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

 

[wingdo]

I'd love to either see a thread from Parallels telling us what they are working on and their progress. Or perhaps an occasional update with the builds. Considering we went from build 1970 to build 3036, it is obvious they are trying a number of changes to the code. I'd settle for somewhat more frequent releases which may or may not fix one or two issues. I wasn't a fan of build 1970 and I do like the feature set in build 3036. I just cannot justify $80 for what is currently build 3036. There really isn't much feedback here (or it gets buried in these 36 page threads), so a sticky from the team which we cannot reply to would be greatly appreciated. Something just letting us know where things stand.

 

[tychop]

Nope, you're wrong.

Nothing is broken.
It's Microsoft.

They use an algorithm which will make you re-activate your windows if 60+% of your hardware was changed. Most laptop profiles don't change 60+% of the hardware. They just add to the existing hardware.
In Parallels however, ALL your hardware has changed (from the OS's point of view). Hence the re-activation.

You can 'solve' it by getting your hands on a corporate edition which don't do activation. When you do, you can use a tool called KeyUpdateTool.exe from microsoft to enter your own key. Is this legal? I think not. Do I find it an acceptable fix for the time being? Yes.

For whatever reason, Parallels' current implementation of the second profile (the one for their VM, since the original profile was for Boot Camp directly) is clearly broken for some users. It may not have come up during their testing, but now that it's "out in the wild" it's an issue that many are seeing.
-- Ensoniq

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

I'm experiencing the reported Fat32 problem on my MBP. I understand that parallels is working on a solution, but I'm concerned it will arrive after my 15 day trial period expires. Is there a chance the problem will be fixed soon enough for me to test during the trial, or is it possible to get another trial key after the fix is in?

We will extend trial keys until end of beta - don't worry. You only have to request other key once current one expired.

 

[ninjo]

After a full day's use...

Hello all... I'm a recent switcher who has been following this forum topic since the announcement and yesterday installed the beta update (w/o the bootcamp option b/c i'd read about so many problems with it)

Configuration:
MBP C2D 2.33 w/2GB ram
XP Pro

I've set up mapped network drives on XP that look for storage + work folders shared out on the OSX side of things--so my parallels virtual-partition for XP will only house programs.

Coherence mode is excatly what i'm looking for as I like the OSX interface/operating system, but the same programs i used on a PC--i don't like the little differences in the ways they programmed them for mac... so i'd prefer to run the PC versions.

At any given time, I will have open:

firefox
internet explorer
dreamweaver
adobe photoshop CS2
flash (sometimes)

Well today i'm going to try out working exclusively on my mac/xp (instead of my acer ferrari) to see how well this parallels build preforms on everyday tasks with fairly memory+processor intensive programs.

I'll write back later with my report if any of you are interested...

Btw, inital bugginess/annoyances

- sometimes while in OSX using apple+tab will actually open the start menu as i guess the parallels team set up the apple key to mimmic the windows key. i'd like to turn that off... seeing as how i never use the windows key to begin with.

- already mentioned in some other posts, some applications don't "appear" if you have coherence mode turned on (dos, for example, will only show up if its on top of another window.

- it doesnt remember certain preferences--my trillian chat windows always start up at the far end of the screen even though i always drag them over to where i want them... the start menu always starts up telling me thats where i can find my programs...

overall, however, i've found this build to be fairly stable (knock on wood) though we'll see what the rest of the day brings...

So for anyone who might be interested in the actual user-experience of this update, I worked all day yesterday using XP pro in Coherence mode.

Software Running
- Firefox 2
- Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Macromedia Flash 8
- IE 6
- Trillian basic
- Windows Explorer

I realize the last 2 might not be so important from a performance issue, but just figured i'd give a full picture.

- coherence is very nice... though there are some bugs that you will notice in the case of connection menus in trillian that weren't visible when they were off the actual trillian window (basically, anything overlayed onto the desktop normally won't show in coherence.

- dreamweaver performed well with few (if any) noticeable performance downgrades from my windows machine (acer ferrari 4005)

- adobe photoshop was noticeably slower when zooming in/out of images... sorta 'stuck' for a second, and the program as a whole seemed to struggle slightly, though not enough to make it unuseable. sorta like running it on a slightly slower machine--annoying, but given that i get to run in coherency instead of bootcamp is totally worth the trade off.

