Parallels Desktop for Mac build 3036 Beta is available for download.

[STim]

Hello community!

We are continuing our efforts for bringing you even more feature-full product and we are making our latest Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 early available to you. It will be one more FREE update of the currently available version.

Heres a short overview of the new features and enhancements introduced by this Beta:

* New Look and Feel and Improved Usability. Completely redesigned windows and dialogues to make them even easier and smooth. Too many changes to describe just check them out yourselves

* Virtual Machines Catalogue. A very useful feature for those having more than one VM now all of them are available through centralized VM catalogue which appears on each Parallels Desktop for Mac instance start in case you have more than one VM

* One-click Virtual Machine Aliases:
* Automatically created by OS installation assistant or by drag-and-drop from title bar pressing Command-Option keys combination
* Clicking on Alias automatically starts the Virtual Machine
* Shutting down the VM automatically closes Parallels Desktop for Mac application

* Resizable Main Window. Resize Parallels Desktop for Mac main window as you do with any other Mac application

* Auto-Adjusting Screen Resolution. Your Windows auto-adjusts the screen resolution to the actual Main Window size.

* Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac. A long awaited feature that lets you seamlessly drag and drop files and folders from Windows to Mac OS X and vice versa.

* Read/Write BootCamp partition. Since this build, an Apple Boot Camp partition with Windows XP installed could be used as a virtual HDD for Parallels Desktop for Mac.

* Boot from BootCamp partition. Another long awaited feature that lets you boot your 32-bit Windows XP residing on Boot Camp partition directly in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
IMPRORTANT! You need to boot in your Windows XP natively through Boot Camp and install Parallels Tools for Boot Camp package in it before your first boot in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
NOTE! It is not possible to suspend Virtual Machine connected to Boot Camp for integrity reasons.
NOTE! Running Boot Camp in Virtual Machine will need to reactivate your Windows XP installation.

* Parallels Transporter Beta bundled. Migrate your Windows PC, VMware or Virtual PC VMs to Parallels virtual machines. Please visit Parallels Transporter forum for details.

* Coherence. Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS.

* Improved graphic performance. Up to 50% on different applications.

* Connect/disconnect USB devices schema improved. No more wait 5-10 seconds message on USB device connecting to Parallels Desktop for Mac.

* Up to 5 Virtual NICs. Now Virtual Machine can have up to five virtual network interfaces.

* Enhanced Shared Networking Mode. Run Cisco VPN and many other complicated networking applications in conjunction with Connection Sharing Mode.

* Switch between networking modes on-the-fly. Switch networking modes while the virtual machine is running.

* Transparent mapping of Command-AZXCV key combinations. Now you can also use Mac copy/paste key combinations in Windows.

* Power On/Power Off/Suspend/Resume/Pause animation. Just try and see. Were very interested in your feedback about the feature.

* Shared folders configuration on-the-fly. Add/remove/configure shared folders on-the-fly via menu or Status Bar icon without the need to stop your Virtual Machine.

* Drag and Drop CD/FDD images and folders to the Parallels Desktop statusbar. Just drag and drop CD or floppy image you want to connect or Mac folder you want to share onto a respective statusbar icon.

* And dozens of other not that evident enhancements.

Just download Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 to have them all available on your Mac! It will be a FREE update once it becomes Generally Available.
IMPORTANT! Resume and shut down all suspended Virtual Machines prior to upgrade.

Please remember that this is beta software, and like any other beta software you should treat it very carefully. Do not install this Beta into the production environment yet. Do backup your virtual machines before starting them.

If, for any reason, you would like to downgrade to previous stable build, use this link to get it.
IMPORTANT! Uninstall Parallels Tools from the guest OS prior to downgrading and install them again after finishing the downgrade procedure.

As usual, any feedback is extremely appreciated at [email protected] mailbox.

Best regards,
Tim and Parallels Team

------------
Download links:

Parallels Desktop for Mac Beta Build 3036 - http://download.parallels.com/beta/Parallels Desktop 3036 Mac en.dmg

Parallels Tools For Boot Camp - http://download.parallels.com/beta/Parallels-Tools-Bcp-1.0.3-Win.exe

 

[peeInMyPantz]

Nevermind, it was a file permissions issue. Somehow the file permissions on that virtual machine got changed during the install. Issue resolved.

how did u solve that? can give more details?

*edit*
sorry.. just realised that yours was a different issue

 

[patrickmast]

I had to do the same. MacPro 2x3Ghz, 4GB Ram. Setting the memory to automaticaly, my system hung, setting it to manualy, 512 MB, my system hun, setting the slider to 1024Mb, I could get the windows started.

