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

STim · Dec 1, 2006

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

Robster · Dec 3, 2006

manfredell said:
Parallels COMPRESSOR is BROKEN in this beta!!!!

I tried to compress my XP VM twice with the same result:

After the reboot it took a unusual long time in the prepare to compact disk stage. Then it went to 100% and the window went dark and nothing happened. Seemed to be frozen. Had to stop the VM.

This no good!!!

YUP happened to me too on a MacBook Pro.

Window goes dark and I had to force quit and restore from a backup.

Something I had just done before I tried the compressor.

Boy was I happy......

Robin

chucker · Dec 3, 2006

Tony-Bologne said:
Mac OS VMs
Would be nice to also be able to run Mac OS in a VM. This would be good if you wanted multiple OS versions on the same machine without having to have separate partitions and having to boot into another OS. I know Windows folks that use Microsoft Virtual PC to run multiple instances of Windows or multiple OS versions that benefit greatly so why not with Mac OS?

Apple would need to give permission for this, or Parallels would have to come up with a way Apple approves of that makes it only possible on Macs.

BillInSoBe said:
This is a HUGE problem. How are we supposed to make change to the VM once this is configured? I start Parallels and it start the VM. I shut down and it exits Parallels.

Attempting to stop the VM before it boots doesn't do any good. Parallels still exits. Pausing the VM doesn't do any good.

We're stuck in an endless loop.

Start Parallels Desktop directly (rather than opening a particular VM), then select the VM. You can get to the configuration that way.

Fazookus · Dec 3, 2006

BSoD Blooz...

Very impressive! Blue screens on me if I try to boot from the BC partition (and I did indeed install the Parallels bc tools) but I'm mostly intereseted in booting from an easily backed up files so I'm happy. The BSOD message is a one-liner, not one of those with lots of gibberish, I'll forward that along with logs, whatever if anybody's interested.

Keep up the good work!!!

JHGRedekop · Dec 3, 2006

These are some great features!

I am running into some issues, though.

I have a Mac Pro, 2Gb memory, Radeon X1900 card, and two LCD displays.

I have things set up so that Parallels starts on my left-hand screen, and my Mac menu bar is on the right-hand screen.

Whenever I start my old virtual machine (the one set up under my store-bought Parallels), the desktop on my right screen gets corrupted momentarily with scrambled video data from other parts of the desktop -- fragments of window contents and so on replacing the wallpaper briefly.

The Coherence button doesn't seem to do anything, at least not under my old virtual machine.

I've tried setting up a virtual machine to run off my Boot Camp partition, but it doesn't seem to be working. When I start it, give it my password, and it comes back with "Unable to open disk image Boot Camp".

Of course, I don't want it to open a disk image, but a separate partition; I don't know if that's just that the error message hasn't been updated for the new functionality or if it's actually trying to do the wrong thing.

(On a tangentially related note, has anyone else had problems installing ATI drivers on a Mac Pro in boot camp? It keeps telling me it needs the standard VGA driver, which I can't find anywhere!)

msjulie33 · Dec 3, 2006

coherence is very cool

but the mouse goes whacky on me, especially in coherence mode. No matter which way I move it, it travels down and to the right, finally getting pinned in the lower corner. Keyboard works fine.

I had to revert to the release build

Tony-Bologne · Dec 3, 2006

BillInSoBe said:
This is a HUGE problem. How are we supposed to make change to the VM once this is configured? I start Parallels and it start the VM. I shut down and it exits Parallels.

Attempting to stop the VM before it boots doesn't do any good. Parallels still exits. Pausing the VM doesn't do any good.

We're stuck in an endless loop.

I finally got this fixed by starting and stopping the VM then quickly clicking on any item in the Property Page (flashes up quickly and sometimes stays in the screen a moment longer than other times).

AkitaOnRails · Dec 3, 2006

Problem Uninstalling Parallels Tools

I am trying to uninstall Parallels Tools in order to fix my Macdrive installation, which is most important.

But I get the following error:

---------------------------
Parallels Tools
---------------------------
>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (476)

PAPP

arallels Tools

PVENDOR: (www.parallels.com)

PGUID:B730E908-1FD5-4170-A0FE-B6AB874344F0

$10.50.0.132

@Windows XP Service Pack 2 (2600) BT_OTHER 376.21

Anyone knows what the heck is this???

scthkr · Dec 3, 2006

Beta Version (3036) with Matlab

Thanks for the great update and features!

One of the big reason I am using Parallels is for Matlab. I know there is an intel version, but is still a beta, and I can't afford a mistake or a crash when my job depends on the answers Matlab produces. Enough about that.

Matlab has a very nice tool called, "bench". It will do several tests:
LU
FFT
ODE
Sparse
2-D graphics test
3-D graphics test

Lower scores are better, because all values are in seconds.
For each test, I ran it several times, and took an average.
I ran this test on my Macbook Pro Core2Duo 2.33 GHz, 2 GB Ram on the
Parallels Build 1970:
0.2225 0.5448 0.2321 0.5642 0.6113 0.8888
Parallels Build 3036
0.2090 0.4246 0.1485 0.4977 0.4155 0.5651

Every test did at least a little better!

Go Parallels TEAM! Pretty cool when my machine is 20-30% faster!

Shane · Dec 3, 2006

Hi all, sorry if I ask a stupid question, but I'm rather new to Windows emulation...

Does this "Coherency" thing means that if I want to run a Windows ".exe" application,
the only thing I need is Parallells Desktop and I would NOT need to buy me a copy of Windows at all ?

(I only need to be able to run one application that doesn't exist for Mac and I'm quite happy to spend some money on Parallels, but the cost of Windows XP is quite expensive... especially if you do not want to use it (Windows)... ;-)

Thanks,
Shane

mikev · Dec 3, 2006

Shane said:
Hi all, sorry if I ask a stupid question, but I'm rather new to Windows emulation...

