Vista Aero in Parallels?

Leo Laporte mentioned on one of his podcasts that his 3GHz Mac Pro with 4GB RAM and ATI X1900 ran Vista with Aero support using the latest Parallels. Is the reason his Vista install was able to do Aero because of his computer's muscle or because the latest Parallels build has better hardware implementation than the previous version? My 2.66 GHz Mac Pro with the stock graphics card and 2GB RAM did not do Aero when I had Vista RC1 installed in Parallels.

 

Leo is either confused, or running a version of Parallels that the rest of us don't have access to yet. To the best of my knowledge, the current release version of Parallels (1940) won't do 3D graphics, which are required for Aero.

On my 2.66Ghz Mac pro (I have 2 gig of RAM and the X1900 card), I can run Vista RC2 via Bootcamp and get the Aero interface with no problem, but not on Parallels. With Parallels, I get the non-Aero graphics.

 

Thanks for the reply. Hard to believe he would be confused, but if your machine won't do it, mine definitely won't either.

 

I heard Leo say the same thing and yes, it is hard to believe that he would think he was viewing the Aero experience when in fact, he was not.

 

I hadn't heard what he was doing since TechTV went under, is there a link to contact him? Maybe ask him which build of Parallels he's using?

 

he's the busiest guy on the net, with podcasting. try http://www.twit.tv

i think he's doing some great shows, especially TWiT (this week in tech, with dvorak and other big heads), Security Now with Steve Gibson, Paul Thurrotts Windows Weekly and the Daily Giz Whiz with Dick DeBartolo (Mad Magazine).

If you are missing those, get subscribed on iTunes or download from twit.tv. They are great for your commute to work.

The rest of the (podcast) shows I pretty much skip. I think he has about 14 a week now!

I'm pretty sure the people here are referring to his mentions of Parallels on TWiT as well as Security Now, since Steve Gibson did 4 podcasts on Virtualization.

Last podcast, he said he for sure doesn't have Aero, which is correct. And he's using the latest RC which is 1940 on a Mac Pro with 4gb ram.

 

OK, thanks for the info. I'll check out his podcasts.

 

I just found this post as I was wonderingwhy my Vista RC1 didn't look quite right - as in it wasn't doing the aero thang.

Is this something that is likely to be fixed in future updates of Parallels or is that simply not possible because of Mac Hardware or RAM issues? Just wanna understand why it's not giving the full aero look

 

Parallels is the recent version does NOT support graphic acceleration or DirectX meaning Vistas Aero effect cannot be displayed yet. That was more than once written here in the forum and I can conform it with my own tryouts of Vista. For the time being I see no reason for installing Vista...

 

I'm using Vista Enterprise edition under latest Parallels on a MBP 17" 2.16Ghz Core Duo (not Core 2), and Aero isn't enabled, although Vista is snappy.

It's basically XP with prettier icons and more wasted screen real estate. I have yet to find anything in this that would compel me to upgrade my existing XP systems....

-p