Oops.. a bit too fast.. Now it took just a little bit longer before my whole system hung. No Panic, just unresponsive.

--
Sincerely,

Patrick Mast,
xHarbour.com Inc.
http://www.xHarbour.com

 

[tehnomaag]

Add Cmd+R mapping too

Transparent mapping of Command-AZXCV key combinations

Very nice feature! But since I use Parallels mainly for web development and testing IE, then mapping Cmd+R (quick for browser refresh) would be very welcome as well.

 

[tacit_one]

tehnomaag,
You can easily use F5 for IE refresh...

 

[Gaijin]

3 Issues

Great feature set! I love it. Just some bugs to squash:

(note -- I'm on iMac 24")

1. My BootCamp installation is now totally screwed up. XP hangs on the black screen asking me to choose between configurations. Or maybe my USB keyboard no longer works there, I can't tell.

2. Coherence mode displays strange fonts, as other 24" users reported. It's unusable, and hurts my eyes.

Also, in switching to full screen mode, color scheme reverts to 8 colors, so I have to readjust screen properties every time I switch modes. Also, resizing the Parallels window doesn't resize the XP itself: the XP continues to run in the same size, surrounded with black space.

3. Can't boot from inside Parallels into my FAT 32 Boot-Camp XP partition. I'm not going to convert to NTFS: issue # 1 is a good example of why I keep a Mac-writable XP backup!

 

[CJConline]

Alternative to Windows bootcamp/parallel activation issue

Hi Guys,

Great work and great feature list team.

1) Please, please is it possible to just have read/write but not bootup access to the bootcamp partition from a regular parallels Windows VM, that is have the bootcamp partition just seen as another (asignable) drive letter eg say like the E drive, similar to a mapped network drive (but without the hugh performance hit mapped drives). It would allowed shared access to data within the two Windows environment but without the WIndows activation issue when switching between bootcamp and parallels.

Basically I still have some programs that I need to run that can still only run under bootcamp and all others will happily run under parallels. However, I need disk read/write but not boot access to the bootcamp partition. That way I can install the different programs to the same partition but either under bootcamp or parallel, depending on where they will be run.

I was hoping that this is what the following bullt point in your release was indicating but it is not clear:
* Read/Write BootCamp partition. Since this build, an Apple Boot Camp partition with Windows XP installed could be used as a virtual HDD for Parallels Desktop for Mac.

2) Please also consider providing direct acces to the Mac partition like MediaFour's Mac drive. My experience with shared folders and mapped drives is that it is very slow.

Thanks guys. Keep up the excellent work. Just wish I could switched to the product but without a fix to at least one of the above, it won't work for me.

Chris

 

[Cyrealm]

It's good to see a move on the Parallels front to integrate the Bootcamp partition, however I'm going to wait before I use it on my bootcamp partition. I need to wait until the fat32 bug is fixed anyway. The issue of having to re-activate XP on the bootcamp partition when using it in Parallels has me concerned as well. Once you re-activate it when using Parallels are you going to have to re-activate XP on the bootcamp partition again if you decide to reboot normally and not use Parallels? I do have a legit XP pro on the bootcamp partition. I may have to wait a bit longer until that issue is resolved before letting Parallels touch my bootcamp partition. Meanwhile, I will continue to use my XP Home VM with Parallels like I have been doing. It will be nice to eventually use the bootcamp partition under parallels though.

 

[AkitaOnRails]

Macdrive

I successfully used my bootcamp partition from inside Parallels. But now I have another issue. When I boot through Bootcamp (natively) I use Macdrive to access the data from my HFS+ partition. But now Macdrive loads up and doesn't find any Mac partition !!! I happened after I installed Parallels Tools. Does anyone had the same thing? Is this a bug in the parallels tools? Is there a workaround? I will miss Macdrive a lot if it became incompatible with Parallels.

 

[bcjenkins]

Boot Camp usage

Greetings,

I read through the thread and didn't see the answer yet. I just got a new MBP, partitioned the drive 3 ways.

Volume 1: Tiger
Volume 2: Leopard
Volume 3: NTFS (XP Pro SP2)

I installed XP, then Apple drivers, then Parallels Boot Camp package. Rebooted into OS X to launch Parallels and was asked to reactivate Windows. This seems to mimic what others are seeing. Is there a fix? Would you like more info? The XP Pro is retail version.

Thanks in advance

 

[itsdapead]

It's too tacky sitting stuck on top of the dock. I would suggest putting a dock icon into the dock that can access the start menu, XP windows, etc. I think VPC used to have something like this (without coherence of course).

