Okay, 20 minutes.) With a copy of Parallels 5! I grabbed it, paid for it, and skipped out the door.
Getting home, I opened the box - it's got a solid "rattle" to it. There's a printed manual in it! Things are looking up. I haven't seen a printed manual in a box for ages! I read it. Cover to cover. Literally. (The plot needs some work...)
The manual states that Parallels installs its virtual machines in /Users/user_name/Documents/Parallels. Oh... That's not good.
For one reason or another, I have a smallish partition set aside for Snow Leopard. Also, I don't perceive the guest OS's to be documents - they're operating systems! The /Users/user_name bit is okay, but after that - forget it. To compensate for the small home partition, I have a 320GB Firewire drive attached to the Mac. I decided to create two folders on it: "Disk Images" and "Parallels". The latter would be aliased to /Users/Carolyn/Virtual Machines. That took about 3 seconds to setup. (Note: it's not a Unix-level link; it's a Mac alias.)
I should note that my Carolyn folder is where I put my wiki development database (it's under Carolyn/Data/mysql) and my subversion repository (Carolyn/Repository). So it seemed reasonable to put the Virtual Machine folder there, too. If I had a larger disk drive, the folder wouldn't be an alias.
I installed Parallels from the 'net; it seemed the best thing to do. I then created a disk image for Windows XP upgrade and Windows 98. The book was useless for this. After a couple of missteps, I finally had my images, and I connected to it, and started the install from Parallels "New Windows Installation". I pointed it at the Carolyn/Virtual Machines/ "folder", and Parallels did its thing. XP asked for the Windows 98 disk. I wondered how I could connect the Windows 98 upgrade when it asked. It took me a moment, but I figured if I do a disconnect/connect, all should be well. The virtual machine froze. Hmm... I deleted all the files. I tried again, this time with the real CD's. I guessed that if I suspend the virtual machine, I should be able to swap the disks. That worked. I did it again to put the upgrade disk in. Meanwhile the book mentions nothing of this. Windows installs lots of files, and tells me it's starting on its reboot career. It froze. Hard. I let it sit for a couple of hours, in case it was just really slow. Nope, it was hosed.
Over the next couple of days, I tried various combinations. They all froze at the first reboot of the Windows install. It got really irritating. I clicked on "Report a problem" a few times, submitting "reports" (vents, really). Apart from an automated response (what, you really expect me to write down that reference number?), I think they vanished into the same place lost emails and socks eaten by the dryer can be found. I was reminded of Adobe's and Apple's "report a problem" systems - they don't bother responding to anguished cries, either.
Now, I didn't want frozen VM's littering my hard drive; I also didn't want them residing in the Trash. The files, however, are in locked purgatory until you reboot. There is literally no other way of getting them out of the Trash; you have to reboot, that frees the file locks (due to the way Snow Leopard shuts down), and once restarted, you can empty the trash. This got so annoying I almost did a quick and dirty Automator action.
By this time I was giving serious thought to Parallels 90-day money-back guarantee. And then I remembered something from older Mac programs and some Windows apps: no spaces in folder names.
I know I should be more fastidious, and test each permutation, but, frankly, I want a working system. Parallels is not paying me to develop an install method. Parallels is not paying me at all; I paid them $80 for the software. So I did a few things in one go. I trashed Parallels; I figured it might help to use the copy on the CD. I accepted Parallels odious, to me, placement in my Documents folder and I went directly to the drive images. (I forgot about the space in "Drive Images"; fortunately, it didn't seem to matter. Oh - Parallels also said it was putting the Windows "Start" icon in my Dock; I've yet to see it.) Back to the install. It took the system about 4 unexpected virtual reboots, but I finally had Windows XP running!
I was so elated I had a glass of wine to celebrate.
I'm now building up the courage to move the VM to where I want it, and see if it still works. I'll let you know...
Carolyn Ann
Virtualization technology could sometimes be difficult and we spend a lot of time making it as easy to use as possible. In your case we obviously didn't do our job properly, please help us to understand how could we improve.