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

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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

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

This is very impressive for a free update. A few notes:

The coherency feature is fantiastic. But I can see how you've implemeneted it, basically by making the desktop "transparent". This is easiest to spot when moving the windows around - you can see the desktop being redrawn and wiped out just beyond the edges of the desktop. Nice hack!

The most annoying thing about the mode is the Window's toolbar. Making it auto-hide makes this a bit better. What seems to be a bug though is that the screen resolution isn't quite right on my original MacBook, so the toolbar isn't quite in the right spot, it floats just above the bottom of the screen.

What would be much nice though having "proxy apps" running in the Mac OS, so that they appear in the dock and so you command-tab to them.

Looking forward to the final release of an great update.

1. Windows task bar visability is part of design. Without it you can't start new Windows application when in Coherence. Optionally you can switch it off or autoplace it - check Coherence tab in Parallels Tools Center.

2. "Isn't quite right resolution" is also part of design. Coherence working area is exluded DockBar and Mac menu.

3. As to artifacts of Windows desktop on fast windows moving - they are in this beta and work on it's improvement. One of workarounds - you could set in Windows blue wallpaper and artefacts become hardly visible.

 

[diamondsw]

Bit of a mixed bag so far:

1. Boot Camp Support - Does not boot properly, failing soon after Mup.sys (when booted into Safe Mode). This is with Vista, but it mirrors previous failures related to ACPI support that I have posted on before. Just noticed I need to install Parallels Tools first - this should not be necessary.
2. New Properties Page - Looks nice, but still cannot view and change properties and have them take effect on next boot. Instead, the user is completely locked out of properties until the VM is shut down.
3. Parallels Tools Stability - No longer crashes on installing the video driver - excellent.
4. Auto Resolution Changes - Mostly works, but I still see scrollbars appear from time to time - not sure under what circumstances yet.
5. Transparent AZXCV mapping - Hallelujah! I can't tell how many times I've flubbed that, especilly when copying between Windows and OS X.

ACPI support would make running Boot Camp partitions, restoring from other PC's, etc all much easier. When will we see this happen?

As for the interface, it's a mess. The entire paradigm seems awkward and forced into a "one window per instance of the application". That window is a single virtual machine. This leads to all sorts of awkwardness:

1. A window must always be open, or the program quits. This is absolutely inappropriate for a document-based application. Your "documents" are VM's. I should be able to open several, close them as I want, and not have any open, but leave the program open (if I want to check preferences, or the version number, etc).
2. VM's launch into their own instance of Parallels, which makes the memory settings in "Preferences" and "Properties" redundant. It's also confusing as to whether Preferences changes affect all copies of Parallels or not, and what happens if changes are made to two separate running copies - who "wins"?
3. VM Catalog is rooted to an existing VM, which makes it conceptually a child of that VM - this is the opposite of what should be conveyed. VM's come from the catalog, not the other way around.
4. Cannot launch the program without an "untitled instance" showing up to root the VM catalog to. Again, this should be a separate window.

Fundamentally, I should be able to open several virtual machines at once, in one copy of Parallels. I should be able to select "Open" and be presented with a list of known machines, with an "Other..." button to open ones that are not listed, and "Get more" button to download premade images from the internet, within Parallels. Known machines should be listed with their name and type, and if running, a screenshot of the current state. Opening one of these should then open the Virtual Machine in a separate window, all in the same instance.

As for properties, according to interface guidelines they should be a sheet on the VM window - I shouldn't have to hide what I'm looking at, but it should be directly connected to that VM. This is exactly what sheets are for. Properties should be changeable at any time, and the user should be notified as to which can take place immediately, and which will take place on the next boot.

This makes the interface much more straightforward, builds on established interface conventions both in the OS and several previous VM programs, and increases user flexibility by removing the modality of the application.

 

[HinckleyScott]

I agree that USB 2.0 is important, but why do you need multiprocessor support in VM? Parallels Desktop is tuned to run best on dual core Macs - one core is fully utilized by Windows and second core by Mac OS X. Optimal performance for both systems.

I run 2 VMs and it appears that each runs on a seperate core, so, at least to that degree, Parallels seems to do multi-processor (or else Activity monitor is misleading me on processor usage)

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

Andrew (or anyone on the team),

I suppose my question was missed, so here it goes again.

Sure, no USB2 support, i guess.. but will you bring a fix to this Logitech webcam issue? it works fine on USB1.1 on my pc notebook. And what about the iSight, if i use bootcamp with the embedded driver?

We are working on USB issues. One of the improvements (connect/disconnect) is already in this beta.

