support for more than 2 USB devices simultaneously
I realize that the Parallels developers are probably swamped by their success, so I've only requested one (seemingly) small feature over and over, namely the ability to attach more than two USB devices simultaneously. To my naive perspective, it seems it should be a simple matter for the wizards of Parallels to increase the number of devices allowed on their virtual USB Root Hub from 2 to some larger integer value. It seems like a small change but it is all that keeps me from a) disposing of the PC I use for embedded development and b) becoming an utterly loyal, nay, fanatical Parallels customer.
I've already bought the software so in one sense my vote doesn't count, but I can't in good conscience evangelize for Parallels either to my partners in crime or to innocent bystanders in coffeeshops until it becomes possible to attach at least three USB devices simultaneously, e.g. a JTAG programmer, a serial port, and a software activation dongle, said trifecta being the bread and butter of embedded systems developers everywhere.
Aside from this incredibly annoying misfeature, I still find Parallels Desktop on OSX to be the best emulation/virtualization environment I've ever used (including Win4Lin, VirtualPC, Qemu and VMWare). Keep up the good work, but please remember that there's a huge potential market of engineers and students utterly frustrated with Windows but forced to use it because the necessary development tools only run there, and who would love to consolidate their computing environment on OSX.
Last edited: Aug 31, 2006