Does this "Coherency" thing means that if I want to run a Windows ".exe" application,
the only thing I need is Parallells Desktop and I would NOT need to buy me a copy of Windows at all ?

(I only need to be able to run one application that doesn't exist for Mac and I'm quite happy to spend some money on Parallels, but the cost of Windows XP is quite expensive... especially if you do not want to use it (Windows)... ;-)

Thanks,
Shane

This isn't a stupid question. To answer it, you do need to purchase a copy of Windows. All coherency does (from what I have seen) is hides the Windows desktop and displays your Windows program windows and taskbar in OS X.

tomservo291 · Dec 3, 2006

PetraHonig said:
Hi,

the coherence mode is nice but I have very ugly large characters. Is there any chance to smoothen the fonts.

Also the DOS box, e.g. cmd command does not work in coherence mode. E.g. the window does not appear if started in coherence mode. Switching to windows mode and than back to coherence displays the DOS box but moving it around destroys parts of it.

Get the XP ClearType Tuner Powertoy from Microsoft if you want some nicer font smoothing in windows:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Arenared · Dec 3, 2006

Bluescreen of Death - 0x0000007b

Bluescreen of Death - 0x0000007b

that's my error when i use boot camp as my HD with 3036, using both Parallels and profile 1

anyone?\

thanks

Paul Linden · Dec 3, 2006

msjulie33 said:
but the mouse goes whacky on me, especially in coherence mode. No matter which way I move it, it travels down and to the right, finally getting pinned in the lower corner. Keyboard works fine.

I had to revert to the release build

This worked for me - http://forum.parallels.com/post30695-347.html - but not for everyone, it seems.

Morgenl · Dec 3, 2006

Minor detail

This is a great update! And for the first time upgrading did not require a reload of SPSS (statistical software) which made me really happy.

The intriguing thing I noticed while playing around with screen resizing was that my Recycle Bin (sitting in my lower right corner of the Windows screen) gets "fixed" in its location relative to the whole monitor no matter how I resize Windows (unless I resize windows smaller then it regains it lower right corner spot). For example, if Windows is taking up the upper right quadrant of my monitor so that Recycle is sitting just up and left of the centre of my monitor screen (in the lower right corner of Windows), then I enlarge the Windows portion, the Recycle Bin remains just up and left of the center of my monitor screen. The Recycle Bin doesn't seem to be "tied" so to speak to a location relative to Windows, but rather to an overall spot on the monitor.

Hope that made sense.

dwerg85 · Dec 3, 2006

Arenared said:
Bluescreen of Death - 0x0000007b

that's my error when i use boot camp as my HD with 3036, using both Parallels and profile 1

anyone?\

thanks

Having the same issue as quoted.
Screeny of the BSOD:

I can boot in to boot camp normally tho.

Shane · Dec 3, 2006

@mikev -- Thanks for the quick reply !

... it already sounded too good to be true...

mikev said:
This isn't a stupid question. To answer it, you do need to purchase a copy of Windows. All coherency does (from what I have seen) is hides the Windows desktop and displays your Windows program windows and taskbar in OS X.

tomservo291 · Dec 3, 2006

Some features that I'd love to see

I've been using Parallels since the first beta and have loved every minute of it. I love all of the new changes in this beta, and already I'm right at home with Coherence. I use Parallels for development on different platforms (namely writing Java web applications in windows for my current job. Yes, I know I *could* do this in OS X, but it's easier this way for consistence with the rest of the company.)

I've got everything working nicely with Shared networking, bonjour for windows and using the local computer name in OS X to map a network drive to share my root directory of OS X to windows for some unparalleled interoperability between OS X and XP.

But anyways, what I'd like to see:

Show windows applications in OS X pager
Having all or a subset of windows applications (subset being selectable somehow, possibly through Parallels Tools) show up in the OS X pager (cmd-tab.) Obviously it would be difficult to have a nice high-res image to display in the pager, but possibly a screenshot of the application or something. This would simply have to make parallels become the active window, and bring that windows application to the front.

Fazookus · Dec 3, 2006

dwerg85 said:
Having the same issue as quoted.
Screeny of the BSOD:

I can boot in to boot camp normally tho.

Yep, that's the very same BSoD that I get trying to boot from my BC partition.

Glad it's not only me

diamondsw · Dec 3, 2006

BillInSoBe said:
This is a HUGE problem. How are we supposed to make change to the VM once this is configured? I start Parallels and it start the VM. I shut down and it exits Parallels.

Attempting to stop the VM before it boots doesn't do any good. Parallels still exits. Pausing the VM doesn't do any good.

We're stuck in an endless loop.

I'd just like to note that if Parallels supported changing properties while a VM was running, and applied those changes at next boot rather than disallowing them entirely, we wouldn't have this problem.

The solution is fairly simple conceptually:

The new styled "view properties" window becomes the screen shown when a VM is open but shut down.
Properties are moved to a sheet that is attached to the VM window. These can be edited at any time; properties that will not take effect immediately are marked as such.
The VM Catalog is moved to a window of its own - see Virtual PC, Q, or VMWare Fusion.

This is the way the Mac interface works everywhere else.

RussGJohnson · Dec 3, 2006

manfredell said:
Parallels COMPRESSOR is BROKEN in this beta!!!!

I tried to compress my XP VM twice with the same result:

After the reboot it took a unusual long time in the prepare to compact disk stage. Then it went to 100% and the window went dark and nothing happened. Seemed to be frozen. Had to stop the VM.

This no good!!!

I had the same problem. It worked fine from inside parallels hard drive properties-advanced-compact screen though.