- parallels/xp doesn't seem to remember my preferences for things, though i haven't activated yet, but i dont think that is the problem:
1. every time i boot up, it reminds me to click on the start menu
2. it doesn't remember where i like my windows in trillian
3. photoshop doesn't remember my units preferences and toolbar windows
4. FF sizes itself correctly, but IE always opens in a small window that i have to resize

- i went through a brief connectivity issue (later that night and into this morning) where i either couldn't get fully connected (limited) or not connected at all... toggled the network adapter under devices, restarted parallels a few times and that seemed to fix it (for now). i also traced some of the performance to having bitrocket open and downloading on the OSX side of things...

- the ctrl / alt / apple-key set up is awkward and confusing... sometimes in parallels, it treats the apple key like the windows key, other times (like copy/paste), it works like the apple key. this really needs to be addressed or at least configurable as the alt key on the mac keyboard is sort of in an awkward place--i'd rather just be able to add its functionality to the apple key while in windows... so i can do apple+tab in XP and have it work like alt+tab instead of opening up the windows menu.

- if the system gets overloaded or locked up (i managed to do it in Photoshop 2 times), parallels will quit. Not a huge deal considering its beta and kinks still need to be worked out, but something worth mentioning.


I think thats all. Hope at least one person maybe found this useful.

 

[akac]

I stopped using 3036 after 10 minutes, it seems to by VERY beta !
i couldn't stand to have the same problems we had until build 1970 again.

i think it is a strange aproach to release a lot unstable, not working betas
causing huge forum discussions with crash logs, etc ...
but anyway, 3036 is showing the future and it is a bright future !!!

i just dont want to share all those bug experiences and stay put with 1970
for now. but i'm looking forward for a non-beta (& working ;-) release

to be a bit constructive, too :
form Z 5.5 (a lot of palette windows) plus coherence made all windows
disapear, blank screen... (caused me to stop using 3036)

At least for me, 3036 I've seen near no bugs - but I'm not using the BootCamp stuff yet. I am simply using Coherence and all the normal stuff. USB works great, Coherence works great on my MBP17 and so on I've had one weird crash since it was released, but other than that none.

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

I'd love to either see a thread from Parallels telling us what they are working on and their progress. Or perhaps an occasional update with the builds. Considering we went from build 1970 to build 3036, it is obvious they are trying a number of changes to the code. I'd settle for somewhat more frequent releases which may or may not fix one or two issues. I wasn't a fan of build 1970 and I do like the feature set in build 3036. I just cannot justify $80 for what is currently build 3036. There really isn't much feedback here (or it gets buried in these 36 page threads), so a sticky from the team which we cannot reply to would be greatly appreciated. Something just letting us know where things stand.

We are working on all reported bugs and will deliver new beta with fixes. Stay tuned.

 

[BillInSoBe]

Builds.

I'd love to either see a thread from Parallels telling us what they are working on and their progress. Or perhaps an occasional update with the builds. Considering we went from build 1970 to build 3036, it is obvious they are trying a number of changes to the code. I'd settle for somewhat more frequent releases which may or may not fix one or two issues. I wasn't a fan of build 1970 and I do like the feature set in build 3036. I just cannot justify $80 for what is currently build 3036. There really isn't much feedback here (or it gets buried in these 36 page threads), so a sticky from the team which we cannot reply to would be greatly appreciated. Something just letting us know where things stand.

I'd just like to point out that I've been using Parallels since the initial beta. I think the Parallels team does a great job of releasing updated Beta builds to the public in a timely manner. Generally they release every couple weeks. Hang in there I'm certain a new build isn't far off.

Kudos to the dev and test teams at Parallels. I for one work for a large software company and can attest to the amount of work that goes into releasing a product.

 

[Horizontal]

We are working on all reported bugs and will deliver new beta with fixes. Stay tuned.

We have no doubt that you guys are Parallels is a great app and I look forward to this new version working with bootcamp the way you guys plan.

 

[dracula]

I have downloaded the new beta but when I installed it, it asked me to enter the Windows XP activation codes. The threads I have seen on this topic talk about the activation codes being requested when switching from Bootcamp.

On my set-up, the activation codes were requested during installation of the 3036 beta software. Why?

 

[BladeRunner]

My bigest problem after a few days use

I have been using Beta 3036 for a few days now running WinXP-Home installed from a full retail version CD.

My biggest problem - other than the fact that I can't boot from my external hard drive occures when I try to copy large numbers of files.

I have a WinXP-Pro hard drive removed from one of my systems and mounted in an external USB enclosure.

I created a Parallels VM system and defined a 20GB main disk for it. Using my existing Parallels WinXP-Home system with the WinXP-Pro virtual disk defined as a second hard drive I tried to copy the files from my WinXP-Pro physical drive to the virtual disk for my new WinXP-Pro system. Never mind wheather that would ever boot or not.

