I'm really new at this Parallels thing, and need a little insight from y'all. Here is the scenario, first I installed bootcamp on my IMAC, and that worked pretty well. Then I installed the trial version of Parallels, and was pleased with that; more so than with Bootcamp. While running the trial version of Parallels I installed XP, thus (I believe) having two copies of XP on my hard drive; i.e.one on the Bootcamp partition and another on the MAC side where the Parallels resides. Next I upgraded to free trial Parallels, to the 3036 beta. Here is my question/problem. When I run Parallels it appears that it is seeing the wrong XP version. My understanding is that 3036 will read the bootcamp version of XP, thus allowing me to choose at boot whether I want to use the Bootcamp or to run within OS-X via parallels. I am certain that the 3036 is accessing the Parallels installed version of my XP rather than the Bootcam partition because I am unable to see from the "start" menu most of my programs. When I boot using Bootcmp I see these programs. How do I configure Parallels so as to gain access to the Bootcamp installed XP via the 3036 Parallels? Also, how do I successfully delete the XP that I installed within the trial version of Parallels? When I uninstalled Parallels it apparently did not remove the XP that had been installed when I first ran the trial version of Parallels. I'm gettin' there in knowledge but am not anywhere near you guys/gals yet! Patrick Victor, Montana
While you CAN boot from your bootcamp partition in Parallels, you may not want to if you want to continue booting the bootcamp partition directly. If you are converting, it's doable. Unless you have the corporate edition of XP, you will have to stand on your head to avoid reactivating XP every time you switch between direct XP boot and Parallels boot. Currently, if you want to be able to access mac files via MacDrive from the bootcamp install, you cannot install Parallels tools for bootcamp, and those tools are required for Parallels boot from the BC partition. Those are just some of the problems. So if you still really want to use the bootcamp partition, you can search the forum for instructions (after reading the user guide). You can delete your Parallels XP installation by deleting the files from the VM installation, usually ~/library/parallels/vmname where vmname is the name of your VM. In that folder you will find a .pvs file and a .hdd file (and possibly others). trash that folder and your VM is gone. Delete VM from the Parallels menu works too. FWIW, I have a bootcamp installation and wouldn't dream of attempting to use it via Parallels. I have a separate Windows installation in a VM and both work fine and are used for different purposes.
JoeM - a little clarification JoeM, Everything that you posted makes sense about the issues of XP residing in both Parallels as well as in the BootCamp partition. I agree with you that it may be wise to retain both versions on my IMAC. Though not a true developer, I do a bit of that, and was concerned about installing Visual Studio .NET within Parallels for reasons of stability and size! That is the primary reason for using the BootCamp partition in my case. So, if what you are telling me is true, then I will need to install redundant applications in both places if I want access to these in both "worlds" and there is not practical way around that at this point in the Parallels/BootCamp era. I am using XP Home edition and so this apparently is not a corproate install. What aspect of the install allows and disallows the features that I want? Perhaps those issues will be addressed and solved prior to the release of a final Parallels product. Are there any rumors to that effect at this point? Patrick Victor, Montana PS: All in all I am very impressed with the state of the Parallels product. This is my first time in using the MAC OS and this switch by Apple to Intel has been very SWEET for me.
AFAIK, most stuff that doesn't need direct access to external devices works fine in Parallels, so .NET probably will too. Maybe someone else on the forum has tried it. I don't have redundant software in both places. I have the one app that doesn't work in Parallels installed in bootcamp, and everything else in Parallels. I have a couple of apps in both places for testing, but could remove one or the other to save space once testing is done. In bootcamp you have full access to the hardware including both cores and direct video that Parallels doesn't provide today, but one click instant switching between OSX and XP isn't available. If you need the hardware access, use bootcamp, otherwise use Parallels is my take. If you have a big disk (which I don't -- it's only 160G on my MBP) then it probably doesn't matter (although there was a time I considered 160G impossibly large, those days are long gone). So if you back up your VM and install VS.NET and try it and it works, you have your answer. If it doesn't, then bootcamp will. You can put large disks on iMacs, and since they aren't portable, there's no penalty in using an external HD, and you can put your VM on the external disk if you like. Space problem solved.
