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

 

[milesce]

You guys are ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. I pre-ordered when Parallels was in Beta, and I am absolutely amazed at the progress of just a few months.

 

[5150Joker]

Hi,
I have WinXP installed via Bootcamp. I installed the Parallels beta 3068 and set it up to run the WinXP via bootcamp and installed the paralles tools natively in XP. When I try and run it, I get the following error:

Anyone know whats wrong ??

I'm getting the exact same problem. I hope this gets fixed since I'm anxious to be able to use a single XP installation rather than two of them!

 

[nycruza]

MacBook Pro 2G
OSX 10.4.8 WinXP SP2 with all the latest updates.

Parallels boots the Boot Camp partition fine.
Problem is Parallels tools.
During installation cannot get past the Netork configuration.
Set up is Bridged using "en1" (Airport).

Any suggestions?

BTW: Having same problem updating the "virtual drive"

ajm

 

[BenInBlack]

2 words, Awe and Some!

No i can have both a Mac and Windows Clock at the same time... LOL

thanks. I have been dealing with the only drawback i have found with the MacMini (no dual screen support) this new coherence mode just opened up my world

Will let you know if i find any issues with copy and paste

 

[AlanH]

Make sure Finder is running when you install Parallels

Anyone else having trouble installing this version?

My install was failing repeatedly until I had a brainwave and launched Finder. Then it installed with no problem. You see, I run CocoaTech Pathfinder as my normal Finder replacement, and I guess teh installer is sending Applescript commands to Finder. If they fail, the installer fails.

Pathfinder is quite popular, and it has an option to quit the Finder when it launches. I recommend to Parallels that you check for the Finder process, and if it isn't available you launch it.

 

[blacksheep]

Problem/Answer: BootCamp Windows runs real slow, programs wont launch

Just to share...

Got the bootcamp VM setup and working per instructions. XP would load, all startup apps would load, etc. However trying to open apps, nothing would load (Word, Firefox, etc).

Task Mgr shown the processes, but did not list them in the Running Apps list.

Noticed that the Apple Keyboard Manager, installed by BootCamp initially was pegging the CPU with 100% load. This is on my Macbook 13" with 2gigs of ram and latest updates all around.

Killed the process, which is not needed inside the VM, and everything works fine.

Symptoms:

Apps would not load, or take excessively long to load in XP Bootcamp VM
Fans churning on high due to high CPU load

Cause:
Apple Keyboard Manager

Fix:
Kill kbdmgr.exe process in Task Manager
(if no ctrl-alt-del, then Start, Run, and type: taskmgr and run it that way

 

[blacksheep]

I got this when I selected the wrong profile when the VM was loading.

If you are booting into the BootCamp/XP VM, you must select both the Parallels Profile when the VM loads.

I got the exact error by picking the Windows XP profile instead, which is when I decided to RTFM and then it worked.

Hope this helps.

I'm getting the exact same problem. I hope this gets fixed since I'm anxious to be able to use a single XP installation rather than two of them!

 

[Nick Starr]

I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition (FAT32 non-Boot Camp) and cant' seem to get the Coherency mode to work on my MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo.

I also can't get the auto adjust screen resolution to work.

I am going to blow out this and install Boot Camp in NTFS with just XP Pro to see if that works. I don't know why MCE wouldn't work.

Either way, great work....this is truly one of the best applications to hit the mac in a long time.

 

[mattmon]

Nice Job Parallels Team!

I'd say this has been the most exciting thing to happen since the day the initial beta was released.

I can't wait until you finish coherence host integration...

 

[conalho]

Garmin Forerunner 205 NOT WORKING w/ latest beta

Like many other users of the latest beta version, we still cannot use our Garmin to work in Parallels for Mac. In fact, the 5-10 second problem does come back. I'm running the Garmin Forerunner 205. I hope this will get solved with the final release 3.0.

