The Washington Post says Parallels is bad...

dkp said:
Your post was a summary, Val, and you left out a significant element. One that has created a great deal of interest, I might add. Bringing it to your attention is hardly a breach of netiquette. And will you please stop your feeble attempts to shepherd the conversation. It is not yours to guide.
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I didn't write a summary nor did I "leave out a significant element". I opened with "..an interesting ASPECT of this..."

I suspect that you may be looking at your mirror again -- you shepherded the conversation BACK TO the "awfulness of Parallels".

I think we ALL know that you think the implementation is wrong, Parallels was and still remains wrong (esp in not posting prominent warnings of some sort somewhere), and, and...

And the reason that Windows' market share is relevant is partially becaue a major market for this and similar products will be current Windows' users who want to migrate to Mac-based systems.

Perhaps you are minimizing that somewhat?
 
I'm going to ignore your inaccurate rant and lack of that same netiquette you espouse and because I like you and your energy and passion for what you do, give you this humorous tidbit regarding a rather serious security flaw in Solaris. You won't be affected by the flaw, but may be humored by the tone of the debate. I'm reminded of that cute little girl and the braying draft pony :)

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/12/1118248.shtml

And life being unfair like it is, there is a worrying note from CERT about a Windows exploit that will require patching - even if you're running in Parallels:

http://www.cert.org/

See Technical Cyber Security Alert TA07-044A.
 
Since GFS doesn't provide any privileged access to your system, the only difference between GFS and any other slice of the mac file system exposed by Parallels Tools is where the mount point is.

* It's not an extraordinary exposure.

* It should, however, be explicitly visible to the user and exlicitly enabled like any other mount point.
 
drval said:
But it appears that you may be minimizing, if not ignoring, the very real desire of many WIndows users to have such interoperability be as easy to use and implement as possible.
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I don't agree that most Windows users want that level of interoperability. This has been my major issue with 3120/3150 builds. It I want to run Windows perfectly, I'll run bootcamp. I run Mac OS X largely because it is a more secure environment relatively free of the swarm of viruses and spyware which plague the Windows world. The last thing I want is to corrupt by whole reason for using a Mac by letting Windows harm my Mac file system. I also have an issue with Parallels where Parallels is consuming 20-60% of the CPU even when the Windows VM is idle and reporting 0% CPU utilization.
I'm afraid that many WIndows users don't realize the implications of things like GFS.

I've been dissapointed that Parallels has known about both of these issues since 3120 and hasn't corrected either one. Makes me worry if they will before they release the final version. I've since reverted back to 1970 until they correct them.
 
Resuna said:
Since GFS doesn't provide any privileged access to your system, the only difference between GFS and any other slice of the mac file system exposed by Parallels Tools is where the mount point is.

* It's not an extraordinary exposure.

* It should, however, be explicitly visible to the user and exlicitly enabled like any other mount point.
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It is extraordinary for it's unannounced presence and scope, and what it allows. Imagine installing any piece of software on one machine and discovering it has created a tunnel into the workstation on the next desk. It is extraordinary for what it allows, given you are not warned it is there at all. These are not ordinary things at all.
 
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The way it was introduced is a separate issue from the functionality itself. It's not at all unusual for computers in the same organiztion to have full access, subject to file permissions, to files on each others drives. Two operating systems running on the same computer certainly qualify as "in the same organization" and unless you're setting up one machine as a sandbox this is normal.

The thing is, of course, that Parallels *is* advertised as a sandbox, and so by default should behave like one. But once that's taken care of the feature itself shouldn't be an issue. And that's all I meant.
 
Resuna said:
The way it was introduced is a separate issue from the functionality itself. It's not at all unusual for computers in the same organiztion to have full access, subject to file permissions, to files on each others drives. Two operating systems running on the same computer certainly qualify as "in the same organization" and unless you're setting up one machine as a sandbox this is normal.

The thing is, of course, that Parallels *is* advertised as a sandbox, and so by default should behave like one. But once that's taken care of the feature itself shouldn't be an issue. And that's all I meant.
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Which, of course, it is (or CAN BE if you prefer) by setting GFS off. I'm still wondering if changing that single setting will actually "resolve" the issue. I really don't think it will and I think that's because of some fundamentally different starting points when considering the "added value" of Parallels, esp to a Windows user but also to a typical Mac user who wants/needs the use fairly often and easily of a Windows-only program.

