Very Slow Startup for Parallels 5

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by rmansfield, Nov 4, 2009.

  1. LawrenceD

    LawrenceD Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    Hello Tim. My Problem ID is 1800516..

    I have installed release 9308 and this problem still persists. Please could we get some answers on this. I have gone as far as removing Parallels completely and starting from scratch - this hasn't helped either.
     
  2. NathanielA

    NathanielA Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Same problem

    5.0 starts up for me in a couple of minutes, but it takes forever to have any of my programs start up. Took almost 10 minutes until Internet Explorer started.
     
  3. Mike Weis

    Mike Weis Junior Member

    Messages:
    16
    Very Slow

    Parallels 5 is much slower for me than P4. Also, it seems like every time I start Parallels, a Time Machine backup starts, making matters worse. I had thought this a coincidence, but it has happened at least a dozen times now.
     
  4. TravisS

    TravisS Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    I'm running Parallels 5 (latest version) with Windows 7 (64 bit) on a late 2009 27" iMac. Windows 7 was installed in Boot Camp, and I've told Parallels to use the boot camp partition. Parallels itself launches very quickly (if I launch the program without starting a virtual machine). But booting to my Windows 7 virtual machine takes FOREVER (sometimes up to 10 minutes). I have iStat menus installed and the hard drive read speed is very slow when the virtual machine is loading. Once everything is booted, Windows 7 runs fine unless it has to access the hard drive. It's not a memory problem as I have an 8GB system and have dedicated 4GB to Parallels (4GB to Parallels and 3.5 GB to Windows 7).

    Everything that is loaded into memory in Windows 7 is fast. I can even play games and the GPU runs very well. The game will take forever to load, but once it's loaded, it runs fast. So I'm positive this is a hard drive and/or file access problem. I have read elsewhere that perhaps the problem is because of lack of Boot Camp drivers for Windows 7. But I'm not sure why this would be causing slow HD access. Could be a HFS/NTFS issue of some sort? Again, I see the HD light blinking the entire time (in the Parallels status bar in the virtual machine window) Windows 7 is booting, but the actual read speed is very slow (1MB/sec or less at times).

    Strangely, there have been a few times (probably less than 5% of the time) where Windows 7 starts very quickly, so I know it can be done. But something is bottle-necking the hard drive and I've made sure nothing else is accessing the HD while Windows 7 is booting, and there is plenty of memory.

    Any other ideas?
     
  5. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    Hello, could you please start your VM, then generate the problem report, and send me the number in private message?

    Top menu -> Help -> Report a problem

    Thank you!
     
  6. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    To all,

    First of all I would like to say, PD5 is faster than PD4 in almost all cases, so if you meet performance problem, this obviously mean something is going wrong... Unfortunately this thread has too much posts, so it's quite inconvenient to reply to all messages in single thread.

    So If you have time and willingness to participate in deeper problem research, please write me direct e-mail (could be found in my private information) with problem description (and problem report ID), so we can discuss details in private order.
     
  7. Pagemakers

    Pagemakers Member

    Messages:
    96
    Re-installing Parallels Tools appeared to fix it for me.
     
  8. Alexander Safonoff

    Alexander Safonoff Junior Member

    Messages:
    17
    Workaround Used In Beta Version

    I am running Windows2000 with latest Snow Leopard O/S.

    I had very slow loading Windows2000 problems in the Beta version
    (http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=384385#post384385)

    Temporary workaround - Shutdown VM, go to VM config and change OS Type from Win2000 to WinXP.
     
  9. Nathaniel Akerman

    Nathaniel Akerman Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    The number is 2207158

    The number is 2207158. Thank you
     
  10. MaSc

    MaSc Member

    Messages:
    40
    I can confirm that manually unmounting bootcamp fixes slow startup in parallels for bootcamp at least, even though I have excluded bootcamp partition in spotlight preferences.
     
  11. SheldonS

    SheldonS Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    same problem

    I have installed a fresh version of Parallels 6 on an iMac quadcore running 10.6.5 and Parallels takes forever and a day to launch.
    Solution until this is fixed is to download a free copy of Virtual Box.
     
