When will a new PRODUCTION release happen?

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PToomeyJr

Member
Guys/Gals,
This beta, RC1, RC2, and RC3 has been interesting and to some degree enertaining and fun, but am I the only one who is tired of all the disclaimers, bugs, and nuances that do not work? I don't remember when release 1970 actually occurred, but don't we deserve a prodcution release by now? Come on Parallels, act responsibly and put together a full-fledged production release that actually works. I like your concept, but it is pretty hard for me to believe that exploiting the advantages of virtual machine that Intel designed into the chipset is this difficult to pull off.

Patrick Toomey
Victor, Montana
 
The way I see it is that version 2.5 is 99% done. At least for me the build 3170 is working perfectly. In fact 3170 is working better for me than Parallels' final version of 1970 did I think.

However there's a lot of people are still having problems with build 3170 unfortunately for some reason or another.

So I'll say lets give Parallels another week or so to really concentrate on the stabilization of version 2.5.

BTW, the 1970 was released on November 1st if I remember right. :)
 
Um.. yeah.. like Nokia PC Suite + USB.

Like all the USB bugs.

Nokia PC Suite still doesn't work correctly with RC3. :(

Yes, some of us would like to back up our phone data. That's all I use it for.
 
3170 works well for me too. There are some problems, mostly minor, the only show stopper right now is XP VM fails to start if there is a USB drive attached. I hope they will fix that before official release.
 
sidssp said:
3170 works well for me too. There are some problems, mostly minor, the only show stopper right now is XP VM fails to start if there is a USB drive attached. I hope they will fix that before official release.
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As this is the last free 'upgrade' the final product should deliver on every bullet point in the sales brochures and web page announcements. Anything less is unacceptable. They're not there yet.
 
PToomeyJr said:
I like your concept, but it is pretty hard for me to believe that exploiting the advantages of virtual machine that Intel designed into the chipset is this difficult to pull off.
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Well, it was too difficult for Microsoft - they dropped Virtual PC.

And VPC had at least four competitors, one being open source - none have come out with a virtualization option.
 
dkp said:
As this is the last free 'upgrade' the final product should deliver on every bullet point in the sales brochures and web page announcements. Anything less is unacceptable. They're not there yet.
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Right, but HOPEFULLY they'll get there VERY SOON.

I know that programming is slow. It has been more than four months with three betas and with three RCs. This is getting kind of ridiculous IMHO.
 
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Cut them some slack. Software development is not something you can just decide to get completed if there are problems to be ironed out. A lot of the time actually finding the problem before you can even fix it takes so long.

There are so many thinks to think about:

* Getting it to work with numerous guest operating systems (Just why are so many people eager to use Vista? I thought the reason for using Parallels was to run your Windows apps that do not exist on the Mac. I don't know of productivity apps that are Vista only?)

* There are numerous USB devices they are trying to get to work with the product - often some of these devices would not run smoothly on a range of dedicated Windows computers.

I'm sure there are other areas too which we can all think about.
 
BeyondCloister said:
* Getting it to work with numerous guest operating systems (Just why are so many people eager to use Vista? I thought the reason for using Parallels was to run your Windows apps that do not exist on the Mac. I don't know of productivity apps that are Vista only?)
.
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Some folks just want a Windows subsystem on their Macs, and some of want an isolated Windows environment -- a real Windows machine, for testing all sorts of things, and for running actual Windows because we aren't platform partisans. It isn't just apps, it's the whole environment.

But I agree that unless you need to test something under Vista to be sure it works, Vista isn't a good choice and won't be until at least two service packs come out (judging by MS history).
 
joem said:
Some folks just want a Windows subsystem on their Macs, and some of want an isolated Windows environment -- a real Windows machine, for testing all sorts of things, and for running actual Windows because we aren't platform partisans. It isn't just apps, it's the whole environment.

But I agree that unless you need to test something under Vista to be sure it works, Vista isn't a good choice and won't be until at least two service packs come out (judging by MS history).
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Please no running of native Windows in Parallels except if you have bootcamp and switch to running native Windows from there.

