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

[WimDS]

Coherence is awesome. Here's a cool feature: While in coherence, click the toolbar and select "Show the Desktop". Voila, there it is! Now you can access what you have on your desktop. Click on the taskbar again and select "Show Open Windows" to toggle back to Coherence mode.

Can someone post some screenshots about Coherence please?

 

[Djehuti]

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 ?

Have you tried opening the Parallels preferences, and in the Appearance pane make sure "Allow to change Mac OS screen resolution" checkbox is unchecked?

 

[bdumes]

Windows has a number of tools for CD and DVD authoring and extraction that are not fully matched on the Mac. My need for Parallels hinges on being able to use these tools:

EAC for accurate digital extraction of my CDs for backup and archiving.
Plextools Professional for control of my external Plextor drive's features.

Neither of these works with Parallels. The tools can't see the connected CD/DVD drive, just the imaginary CD/DVD drive created by Parallels. They crash or produce meaningless results (an audio file extracted with EAC under Parallels is empty of audio data).

I'm still stuck using Boot Camp to have any meaningful access to connected hardware.

I appreciate the effort that the Parallels development team is putting in, but I wish the improved hardware support had showed up in this beta.

I have to agree with this 100%. It was actually my primary reason for buying Parallels in the first place. I always assumed that support for this would come very quickly, so I'm still remote desktoping to a windows box to do the DVD writing I need.

Any idea when we can expect this Parallels guys?

Regards.

 

[rgarber]

Can't get drag / drop or coherence to work

Hi..
Great feature release - congrats guys..
I feel like a knucklehead here, but I can't figure out drag and drop between XP and OSX, nor do I get any response within XP when I press the coherence button.

What am I missing here ?

Thanks!

 

[orr]

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?

I don't know if this is what he means but:

On a Mac Pro with 30" display, XP maxes out at 2032x1371 (at least according to Display/Settings), which is short of the 2560x1600 that Mac OS X runs at. I found that if you switch to Coherence, it "stretches" the Windows display out to 2560x1600 (- the Mac menu & Dock).

 

[bamsaleg]

I am quite impressed....

Do you plan in your future version to include complete mac keyboard layout remapping for foreign languages in windows ? This is maybe the last great thing (with applescript) that VirtualPC offered and you still do not.

With this version, let's the migration from VPC on campus begin!

 

[mr zippy]

Comments
1. Drag and drop folders / files:
Nice feature, makes life easier.

2. USB Auto Connect:
Now works now even if you have lots of USB devices already connected, makes life easier.

Suggestions
1. Add Shut Down option to window close:
When you close the VM window you only have the option of suspend or power off - which is better than the power off only of the previous version, but can you add shut down to options - I think this is faster and also I don't trust Windows to be stable if it's technically always up!

2. Coherence Mode - windows app icons in dock
Maybe it is possible select the position of the task bar within Parallels as this is not obvious in Windows (unlock task bar and sort of drag the right point and it moves), also could you not implement something similar to MS Virtual PC where running apps in the VM have individual icons on the dock - to be honest when I first read of Coherence Mode I thought that is what it was.

Good work anyway!

 

[trent]

Reactivating Win Xp Sp2 Home Ed.

First word about this new version: Great! Good work guys, very impressive.

But here's my problem:

Weird. I got the Virtualized BootCamp to work but it says I need to reactivate windows due to some sort of hardware change. I was able to reactivate in BootCamp but then in Parallels it asked me to reactivate and it tells me I have exceeded the number of times I can use this. Ouch. Now what? Did I do something wrong?

BTW, the new update is pretty cool otherwise. I'm impressed with all the work they've put into this. Definitely well spent money. (still waiting for my Garmin device to work with it though...)

I have the exact same problem. My situation is the following: I'm using Parallels Desktop for Mac with one Windows Home Ed. ( KEY 1). The purpose of this system is to get some programs working which don't run under Mac OS X. It's working fine. On the other hand I've Boot Camp installed with another Windows Home Ed. (KEY 2). The purpose of this partition is gaming. I've bought two Windows Licenses & CD's with different keys of course, so very legal at all, since the VM and the native partition are "two" PC's on my MacBook Pro.
Now I'm being asked for re-activation (i understand this technically since the 3rd VM under Parallels is a "new" PC with "new" hardware. But is there a way to avoid this reactivation by Windows? I mean i got already two legal copies and i don't want to buy a third one. I know mainly it's up to Microsoft with this problem and not to the Parallels team but is there any chance to get through this?

Thx in advance and keep the good work up guys!

 

[ukroell]

Folks, this Build is just great, great, great.
The Boot Camp-Boot is something I can (or would) not test, because there runs my Windows Vista Final (thank MS for the gift for beta-testers ).

Drag-and-Drop is great and just instant. Boom.
And the Coherence-Mode is something, that is just amazing.
Now, there is no need for a thing linke "Classic for Windows-Apps".

My last wishes for the Final:
Take off this litte graphic-bugs at the Windows-windows corners and get a new, great idea, to hide the Taskbar (otherway that the way in Windows).

Again: Great work!

 

[coooly]

Can someone post some screenshots about Coherence please?