 

[rangr]

coherence stops my mouse from working-- the pointer icon slowly drifts to lower right of screen. deinstall & reinstall of parallels tools gives back control, but everytime i try coherence it loses mouse control.
using second monitor with MBP.

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

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.

DOS box in Coherence is known issue. We are working on it. As for large characters I didn't understood the testcase - could you describe in more details please?

 

[mike3k]

This is awesome! I love the coherence feature. I haven't tried boot camp yet since I haven't had a chance to reboot in Windows XP to install the tools.

It's too bad Parallels Transporter only works in Windows. I have several Linux VMWare images I'd like to be able to convert.

 

[javester]

Andrew,
Installed the Parallel Tools for BootCamp and followed the instructions on setting up BootCamp with Parallels and still no joy.

Also getting "Unable to open disk image BootCamp" error message.

My BootCamp, btw, is a 20gig FAT32 running Windows XP Pro.

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

This is awesome! I love the coherence feature. I haven't tried boot camp yet since I haven't had a chance to reboot in Windows XP to install the tools.

It's too bad Parallels Transporter only works in Windows. I have several Linux VMWare images I'd like to be able to convert.

You can convert it using Parallels Transporter for Windows anyway.

 

[itsdapead]

Custom "Not Boot camp" Windows install support...?

I've got a Mac Pro and, rather than use the Boot Camp Assistant, I stuck a second drive in, formatted it as "MBR" [1] and custom partitioned it the way I normally do my multi-boot PCs:

* Partition for c:\windows,
* big NTFS data partition for data files
* smaller FAT partition for file exchange with other OSs

Q1: Am I right in assuming that this ain't gonna work with Build 3036?

Q2: Should I zap the disk back to GUID format and re-install XP using the standard Boot Camp assisstant, or is Parallels likely to support my sort of setup in the not-too-distant future?

Q3: Does Build 3036 work with XP installed on a second drive (if it is done using boot caQ3: mp?)

[1] I.e. make BC driver CD; take out the Mac Pro's original HD; stick in the new one, boot from the Windows CD; partition and install; install Boot Camo drivers CD; Re-instate original HD; Voila.

 

[lhaas]

Parallels USB Support

The USB support excuses thing is getting old. It has not always been Parallels stance that it would be fixed on the next big release. I've been getting the "Next Release" improved support BS since the first beta. Every release I load the new version and guess what my Garmin GPS is still INOP.

It works 100% with VM Ware Fusion..We need USB 2 support.

 

[Sheppy]

OK, the Coherence feature is very clever. Masking off the Windows desktop and letting the Mac world show through and respond to clicks is ingenious, and works amazingly well.

It's got glitches (for instance, I just minimized my Windows Firefox window, and there's now a large floating chunk of Windows desktop that only just now (after about 30 seconds) went away.

Still, for a beta, this is amazing. Nice job!

 

[retrospek]

I'm not sure why - but this Coherence feature looks really odd on my 24" iMac. The Windows Taskbar seems to be stretched and the fonts look really bad (both on the taskbar and any applications I run)..

This may sound a silly question - but have you tested this on a 24" iMac ? or is anyone else getting this problem ?

 

[phazer]

With Coherence you can run Windows applications directly on top of Mac desktop and achieve really full integration between OSes.

This is awesome. I had seamlessRDP and rdesktop but it was quirky at best. Thanks, parallels. $80 WELL spent.

 

[tychop]

Issue fixed.

Hi all,

I fixed my previous problem (not being able to run image from bootcamp).
After I converted my FAT32 to NTFS using "convert c: /fs:ntfs", I was able to load parallel's with bootcamp.

So, convert your FAT32 in order to fix it.

 

[Odedh]

* 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.

What's the difference between those 2 features????

 

[moo083]

So, your saying that I have to reboot in Boot Camp and turn my FAT32 partition into NTFS to get Parallels to recognize my copy of Windows? Can an admin confirm that the Boot Camp feature requires NTFS?

 

[retrospek]

Wow - I just suspended a machine and love the new Suspend graphics !

 

[javester]

So, your saying that I have to reboot in Boot Camp and turn my FAT32 partition into NTFS to get Parallels to recognize my copy of Windows? Can an admin confirm that the Boot Camp feature requires NTFS?

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.

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

So, your saying that I have to reboot in Boot Camp and turn my FAT32 partition into NTFS to get Parallels to recognize my copy of Windows? Can an admin confirm that the Boot Camp feature requires NTFS?

It seems that there are some problems with FAT32 Boot Camp. We will investigate this problem.