Otherwise my Mac Morse code system wouldn't work in Parallels.

Please just add to your great virtualnation technology into your later versions like 3D and 64-bit, so on. That way Parallels can be always compatible with my Mac Morse code system and improving itself simultaneously.
 
veggiedude said:
Well, it was too difficult for Microsoft - they dropped Virtual PC.

And VPC had at least four competitors, one being open source - none have come out with a virtualization option.
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VMWare has a OSX beta application right now. Let's not forget who the leader in the market is.
 
I've been using since the first beta and for work and play and have had no significant issues. I think it's unfair to make out that the betas don't work. yes there are issues - they are betas but these are by far the best betas of products I have ever used.
 
I use the beta at least 3 days/week from 9:00 am to 5:00pm to run windows and do VS2005, outlook, word and excel stuff. I have never suffered any problems. And this is by running the parallel desktop in full screen mode on my second monitor.

Of course, I do not have any USB device other then my external HD which contains my parallels sessions, my trackball and my iPod. But for me at least the Beta's have been very reliable.
 
I pray parallels ignores this threaad entirely and focuses on making the product better and releasing it when the quality is right. The new functionality added to this release is AMAZING in this industry. And to the not-so-educated person who thinks Intel's VT chips make this easy .. that's just laughable. The only thing those chips do is add some support for scheduling and execution of native CPU instructions. It does nothing for network, video, USB, disk IO etc, etc.

Beta 3 is not ready for primetime. There are significant issues that should be resolved first.
 
I too have been using the beta without any show stopping issues (i.e. no crashes or such things). It may not be perfect but it is much smoother than my Windows laptop.

I've been using it both wired and wirelessly on various networks. I've got several printers hanging off it. Softwarewise I've been using various MS Office applications, Visual Studio, web browsers, design software and OpenGL based GIS applications.

I've had issues with a couple of USB devices (graphics tablet, Logitech Digital Pen) but I've been under no illusion that they would work at each build and would be resolved at some point. As of RC3 they now both work.

I've not got Bootcamp installed on my MacBook so I cannot comment on that side of things.

Of course just because I've not had problems does not mean I don't believe other people have. I just wish some people on here would not react as if the Parallels development team have purposely broken / not implemented something just to victimise them.
 
BeyondCloister said:
I too have been using the beta without any show stopping issues (i.e. no crashes or such things). It may not be perfect but it is much smoother than my Windows laptop.

I've been using it both wired and wirelessly on various networks. I've got several printers hanging off it. Softwarewise I've been using various MS Office applications, Visual Studio, web browsers, design software and OpenGL based GIS applications.

I've had issues with a couple of USB devices (graphics tablet, Logitech Digital Pen) but I've been under no illusion that they would work at each build and would be resolved at some point. As of RC3 they now both work.

I've not got Bootcamp installed on my MacBook so I cannot comment on that side of things.

Of course just because I've not had problems does not mean I don't believe other people have. I just wish some people on here would not react as if the Parallels development team have purposely broken / not implemented something just to victimise them.
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I never said Parallels isn't a great application. They've done a tremendous job, however there are still far too many issues with 3170 for it to be considered a RC.

I seriously hope they're able to fix all of the remaining issues and release a stable RC4 with no major problems so we can get a GA sometime this year :)
 
Whilst I believe there are many running RC3 with little or no issues, there are also many having serious issues particularly in the area of using, and booting, from the Bootcamp partition, which must be fixed before any production release is considered. It will be totally unacceptable for a GA release of any product to be flaky enough for it to potentially trash someone's partition or render it unbootable!

So I would like the team to take whatever time is needed to fix the bugs and improve the stability of the product, in all of the functional areas promoted by their product marketing. This is their main chance to consolidate their position and cement customer loyalty before VMware releases their next more solid beta release.

Unless this forth coming GA is pretty much rock solid, then I doubt I will stay with Parallels notwithstanding that so far I have been a patient paid up client that is yet to feel comfortable enough to use the product and entrust my valuable data to it and this also applies to the so call "stable" 1970 production build as well.

Chris
 
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