 

[COBeav]

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

Well, I'm still getting the same "wait 5-10 seconds" message for my USB device. I know it's still beta, but I was really hoping for my USB device to work with Parallels. Hopefully it'll be working in a future release.

 

[[email protected]]

miker51,

Thanks for report! We will fix it soon.

I too had the same problem on my Mac Pro. However, simply putting the memory on manual did NOT fix the problem. I had to drag the slider up near the 1GB range. Much below that and my system would still become unresponsive.

2.66, 2GB RAM, 1900XT

 

[5150Joker]

I got this when I selected the wrong profile when the VM was loading.

If you are booting into the BootCamp/XP VM, you must select both the Parallels Profile when the VM loads.

I got the exact error by picking the Windows XP profile instead, which is when I decided to RTFM and then it worked.

Hope this helps.

Mind elaborating a bit? Not really sure what you said there.

 

[davaodude]

Virtual machine won't start after upgrading

I just upgraded to build 3036 Beta, and now my virtual machine (Windows XP Pro) won't start. I get the following error:

Virtual machine cannot be started because of the following problem:

Unable to get the geometry of the virtual hard disk. Perhaps file /Users/Shared/Parallels/winxp.hdd is not a valid virtual hard disk image file.
​

This virtual machine was working fine in the previous (retail) version of Parallels. Any ideas what I can do to get the beta working with my existing image?

 

[sonicbug]

share printer?

Hello, I just installed the new version 3036; it seems awesome. Will it be safe to use as long as a backup of essential files are stored on auxillary storage like a usb key, or cd. When I mention essential files I am referring to code, and uml diagrams. I mean to say does saving work without any problems. Besides that, I was now wondering is it now possible to be able to print out from ms visio using a network printer using coherence. I was unable to print out before this update. I basically have a printer connected to a pc via usb and I want to be able to access that printer from within win xp home on my macbook. At the present time I am able to print from os 10.4.8 with no problems, but when I try and print something from a windows application like visio I can't print it out in coherence mode. Any suggestion greatly appreciated.

 

[davaodude]

I just upgraded to build 3036 Beta, and now my virtual machine (Windows XP Pro) won't start. I get the following error:

Virtual machine cannot be started because of the following problem:

Unable to get the geometry of the virtual hard disk. Perhaps file /Users/Shared/Parallels/winxp.hdd is not a valid virtual hard disk image file.
​

This virtual machine was working fine in the previous (retail) version of Parallels. Any ideas what I can do to get the beta working with my existing image?

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

 

[rqc]

Parallels 3036 and Vista

I have the EXACT same issue...i got "current state of the VM is incompatible with the new version of Parallels" so i restarted....and then hangs on reboot of Vista. Can only get into safe mode and that's it! This is Vista RC2 which was running without issue in Parallels v1970 before upgrading...

I've got the same problem. A saved state Vista RTM VM that worked under v1970 cannot boot under v3036 unless I start the VM in safe mode. I'm using a MacBook Pro C2D.

 

[briany]

Problems with 3036 Beta

I've installed the beta and some things work but others don't.

The VM browser doesn't work at all. Whenever I start Parallels Desktop (or select "open") I instead get the "New VM Creator" window opening up. Selecting "cancel" quits the program. The only way I can open a VM is to double-click on it, which also starts it (something I don't necessarily want). When creating a VM, the "create a shortcut on the desktop" option also seems to do nothing.

I haven't yet tried to run a Windows XP VM based on Bootcamp (and I won't until I can figure out what's causing these problems). Anyone have any ideas?

 

[rqc]

I've got the same problem. A saved state Vista RTM VM that worked under v1970 cannot boot under v3036 unless I start the VM in safe mode. I'm using a MacBook Pro C2D.

FYI, XP Pro is working fine...

 

[marchaos]

I'm getting the exact same problem. I hope this gets fixed since I'm anxious to be able to use a single XP installation rather than two of them!

Did you install the parallels tools in windows before trying it in parallels?

"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."