Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac and Windows Vista Boot Camp 1.3?

The problem is not boot camp 1.3 it is something else. I installed Parallels 3.0 then picked my vista partition set it up. Just like everyone else it crashed and did not work. So I booted full screen and my Windows install was corrupt. So I re-installed Vista but did not install boot camp at all. Then I booted into OS X then loaded parallels and low and behold it installed th drivers and worked just fine. So then I booted back into windows and installed Boot camp 1.2 drivers and everything seem to work fine under boot camp. So i rebooted into OS X and loaded up the same vista partion and low and behold it crashes.

So the problem is not boot camp 1.2 or 1.3 it a bug in parallells drivers or software itself.


My Config is as following:

IMac 24" 2 gig ram, 50 Gig Boot Camp partion with 43 gig free, bridged network mode.
 
Being a software developer... and having the mindset and gut feelings... I'd say that it would be a bad driver that's causing the lockup...

It just smells of driver issues. Either that or Parallels is getting a call that it doesn't like and it's not returning it back to the guest OS.
 
I'm happy that someone from Parallels has said that they are working on it. Here are my details for them to try and replicate the error:

I have a new Santa Rosa MBP with 2GB RAM and 2.4Ghz processor, 160GB hard drive, and OS X 10.4.9. I have a 29GB partition for Windows Vista Business, which was installed using Boot Camp 1.3. I have Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac, and I setup the VM with OS as Windows Vista. Memory is 1024MB, Hard Disk 1 is Boot Camp, and the CD/DVD Rom is empty. Everything else is default.

The problem: I press play and Windows Vista starts to boot. I get to my login screen, where I can type in my password, and everything works. The desktop starts to load. I can move the mouse and keyboard around for maybe 30 seconds while things are loading. Then, the mouse suddenly freezes and I cannot type.

Now, I have booted into Safe Mode with the Parallels Tools CD mounted into that VM and have installed Parallels Tools. I can do everything fine in Safe Mode (besides networking and theme). However, after installing Parallels Tools via Safe Mode, when I boot into Windows Vista normal, the mouse now doesn't freeze but everything else does. I can't click on anything, it is just like a static picture and my mouse is flying over it.

Hope you can fix it soon. BTW, I can still boot directly into Windows via Boot Camp fine. Everything (including Aero) still works in Boot Camp.
 
as stated I don't think it's boot camp at all. I feel that the problem is with parallels 3.0 and their tools.

I used boot camp to install windows vista ultimate edition. It was able to find all drivers necessary after installation with no problems except no right click or control click bluetooth...etc. I installed boot camp drivers for 1.3 since thats the current version and all operated smoothly.

the problems occurred when I installed 3.0 for the first time and it noticed the boot camp partition. As soon as windows booted (VERY VERY SLOW BTW even with the maximum amount of memory). Parallels would how me the desktop picture and all icons on the deskop. I would be able to use anything but as soon as parallels started the service to install their tools is when processing STOPPED COMPLETELY and everything froze. the only way to get rid of this is to stop the virtual drive (which is bad) and restart it again and get a prompt stating that windows was shut down improperly.

I haven't used boot camp for windows xp through parallels but by the sounds of it things functioned. my thoughts on the matter was since we were pulling from the same HD from a different partition that this might happen. but there were no reports of this sort of thing with xp.
 
I don't have the issue yet (waiting for the 3.0 upgrade registration code), but for sure I won't try to boot my bootcamp vista under parallels until this issue is solved!!
 
Solution...

I have a temporary solutions, it may reduce some functionality when running vista under Boot Camp (at least until the problem is properly fixed) but it will run under Parallels properly.

I disabled all the start up items related to boot camp from the registry. There were 3 boot camp items and for me a Sigmatel audio item (iMac). You can run "msconfig" from the start menu search to disable these. I also disable 2 system services, "Apple Time Service" and "Sigmatel Audio Service", using "Manage" by alternate clicking "Computer". Your Mac might not have a Sigmatel audio chip so it doesn't matter if it isn't there.

By the way the problem will be caused by any one of these items/services. I'm going to start them one by one until it freezes and I'll report which one/s is/are the problem.
 