Look in Parallels Tools under windows - in the Coherence section there is a "task bar auto adjust" button. Turn this on and the task bar will move around the screen to avoid the dock.

Alternatively, just drag the task bar by hand - I think it makes most sense at the top of the screen, just under the Mac menu bar.

 

[cesjr]

internet down

with the new beta, my network connection is down, can't get Firefox or explorer to open a webpage. I never had a problem with this before in Parallels.

 

[jbrowdy]

Me, too

Is there a possibility to copy over one of my parallels XP virtual machine onto my BootCamp partition?

Because of how good Parellels was when I trialed it, I never botherd even installing bootcamp on my new MBP. But, given the new features, I think it may be worthwhile to have BootCamp installation, and use that with parallels. The problem is, I would rather not simply erase my Parallels VM and start re-configuring from scratch. So, as in the quote above, I am wondering if it is possible to work backwords- use my VM to copy over to a new bootcamp insall, and then use Parallels to acces it?

Thanks

 

[Erich]

Installing the tools causes MacDrive 6.1.5 to fail in Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro. Fix that and FAT32 and you've sold me.

I also found that installing the tools breaks MacDrive. This and the XP reactivation problem make this release unusable, in my opinion, at least for a Boot Camp-installed OS.

 

[Erich]

Again, you fix activation issues by using the Parallels Tools for Boot Camp. But... If you haven't changed the hardware, even if Windows gets de-activated, you can just re-activate, and it will work. (Assuming, of course, you're using a legal copy.)

And again, in my experience and in that of others, this is not true. I've followed the instructions from Parallels exactly and installed Parallels Tools for Boot Camp. Now every time I change the boot method from Parallels to Boot Camp, I get the reactivation message. Reactivation then fails, and I have to call Microsoft.

 

[Erich]

Will it be possible to use for example MediaFours MacDrive 6 to access my Mac/HFS+ partitions from a "boot camp loaded" virtual machine?

As of now the Mac partitions seem to be invisible to MacDrive in Parallels.

In my case, installing the Parallels Tools also renders MacDrive unusable when XP is booted via Boot Camp (i.e., not in a VM).

 

[lt.milo]

Zune compatibility.

Hey, I have a microsoft zune and paralles on my new imac. I have had troubles running my zune software through parallels. Will this update help the zune compatibility or do I need to run bootcamp?

 

[timon]

YIKES! The NTFS reqt would be a bummer! The primary reason I chose FAT32 is the fact that OS X can read FAT32, unlike NTFS partiitons. I even setup Spotlight so it indices my FAT32 BootCamp partition...

Oh well... I guess with the latest Parallels it wouldn't be as bad, but still, I won't be able to do Spotlight searches if I have to convert to NTFS.

Hum, I thought when I built my bootcamp test using NTFS, which has since been deleted, I was able to both read and write to it from OSX. I'll do that again on Monday.

The question I have though is there anyway to transfer the VM build to the bootcamp partition? That would make it much easier since one would not have to completely rebuild XP and reload all of the applications.

I would love to think the request I made on 11/6 to allow Parallels to run a bootcamp partition got Parallels working on it . If that did they shure put it together fast, 23 days would be some fast programming job.

As many of you know I've been hard on Parallels about the issues they have with MS Access and support. It's good to see they have been working so hard on Parallels but sad to day reports are, I've not checked it my self yet, the MS Access problem has not been fixed . I hope they can get that fixed before they release the next non-beta build. Time frame anyone?

They one good thing about these new builds at least for our Access problem is that I can have my programmers using one partition so they only have to go to bootcamp when working on the Access programs.

Great job Parallels

 

[dhjdhj]

I haven't tried the new version yet - I'm at the point where Parallels on my machine has become sufficiently critical to my workflow that I can no longer consider it experimental and take the risk of it breaking.

So some questions about this coherence mode - it sounds like this mode means that a single windows app can run "outside" of the VM window.
1) Can you have more than one windows app at a time?
2) Does coherence basically hide the Windows desktop?
3) Do MS apps running on the Mac desktop have Mac Windows behavior, i.e, are the Windows apps parented inside Mac windows?

(A screen shot or two somewhere would probably answer all of the above

D

You should run your Windows app and then go to Coherence mode by clicking on toolbar icon. VM and Windows desktop will disappear and you will have your Windows app directly on top of Mac desktop. You also optionally could have Windows task bar on or off (on by default) and run new Windows application when in Coherence mode.

 

[clbell]

This is a great release guys. I do have one request. I would like an option to turn off the new auto updating dock icon. I know many will love the feature but I would like the ability to turn it off.

 

[vamp07]

I assume you still need to in stall the standard parallel tools after installing the boot camp parallel tools package?