Quick Question - Need Advice

Hey everyone,

Alright, this is my first post here, but I need everyone's opinion...

I just got a MacBook Pro, and know I want to run XP in Boot Camp to get full access to the hardware, but I am very interested in this idea of being able to run XP using Parallels with the Boot Camp partition.

The real question I'm looking to be answered is: Those of you who use it daily, would you recommend it? I've heard mixed reviews from people, and I think all that it comes down to is make sure you shut down Windows and not just put the VM in sleep mode.

 

Works for me

I use Parallels on my work system for 4 months now (started on 2.5, now on latest 3.0 beta). Using strictly in VM, not with Bootcamp, so cannot comment on that setup.

Have generally no problems. Sleep is fine in any combination, integration works reasonably well, basically very few crashes or problems. Even updates went well - just updated to latest beta version both VMs I have smoothly and painlessly. The updated from 2.5 to 3 first destroyed my VM, but after I recovered backuped copy and converted that again, it went flawlessly. Go figure. May be I made mistake, who knows....

Source of problems I had:
Windows XP issues... Had those on every hardware I maintain (6 PC computers) and Parallels. Nothing new for Xps. Drivers/settings/updates..... Simply Microsoft. Never fail to surprise me with something new... I am staying away from Vista for now...

Hardware on my MBP. My memory stick was bad and I kept crashing MBP by using Parallels. Simply, when loaded Parallels, memory start being used around bad address and I was getting kernel panic messages. Replaced memory and have not seen the kernel panic again.

Windows antivirus programs (various). Known issues - they cause a lot of problems everywhere. Never had virus, but had the antivirus program crash my system multiple times... Included Kaspersky seems acceptable, did not yet caused any damage.

Very few problems could be related to Parallels themselves.

****
That said, there are problems - slow communication with Mac disks is real annoyance. Some PC programs have refused to work with mapped Mac disks due to timeouts. Work well with data on VM disks, though. Few quirks here and there.

Make sure, you backup the whole VM (just make copy of the whole folder) before updates/upgrades/major changes to the Parallels software and that you shut down the VM before the updating. I can image that many cause problems for themselves by updating Parallels while the VM is just suspended, not shut down. Would you replace hardware while your PC is suspended and not shut down?

So in my experience I can suggest Parallels even for real work...

Jan

 

Yeah, I've used Parallels before (and I've been working with virtual machine applications for years), so I'm familiar with how Parallels runs, I'm just concerned about some of the stories on here of how it fails and render the Boot Camp partition useless.

 

Getting started!

I am trying to get Windows XP Professional 2002 to run with Parallels 3.0. I have tried making a disk image - the Windows setup just hung up. Using the Real CD/DVD it got through the setup and then said I didnt have a valid Windows. I have usedt this Windows CD before with Virtual PC - never on a real PC -type hardware - only Macs.


Any help?

TIA

Marie

 

Please see my comments here that Address the issues that arise from installing Parallels 3 and using it with Boot Camp. They will resolve your BSOD issues (...the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM and Stop Error 0x0000007b), but I think Parallels should come up with a solution that avoids this issue altogether.

 

I'd never run Windows natively on any piece of hardware I rely on. Virtualization lets me keep all the Microcrud contained. I have all my VMs set up to ask before they save any of the changes from the last session to disk, and unless I've intentionally installed something, I usually say "no."