Rounded Down

Ok the culprit is the Keyboard Manager (KbdMgr.exe) it is launched from the registry. You can safely leave all startup items and system services running. Just use "msconfig" (see previous post) to disable KbdMgr.exe, it is one of the 3 called boot camp just look at the path to find which one. The Keyboard manager probably only maps the Apple, control and alt keys and probably adds foreign language support so you can probably get away without it (using Boot Camp). Although you can always run this item manually when ever you decide to use Boot Camp. You can just create a shortcut on the desktop but be careful not to use it in Parallels. :)
 
I can confirm this solves the freezing issue on my computer

MacBook Pro 1.83GHz Core Duo
2GB RAM/80GB HDD (20GB Boot Camp)
Vista Business with all updates installed
Boot Camp 1.3
 
I can also confirm that simply stopping kbdmgr.exe from loading at boot time finally let me get Parallels Tools installed, and there have been no subsequent freezes with it left not loading.
 
I have bootcamp 1.2 Vista Ultimate. Upgraded to parallels 3. Had a few issues (mouse and trackpad weren't recognized on 1st boot, networking, all resolved). But no problems booting through bootcamp or parallels. No freezing at all.

Still a weird ACPI driver issue where parallels installs an acpi driver then when using bootcamp a different acpi driver is installed. It just keeps going back and forth unresolved.

But I would say my experience is what I expected. This is something I enjoy playing with. But maybe not a good experience for those who don't love tinkering with settings.
 
For those with this problem, do you have a recently purchased MacBook or MacBook Pro? It might be something with the new chipset Apple uses in these machines.

I am having this problem too, and mine is a brand new MacBook purchased last week.
 
Zenara25 said:
I have bootcamp 1.2 Vista Ultimate. Upgraded to parallels 3. Had a few issues (mouse and trackpad weren't recognized on 1st boot, networking, all resolved). But no problems booting through bootcamp or parallels. No freezing at all.

Still a weird ACPI driver issue where parallels installs an acpi driver then when using bootcamp a different acpi driver is installed. It just keeps going back and forth unresolved.

But I would say my experience is what I expected. This is something I enjoy playing with. But maybe not a good experience for those who don't love tinkering with settings.
Click to expand...

Ditto, I had Boot Camp 1.2 with Vista Ultimate and Paralles 3.0 ran without any problems. the I decided to upgrade to Boot Camp 1.3 (bad mistake), running Paralles 3.0 with Vista under Boot Camp 1.3 freezes the system.

I will try disabling the keyboard mngr.
 
Disabling kbdmgr.exe using msconfig.exe fixed the problem for me. I had to manually install Parallels Tools as I had been rebooting the VM a few times interrupting the previous installs.
 
Charliez quote "For those with this problem, do you have a recently purchased MacBook or MacBook Pro?"

I have the Macbook Core Duo not the newest Core 2 Duo. But as I stated above I'm not having any serious problems. So as Charliez mentioned maybe it's a problem with the newest Macs. Or bootcamp 1.3. Glad I decided not to install it yet.
 
Last edited:
We have prepared a minor update to Parallels Desktop 3.0 that deals with this specific problem. You can download it from here
 
Tim Surgent said:
We have prepared a minor update to Parallels Desktop 3.0 that deals with this specific problem. You can download it from here
Click to expand...


I have Installed the Upgrade still no Boot camp...:(

see my other message
Today i removed my Boot Camp Partition

Installed Boot camp 1.3
Created 32 Gb Windows XP partition
Installed Windows XP pro

Done some test every thing is working fine.

finally created a new Vm using Boot Camp partition.

Still getting the same error

Unable to open disk image Boot Camp!

This can't be a final product if you support something and many people can't use it.

Parallels TEAM please help to solve my problem.
 
that was quick, sweet...tried it, works like a charm...still getting a few bugs here and there...it asked to activate windows yesterday but it was already activated off of the bootcamp partition...i called in and got it activated. i too am having that issue of when i boot up the bootcamp partition natively,after having been in parallels it does some sort of aspi or something install and then asks for a reboot. it will be fine then on subsequent reboots into vista but then whenever i go back to parallels and then back to bootcamp vista after that, it comes back. also, whatever allows you to have internet on the parallel side of things kicks out every now and then allthough a mac browser works.
 
This build DOES NOT fix the kbdmgr.exe problem. I just tried it. Downloaded , upgraded, then launched Vista, re-enabled kbdmgr.exe, rebooted the VM, and it hung/froze as it did before.

Now I have to reboot into the bootcamp partition to remove kbdmgr.exe again.

Please DO NOT release half-baked, untested builds. Making users test your fixes for you is not a professional approach. Get a solid repro of the problem, and test it thoroughly.

I'm going ahead with my refund and going bye bye Parallels.
 
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