  12. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    Hello, Sheldon, your message is very important for us. Of course PD6 mustn't be so slow, so it looks like something is definitely going wrong.

    Could you please start your VM, then generate the problem report, and send me the number in private message or in this thread?

    Top menu -> Help -> Report a problem

    Thank you!
     
  13. swainjo

    swainjo Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    Me too, if any support staff listening.

    over 7 minutes to start from suspend

    tried most things on this thread - no joy.

    Problem ID: 7652920
    Errors in Console: http://www.screencast.com/t/aau3CexNR8

    Migrated from VMWare for (marginal) performance gains now get this - runs like a dog. Big mistake.
     
  14. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    swainjo, thank you for the report. I wrote you a private message that could explain what happened when you started VM. Please let me know if I was wrong and problem is reproducible.
     
  15. TrafficJan82

    TrafficJan82 Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    15 minutes to load Windows. Computer remained unresponsive after that for another 10 minutes.

    Problem ID: 8045784

    I'll be installing VirtualBox tonight until this is resolved and won't come back to Parallels until this is solved. I can't lose half an hour of work time just because I need to test a website in IE.
     
  16. DarrylZ

    DarrylZ Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    15 second startup, finally!

    My Parallels 5 was taking 2-3 minutes to launch and then to get Windows XP woken from sleep. Now it's down to 15 seconds until I can start working on XP.

    I used partial solutions from this thread:

    1. Put the VM file into Spotlight's Privacy tab, so that Spotlight doesn't try to index the virtual machine, which never seemed to have useful Spotlight results anyway.

    Spotlight Preferences -> Privacy tab -> Click "+" -> Navigate to ~/Parallels and click "Choose"

    2. I dragged all my XP Desktop aliases and files into a new folder, and put that on my desktop. There's about 20 or 30 files, lots of aliases to useful network share locations, etc. I left *one* alias on my desktop, the one I use most often now. Having lots of Start menu shortcuts and Taskbar shortcuts doesn't seem to have the same startup time penalty as desktop aliases.

    It might be just a caching speedup, but it's only about 15 seconds until I can get to work in XP. Hope this helps someone else too.

    Darryl
     
  17. TrafficJan82

    TrafficJan82 Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    I wish that worked for me.

    I've got the Parallels Folder excluded in Spotlight already, and I don't have any aliases on my desktop...

    Edit:

    I just had some MAJOR success with partially isolating Windows.

    First, I tried isolating the VM completely - and bootup time for Windows was suddenly down to 10 seconds!

    I then carefully re-enabled it partially, and things are still speedy - I suppose the problem may be that my VM was inside my Documents/Parallels Folder - which was shared between the VM and my Mac. This may have caused a loop maybe? I suppose it may be a hint where Parallels Support can start tackling the problem.

    Hopefully, this helps someone!

    (By the way, here is the option you need: Configure your VM, and go to the "Shared Folders" Tab. Select "None" from the Dropdown, but select "Access Windows Folders from Mac", so you at least have some file sharing between the machines. Not perfect, but better than 45 minutes of bootup time).
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2011
  18. WinnieW

    WinnieW Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    Count me in as one more person with this problem on Parallels 6, on two different machines where I recently installed it. I just reported the problem: 8077776. I can't believe you've had this problem this long without providing a solution. PLEASE tell me the best path to fixing this or working around it. It is crippling our law office.
     
  19. dgibson

    dgibson Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    I've been using Parallels 5 for awhile and had this same problem come up yesterday. I used Drive Genius to verify permissions on my hard drive and Parallels works fine now. I backed up my hard drive before doing this. I was also prepared to defrag the hard drive but didn't need to. It wasn't Parallel's fault in this case, just my computer's. Hope this helps.
     
  20. WinnieW

    WinnieW Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    responding

    I have repaired disk permissions and saw no improvement. I did exclude the vm from spotlight, and that made it so that my apple operating system isn't all locked up while parallels starts up. But, parallels is still taking an enormous amount of time (5-10 minutes) until I can do anything within it.
     

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