Here it is !

 

[toddgarvin]

Coherence Screen Shot Here

Can someone post some screenshots about Coherence please?

Enjoy!

http://web.mac.com/toddgarvin/iWeb/website/coherency.png

 

[palter]

Will Coherence be confused by the fact that I keep my Dock on the left edge of my screen rather than the bottom? (I read earlier that it resizes the Windows desktop to take the Mac menu bar and Dock into account.)

 

[itsdapead]

Comments
2. Coherence Mode - windows app icons in dock
Not sure this feels usable, maybe it is possible to move the task bar to the top of the window or implement something similar to MS Virtual PC where running apps in the VM have individual icons on the dock - to be honest when I first read of Coherence Mode I thought that is what it was.
Good work anyway!

Coherence is clearly a kludge, but a darned impressive one - dragging windows around is a bit flickery but it looks quite usable to me. You can drag the windows taskbar wherever you want it - the top of the screen seems best. Even better if you have a second monitor.

 

[mr zippy]

Coherence is clearly a kludge, but a darned impressive one - dragging windows around is a bit flickery but it looks quite usable to me. You can drag the windows taskbar wherever you want it - the top of the screen seems best. Even better if you have a second monitor.

I just edited my original post, as I realised I was missing the point a bit!

 

[Erich]

I'm having the same problem with constant reactivation, and would appreciate a solution.

 

[rangr]

is no-one else having this loss of mouse problem? the build works perfectly as far as i can tell, but going into coherence mode makes cursor drift slowly to right and down screen, diagonally. i then have to uninstall and reinstall tools to make it work again, which is a bit tricky without mouse control!

i've got second monitor with MBP. Running Build 3036 Beta.

it's a very cool feature, i'd love to get it working!

 

[orr]

Comments

2. Coherence Mode - windows app icons in dock
Maybe it is possible select the position of the task bar within Parallels as this is not obvious in Windows (unlock task bar and sort of drag the right point and it moves), also could you not implement something similar to MS Virtual PC where running apps in the VM have individual icons on the dock - to be honest when I first read of Coherence Mode I thought that is what it was.

Good work anyway!

Also, if you could get the system tray [application] icons onto the Mac menu that would be fantastic(I mean things like the Eject USB drive, Anti-Virus etc, not stock stuff like the clock).

Yes, excellent work, I'm thoroughly impressed.

 

[AkitaOnRails]

Windows on Bootcamp

Hello again, I was just able to boot my Bootcamp Windows inside Parallels and it rocks!! But I have some issues to report.

First of all, I did everything the guide said to: install the tools before booting into Mac. Then Create Virtual Machine, boot Windows, reboot, action -> install tools. Ok, now here I had the first bug: my Windows went BSOD and shutted down. I reboot and repeated, not the installation of the tools went until the finish screen where it stalled: I was unable to click on the Finish button with the keyboard dunno why. Ok, I killed installshield using task manager and was able to reboot.

It booted ok. The first time I tried Coherence, the Parallels process just stalled completely. It started eating up my CPU and I had to Force Quit it. Ouch, hope it doesn't damage my bootcamp partition!!

Then I reboot again inside Parallels. The Tools seems to start ok, but my mouse can get out of the Parallels window without Ctrl+Option. I am able to configure a shared folder but I am unable to drag and drop between systems. These two issues were a true let down. What should I do, reinstall the tools? Or those features work only on a true virtualized system (no bootcamp for drag and drop and coherence?)

Anyone?

 

[jer_fido]

WinVista Issue

Nick (or anyone on the Parallels team) -

After a bit more experimenting, I have narrowed down my Vista problems to the fact that when I first open one of my existing VMs, they have been in a suspended state. Parallels reports that the current state of the VM is incompatible with the new version of Parallels, and wants me to restart the VM. I do that, and from then on, the VM will boot only in Safe Mode. Will not boot normally (no matter whether Parallels Tools are installed or not).

My XP VM is running fine (with the new Tools installed).

Mike

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...

Oh...and this is on a MacPro 3GHz with 2GBs of RAM and all the latest OS patches including the security update the other day that just came out.

 

[Kroc]

Great update, love the simplification of the VM property page, it looked so tacky before.
After switching coherence on, I managed to crash the app by Pressing Cmd+Alt+D to hide the dock. Also, if the dock is hidden, the taskbar still doesn't touch the bottom of the screen, it sits a few pixels above. I opted instead to enable the 'task bar auto adjusting' in Parallels Tools Centre and this seemed to work by moving the taskbar to the top of the screen where it sits a little better.

This is one killer feature. You need to allow it to also remove transparent chrome from the applications themselves (e.g. Windows Media 10) as the windows skin I also use has a few pixels of transparent chrome above the title bar and this shows up as the desktop picture.

I would also like it if you allowed us to use fn+click for right click on Macbooks.

Again, this is an _amazing_ update, it makes VMWare's effort look absolutely lame (and it wasn't even par with parallels before this update!)

Edit: If you set the option to auto-start the VM, and auto-close the app, how do you override this temporarily. Ideally It'd be good if holding Option would temporarily override the auto-start / quit, for those few times I need to access the property page and make changes.