I want to run Snow Leopard Server as a virtual machine for PPC apps. I have set it up under VMware, and Snow Leopard works, but almost none of the nice features do - no cut and paste transfer between host and VM, no drag and drop files to or from the VM, shared folders is a snapshot so you have to restart the machine to access a new file, there is no sound output, etc, etc, etc. I suspect the VMware Tools does not much at all. Quite hopeless really. So now I am looking at Parallels to see if it is any better. I have the trial version of Parallels 8 and have installed Snow Leopard Server successfully. (This is on Mountain Lion host.) So far I can see that cut and paste works. So does sound output and shared folders. Drag and drop of files into or out of the VM does not work. One of the features for Windows guests is that Windows apps can be invoked by double-clicking documents on the Mac disk. Can this be done for an OS X guest? Can I double-click a document in the guest and have it start an application on the host Mac? Already Parallels is better than VMware for Mac guests, but I am wondering what other features it has that will make my life easier. Thanks
I may have spoken too soon. One of my shared folders is an external disk. By the time I got to a third level nested folder in the VM, things were a bit sick. The external disk is marked to ignore ownership on the volume, but one folder is coming up with a red minus sign and when I try to open it, I get a dialogue saying that I do not have permission to see its contents. Under Sharing & Permissions in the Get Info dialogue, it says I have "unknown access". Another folder on the external disk comes up as an alias, but it does not seem able to resolve to the original folder. On anotehr external disk, a folder opens but there is nothing in it. So the question I have to consider is whether it is worth buying Parallels to get cut and paste and sound output. It is the shared folders that are really important to me.