In my book Boot Camp -- while good in many ways -- fails the test for interoperability. It's more effective to have separate Windows and Mac systems and then do "sneaker net" or some form of networking, etc.

I do want to reiterate that the real problem comes from the internet and removable media. To really have a completely "safe" white room you need to not use the internet and not use removable media. Once you allow the "contact" possibilities emerge so, if you're going to allow the "contact" follow the rules of thumb developed by the Windows community to protect itself.
 
We're listening to you

Dear Users,

We're constantly listening to your comments and proposals on our products. In this case we see that true drag-and-drop feature was tested an proved to be working. Now we're disabling it by default and leave the decision to you to either switch true drag-and-drop on or stay with simply copying files to a Windows virtual disk. More than that in case of dragging the file from your Desktop, Documents folder or anywhere within your home folder we offer sharing of only home folder with Windows. This is called Local sharing. Of course, you also have the complete control on both Global and Local sharing features in the configuration editor.

Please, keep posting you proposals, difficulties and comments on this forum or email them to beta@parallels.com.


Best regards,
Nick

P.S. Here's an extract from our announcement of the Release Candidate 3:

* Global Sharing option is now disabled by default. We believe the feature has received enough testing already. From now on, you make the decision to enable real drag-and-drop or not. The new behavior is :

* On your first drag and drop attempt you will be prompted to choose whether you’d like to enable Global/Local sharing or just copy the file to Windows.

* The difference between Global and Local sharing are:
**Global Sharing - shares the whole Mac filesystem.
**Local Sharing - shares only your Home folder(a nice enhancement request we had received from beta testers.)

NOTE! Global sharing is forcibly disabled for all existing RC1 and RC2 installations upon RC3 upgrade.
 
nick083 said:
Dear Users,
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Great!
I hope my other major problem has also been resolved. RC1 and RC2 consume 20-60% of CPU when Windows is idle. Unlike GFS I haven't found a configuration option to return it to build 1970 levels where Parallels consumes 5-10% of CPU when Windows is idle...
 
Mine is running at 13% unless I am using Firefox in Windows. It's the best I've seen for idle cpu with XP running, and the memory footprint is pretty much unchanged.

Edit:

I should add that I have gone through my Windows services manager and shut down everything possible that still allows Windows to run. Wiindows does an astonishing number of things while you're not paying attention, and I really don't need the bulk of it, and possibly many of you also don't need it.

There are web sites out there that provide guidelines for deciding what to stop and what to allow, and it's well worth looking into. This should probably be added to the list started by someone for improving performance of Parallels. It's often more a case of making the VM more efficient rather than anything Parallels is doing.
 
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dkp said:
Mine is running at 13% unless I am using Firefox in Windows. It's the best I've seen for idle cpu with XP running, and the memory footprint is pretty much unchanged.

Edit:

I should add that I have gone through my Windows services manager and shut down everything possible that still allows Windows to run. Wiindows does an astonishing number of things while you're not paying attention, and I really don't need the bulk of it, and possibly many of you also don't need it.

There are web sites out there that provide guidelines for deciding what to stop and what to allow, and it's well worth looking into. This should probably be added to the list started by someone for improving performance of Parallels. It's often more a case of making the VM more efficient rather than anything Parallels is doing.
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I tried RC3 with my configuration. Mac OS X reports ~16% CPU utilization when Windows is idle. This is a big improvement over RC1 which reported 20-60%. However its still unnecessarily higher than the 5.8% I'm getting with 1970 running the same VM.
Idle CPU utilization affects how long my Macbook battery will last. I don't particularly need any of the new features in RC3, so for my needs and particular use, I'm going to stick with 1970 for the mean time.

I'm running WIndows 2000 with the latest fixes, running proxy+ and our corporate VPN. Nothing else is installed or running (other than default services). I'm striving to wean myself completely from Windows when our corporate VPN finally gets ported to Mac OS X.
 
I'm quite fortunate in that the only time I'm on batteries and need Windows is when I'm on my Harley, on a road trip, and need to stop in a gas station to check streets and trips to see why I'm lost and where I need to go to get unlost. I understand where you're coming from, though. I hate that feeling of panic when you're 95% through responding to a critical email and the battery monitor is going through death throes.
 
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