Windows 7 on PD5 unusably unstable

[Ed Bennett]

I'm a new user running Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) on PD5, in order to run MSOffice for Windows and Paint.NET. The machine is a 27" Core i7 iMac with 4GB RAM. The VM though is unpredictably unstable. Sometimes attempting to start Outlook causes it to crash in the kernel; sometimes Paint.NET will refuse to start. Twice Outlook has tried to repair the Office installation when launching, only to fail and claim to be unable to verify the license (and that a repair attempt failed). Other mysterious errors include Word and Excel saying they weren't installed (they were; rebooting the VM proved that), Aero seeming to crash regularly (various aspects of the UI dropping back to the Windows Classic theme; often leaving the UI inconsistent, with some elements in Aero and others in Windows Classic).

Is this a known issue? Does anyone know of a fix?

Thanks,

Ed

 

[Trefptyc]

Thank you for your post.

Please could you submit a problem report for us to understand your configuration and read logs? Choose Help->Report a Problem in Parallels menu while your Windows 7 VM is working. We would need your report 's ID to find it on our internal server.

I am just curious whether you have tried the same test cases on the real hardware? Anyway, it would be very helpful for us to know more details about above testcases:
1) What kind of "crash in the kernel" you have faced? Was it Blue Screen (BSOD)? Please upload memory dump if possible.
2) What is the version of PAINT.Net? Is it the latest one?
3) What is the version of Microsoft Office?
Please could you search through Event Viewer in Windows 7 guest for events related to these unstable moments? Maybe there are some messages from Office Tools or dumps of crashed PAINT application?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Ed Bennett]

Please could you submit a problem report for us to understand your configuration and read logs? Choose Help->Report a Problem in Parallels menu while your Windows 7 VM is working. We would need your report 's ID to find it on our internal server.

Will do.

I am just curious whether you have tried the same test cases on the real hardware? Anyway, it would be very helpful for us to know more details about above testcases:
1) What kind of "crash in the kernel" you have faced? Was it Blue Screen (BSOD)? Please upload memory dump if possible.

Immediately on clicking the Outlook icon, it crashes with the standard "Microsoft Office Outlook has encountered a problem and has to close", with the options to report the error or just close the program. The Details pane shows the error as being (from memory; I will check this when I'm back at my Mac) in KERNEL32.DLL.

2) What is the version of PAINT.Net? Is it the latest one?

It is indeed the latest version.

3) What is the version of Microsoft Office?

That would be the Office 2010 Beta - I have however been using it on my previous Windows PC for around 6 months without any instability at all.

Please could you search through Event Viewer in Windows 7 guest for events related to these unstable moments? Maybe there are some messages from Office Tools or dumps of crashed PAINT application?

I'll take a look later. Generally once Outlook or Paint.NET has crashed once, they will refuse to start again until the VM is rebooted.

Thanks!

 

[Ed Bennett]

Please could you submit a problem report for us to understand your configuration and read logs? Choose Help->Report a Problem in Parallels menu while your Windows 7 VM is working. We would need your report 's ID to find it on our internal server.

Now done this; the ID is 1349430.

I am just curious whether you have tried the same test cases on the real hardware?

Just noticed this question. Do you mean any machine running 7, or this Mac under Boot Camp? My last machine ran 7, Office 2010, and Paint.NET just fine.

Please could you search through Event Viewer in Windows 7 guest for events related to these unstable moments? Maybe there are some messages from Office Tools or dumps of crashed PAINT application?

I tried to look through the event log, but it crashed trying to show the Application log.