3.0 rushed out and 2.5 users left in the rain...

I have been a Parallels user since the first public beta and I was really impressed with the pace the developers brought the product forward and made it finally a halfway stable product. But then suddenly with build 3188 the progress stopped. I'm using 3188 and it still has serious issues (Coherence is unstable after sleep, a paused VM is grabbing USB devices, severe crashes with rosetta apps running etc.). 3188 is the only app so far that managed to totally crash my machine yet, having to force reboot. Not a kernel panic but a complete freeze-up. I've filed bugreports of course. Plus quite a few features that were promised for 2.x still don't work right.

Now 3.0 comes out, and judging from the many posts here, appears to be rushed out since it has the same issues as 2.0; cool new features but nothing works really well and we're told to wait for the next minor updates. Of course we are forced to pay for the 3.0 update, since they probably need fresh money for all that new support personell they hired... Can we expect to have those new features working ok by the time 3.5 comes around or will we be forced to fork over money again for 4.0?

I have left comments and emails with Parallels whether there will be updates to 2.x and have not received any answers. I'm not holding my breath. And those emails to pre-order for small discount before you can actually try the product? Before I get tricked again I held off on upgrading to 3.0 and will try VMWares beta, maybe they have at least the basics working properly. Beta 4 looks very promising though.

It takes a lot of hard work to build a reputation but it is destroyed very quickly.

I'm quite disappointed.

 

Andrew did say that they would continue fixing issues in 2.5 in another thread. Can't find it right now though.

 

Previously bugfixes came out about every month, give or take. 3188 is now over three months old and still has serious issues. Looking at the amount of issues with 3.0 I don't quite see how they are going to assign ressources to any new 2.x builds.

I'll be happy if I do see a new 2.x build but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Based upon the posts here, I would agree with the assesment that 3.0 was indeed rushed out the door for some reason.

I'm going to hold off and stick with 2.5, I may look into seeing if I can get a refund for 3.0. Clearly it does not appear ready for prime time

 

It does seem like there are some major problems with people upgrading from previous installations used in version 2.5. If your plan is to upgrade your image from 2.5 to 3.0, perhaps it would be wise to wait it out.

However, if you don't mind reinstalling fresh, the new features of 3.0 might do what you need. Personally, taking that direction has done a lot of good for me.

If you have the disk space and a handy copy of 2.5, try to make a backup of your existing image and give the 3.0 trial a go.

 

If one has 2.X, will a "fresh" install of 3.0 retain the Windows VM, or must one reinstall Windows as well?

Must one "uninstall" Parallels 2.X?


Thanks,

 

You don't need to uninstall Parallels 2.5, that part of the upgrade runs pretty smoothly. The problem is after 3.0 installed, the first time you run any VM, it will convert it to 3.0 format and it is an one-way process. If it doesn't work, you can't go back to 2.5. So the safest way to do this is make a backup of your 2.5 VM before doing any conversion and if it doesn't work, you can always go back to 2.5. You can also try to create a VM from screatch which, of course, requires installation of Windows.

 

I don't have any major issues with version 3, apart from the fact that it doesn't add anything to my Parallels experience, as far as I can tell. It doesn't look as though it supports the games I play, and I'm only interested in firing up Windows for the occasional specialised application, so I don't want seamless integration of the two platforms. I'll give the v3 trial a bit longer to see if it shows up any new gems, but I suspect I'll drop back to 2.5 before the trial ends, until more goodies appear.

 

See, I'm in the same situation, 3.0 does not add anything for me as far as new features but I'm still stuck with the MAJOR bugs in 2.5. So far there was no indication from Parallels as to whether I'm getting further support on this.

I am NOT going to upgrade to 3.0 because it, according to past experience with Parallels, introduces more problems than it fixes.

I just want to have the stuff work that was supposed to work in 2.5 (Which I paid for btw).

 

There is a new update (new in the last week or so) that you can download using the Update option in Parallels. It is still version 2.5, and the update is free. If your Update option doesn't work pm one of the Parallels staff who frequent this forum and ask for the link.

The new update is Build 3212 and is a replacement for 3188.

 

Yes, I've downloaded it the second it came out and all it does is adding a nag screen to bug me to pay for an update to 3.0.

No other changes have been done, especially no much needed major bug fixes.

Thank you very much. Not.

 

I was hoping to get game support in 3.0 but so far not one game will launch. I have checked the DirectX support box. Looking around the forum I see a lot of threads with long, long lists of games. Well, if every game has to be supported individually, it'll be a long time before they get around to adding support for the games I play. Hugely disappointed here.

 

what is most disappointing is that 3.0 isn't delivering what it promised and we paid.

i don't know what parallels was running when they demo-ed the 3d accelerated 3.0 version but it must be some special 3.0 version because mine and those of others doesn't live up to it, is slower than 2.5 or doesn't work altogether.