The problem I encountered was that when I started my file manager copying the "c:/windows" directory from the physical to the virtual drives the system became unresponsive for long periods of time.

I could see the Parallels icons for the second drive and the network adapter flashing. The system was clearly working, it just could not start or stop programs etc... Given the flashing icons I saw, I suspect that a Parallels message Queue was being swamped. Anyway, back when I was a developer, that's where I would have started looking.

I hope there is some way to correct this problem. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect to see other users to try copying from one disk to another.

My system has a 3.0Ghz Pent-4 with HTT & SSE3 + 2.0GB ram and is running OS X 10.4.8 + latest security updates.

Thanks for listening.

 

[don montalvo]

We are working on all reported bugs and will deliver new beta with fixes. Stay tuned.

based on parallels' track record, i don't think anyone doubted that.

don

 

[nickdaniels]

I'd just like to take a time out and say.. Damn Parallels is great.
Its rare to see a product that not only does what it says it will (at a reasonable price point) but is also responsive to the needs of its customers. Thanks guys!

 

[marikavs]

Bsod: Kmode_exception_not_handled

Driver problems, BSOD: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
First, thank you! I'm as happy as can be with a beta. I really hated having to restart-and-switch with Boot Camp "direct." But I am hoping you'll have new Parallel drivers soon. Not only are my mouse and keyboard intermittent, the latest one to go was the CD/DVD drive. Of course, XP Pro SP2 crashes, or plain BSODs, every time, so I have to restart, but still, better! Being able to go back and forth between OS X and Windows is invaluable. Since installing the Parallels access to Boot Camp I've also been able to remove my other Parallels Windows installation giving my HD much needed space.
I liked the suggestion that you have a sticky telling us what we can expect, and when, in terms of improvements, fixes, new drivers, etc. How about it?
MvS

 

[webfrasse]

Tested the beta on my 15" MBP (maxed out) and when I try to start my VM with windows 2000 Parallels crashes late in the boot. Not possible at all to run the w2k vm. My Ubuntu 6.10 vm works fine...

Is there a new build in the works maybe?

/Mikael

 

[Maj Kong]

Installation documentation...

Hello,
Is there any installation documentation for this yet?

Regards.

 

[MacChelsea]

Launch error

Having used 3036 for a few days, twice have I encountered this error. When I launch PD, a window popped up and told me my Virtual Machine was being used by another instance of PD (which of course there wasn't). The first time I quitted PD and launched again, and the problem was solved. The second time I did the same but to no avail. I had to create a new VM using the old HDD file. Fortunately it works.

 

[calstars]

Killer App

The first and most important step was taken when Apple announced its move to Intel, and Boot Camp made it possible to buy a Mac if you were a gamer or a developer...but Coherence is simply the logical conclusion of running Windows and OS X on the same box. Congrats to the Parallels team.

Does anyone know if Apple has commented on Coherence, or if they will be including their own version of it in their next OS release? It's difficult to imagine a better implementation of Windows on a Mac than having the taskbar sitting next to the Dock with full access to all programs.

 

[BillInSoBe]

Apple has stated several times that they have no intention of including Virtualization technology in the next release of Mac OSX. They are happy with the offerings by Bootcamp and Parallels.

Having said this... just because they aren't going to implement "Virtualization" such as Parallels or VMware doesn't necessary mean they won't include some Windows API implementation. You have to keep in mind that WINE is alive and well. There was an open source project called Darwine, which was a Intel Mac version of WINE. I believe similar (if not the same) technology is used for CrossOver for Mac.

You don't need a Virtual Machine to run Windows Applications running on the Mac when you could implement the Windows API and run all of the same applications without the additional overhead.

I'm more then happy with Parallels offering and will continue to run and support it until such as time that you can run any application directly on the Mac platform.

 

[Synapco]

Another Potential Coherence Issue

I am not certain if this has been mentioned or not. With Coherence running - I open say MS Word/Excel or what ever program. Instead of opening the file I want in XP, I access the file/s by-way of the Parallels Share Folder. The file/s refuse to open and Parallels locks-up. If I due the samething without Coherence running - everything works fine.

I look forward to a more stable beta; however, overall this is a very nice update.

 

[athos]

I can't get this to work at all for boot camp load. I've installed the tools on the boot camp partition (another drive) and this is what I get when I load up my VM:

"Boot from hard drive... Error loading operating system."

And that's it. No furthur explanation.