Parallels 5 - A Grim Experience

I thought I should write to highlight my experience with the Parallels Desktop 5 trial software, which has been grim to put it mildly...

I have two major problems which I cannot resolve:

1. Parallels Tools will not stay installed. No matter what I do, whenever I install the tools, they never appear. Uninstalling and re-installing makes no difference.

2. I cannot connect to the internet by any means. Believe me, I have tried every option and followed all advice in the knowledge base. It simply will not work.

Given the quality of previous versions of of this product, it is disappointing and frustrating to experience such a flaky product.

Would I buy Parallels on the strength on my experience? Of course not...

 

Hm. How have you found this?! If parallels tools are correctly installed, then Coherence, Sliding Mouse, Screen Resolution tracking, Copy-n-Paste between Mac/Win, SharedFolders and other things are working, but no any other sign of tools is present. There are no icons, Program Files/Start Meny entries...

There could be trillions of not-Parallels related reasons. For the first, make sure that Shared Networking is choosed (it is default). If it doesn't, then please switched to it and wait for 10 seconds. Then:

Please click Start -> Run and execute cmd.exe. Type in the appeared window command "ipconfig /all" (without quotes). Stretch the window to make all the output fit and without closing the window, click menu of Parallels Destkop "Help"->"Report a Problem", send a problem report (it is not necessary to provide description) and post here the report ID.

 

Update

Hi Elric

Coherence, Sliding Mouse, Screen Resolution tracking, Copy-n-Paste between Mac/Win, SharedFolders are not present. SharedFolders were present for 10 minutes or so, but when I restarted they disappeared. I keep having to manually start the Windows Installer Service to allow the Tools to install. The process completes, but they do not load after the restart. The VM in it's current state is not usable.

I know that the networking issues have been caused by the upgrade because version 4 worked perfectly well immediately before the upgrade. The default setting was selected with no success. The report reference is 757121.

Hope this helps

Paul

 

Interesting..

For network - Please execute cmd.exe one more time, type in it "netsh winsock reset" (without quotes, hit enter) and reboot the VM

if this won't help, execute "netsh ip interface reset resetlog.txt" (and reboot)

Also, I have a hypothesis that this problem may be interconnected with tools install. If this command will fix the ipconfig /renew execution, then please try to install Tools one more time again. If it won't help, then please post a problem report one more time again just after you detect that, despite of no errors from Parallels Tools installer, tools are not working. I will redirect the problem to the person responsible for Tools

 

Fixed it

Hi Elric

I tried both commands you gave me, but neither worked. I resolved it by deleting the VM and creating a fresh one. The install was painless, and I am now up and running.

Not sure what caused the initial problem, but I am glad to be back in the land of the living.

Thanks for your help.

Paul

 

Sounds like Undo Disks was turned on in that VM and set to not save state at VM shutdown.

 

I upgraded to the trial version to see if it would run Dragon Naturally Speaking faster, but now it (Naturally Speaking) does not work at all. I no longer have support from that company, and the problem seems to come from the parallels side anyways. Apparently I can't write anymore to the folder Windows 2000/XP/2003: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking10.

Unless I can fix this problem quickly (I've spent hours on it), I need to know how to downgrade to my version 4.0 (which was removed on installation of the trial version) without losing all my data. Could not submit a support ticket for Parallels either even after spending lots of time registering. Really frustrating experience.

David

 

The verified by me way is to mount PD5 installation image and choose Uninstall. Wait till uninstall completes and then start installation of the PD4

 

Were all your programs and data files preserved in the process?

 

yep, they were

 

I am at my wits end!

Ok, I've tried Parallels 5 for the full trial period. During that time my computer repeatedly hung and crashed, and I really need to go back to Parallels 4. But I can't find the disks! And every time I try to get help, I'm prompted to purchase a bunch of support.

It seems wrong to give out a supposedly free "trial" version of the program and then require people to pay for help in reverting back to the prior version for which they paid.

I have tried to fix this with my Time Machine backup, but no luck. Any suggestions are welcome. I have business-critical files on my virtual machine that I need to access.

David
(David Carr)

 

I would have to agree. I had just registered Parallels desktop 4.0 less than 2 weeks before. My registration date is listed as the 21st of Sept. I am not sure if that was the trial or purchased version which I also purchased. So the trial comes out. I installed it mistakenly thinking I got a free upgrade (which has not been honored) and now I cannot figure out how to go back. I guess I will just drag it to the trash and what not but it's a pain. Their customer service bites. I will certainly never give the company another dime. Incidentally I am also an Apple Mac Expert sales rep. Let's just say I don't recommend them to other customers either.
Oh the only reason I use it at all is so that I can have Office 2007. I may be dragging to the garbage to just use VMWare and be done with it.