Hi All First post !!! I have been using PD for a while now and wanted to share a few things I have come across whilst experimenting with VISTA. Setting up a new VM was simple enough thanks to PD Version 1892.2, installing the guest OS from the newly available RC1 ISO image went without a hitch (MB PRO 2G RAM (1G assigned to VM) 15GB HD) Once Vista was booted I was unable to get the parallels tools to run the driver install. That is until I used the included compatibility wizard software. After running this under XP simulation I rebooted and mouse etc were installed. For some reason the display setting within Vista were set at 16 bit (by default) and high acceleration and I was unable to see alot of the feathered effects in VISTA, changing this setting to 32 Bit and reducing the accelaration by a notch smoothed out the problems but mouse sync is now slightly out. I have been able to access the internet from within vista with my MBP via airport. Log on sounds are staggered and slow as is video playback. Aero of course is not working. If there is anyway of improving graphic support within the VM please let me know. Several .exe files failed in vista even with the included compatability software. Overall VISTA is capable of running under Parallels but is slow and as a result I would say that it is cool to do it, but at the moment I shall be sticking with XP. It just goes to show that there may be some very dissapointed people that simply won't have the machines to run Vista when it is finally released. Keep up the good work
I just wanted to add that Vista RC1 running on Parallels is no where near the same experience that you can get on an actual machine. I'm in no way trying to defend MS, but I really believe there are some Parallels issues at play. At the company I work for, we've been following the progress (and sometimes the lack of progress) of Vista through all the betas, Pre-RC and RC1. The betas were absolutely horrible, however RC1 was a major turn around. We have several test boxes that we use for baselines and I installed Vista RC1 on a 900MHz system with 512MB RAM, 60GB 5400 RPM HD and a 32MB Rage II Video Card. I was surprised it even installed, but it ran just as well as XP on the same machine and had more than acceptable performance using Office 2003. This is the lowest end system our company has and we don't anticipate any performance problems due to hardware. This ancient system shows performance several magnitudes higher than any of our Core Duo Macs running Parallels. However, the Core Duo Macs with Parallels running XP pretty much can smoke all but the news PCs. I think with a few more adjustments, we'll see Vista running much more smoothly than it does in the current Parallels RC. Like I said before, I'm not defending MS, I just don't want people to think that this is real word performance.
Yea I agree, I was not expecting it to scream its way home. I am yet to try it under boot camp, but having had such a speedy performance of XP under PD I kind of moved away from boot camp as I do not use Windows that frequently. Thanks for your comments.
planeBrad, forgive me, but i'll try to defend Parallels I know that Vista wants graphic acceleration (3D if available, or at least 2D to make some standard operations). Parallels do not have any acceleration, all of graphic work is done by CPU, not GPU, but your Rage II card is not so bad, it has 2d and 3d acceleration and of course Windows Vista uses them. Be sure, when we complete writing of our video acceleration module - Vista will run fast
Some of the issues I have experienced such as running .exe files are on the Windows side. If you guys can do for Vista what you have done for XP then I and many others will be very pleased. I appreciate that Parallels running Vista is still in its infancy. You shouldn't feel you have to defend PD is still an awesome product.
Ynot, Don't feel like you have to defend Parallels. I love it. I was just trying to say that so far the experience with Vista on Parallels does not reflect what I've seen in the real world with low end systems. The total lack of 3D accelaration causing problems makes a lot of sense. It probably accounts for the heavy CPU usage with Vista in Parallels. Does Vista rely on the graphics card even when all of the new GUI elements are disabled (Windows 2003 interface)? One other factor to note is that Vista tries to index everything just after the installation is complete. This can definitely slow things down until it finishes its business. Thanks and I look forward to the accelartion module.
Interesting on the index, off course this is what spotlight does, I don't think I have left it long enough as I got frustrated by the speed issue, I will wait to see if I leave it longer that it settles down. Thanks again
