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

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Windows XP Corporate will not require reactivation.

Tim Surgent said:
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.

* Coherency. 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
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That is great. I am getting a Core 2 Duo Macbook soon and plan to use Parallels with it. The release of this version is just right. I hope this will be out of beta soon.

By the way, if you can get your hands on the Corporate version of Windows XP Professional and install it via Boot Camp, then you should not be required to reactivate if you boot from the Boot Camp partition.:)

Pierce_Brosnan.jpg
 
mungler said:
you mentioned 'dealing with nonresponsive keyboard' - care to share some details? see my post above for my problem...

(thanks in advance :) )
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it's wierd, not sure exactly how i got it to work. i remember booting straight into bootcamp to install parallels tools...but finding parallels tools wasn't _really_ installed. so i ran it again via parallels. now i get one keyboard and one mouse and one combination keyboard/mouse in the menu.

i'm running a macbook pro with apple keyboard and mighty mouse connected...but only the internal keyboard / trackpad setting seems to work.

don
 

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Vista RC2 broken with latest beta

Jonahan: "I just installed the new beta and before Vista worked .. now it only boots in safe mode with networking disabled it blows up here..."

I have the same exact issue and there are others in this thread with the same issue as well. Hopefully the Parallels Team has seen our postings and is working on a fix!

By the way, my Vista VM was shutdown prior to upgrading to the latest beta. My WinXPsp2 and SUSE 10.1 VMs work without issue with the latest beta. It's the Vista VM that is hosed right now....
:(
 
Networking issues

I may be doing something wrong but I cannot access shared networking from the properties page. I -can- however, switch to it but its kind of a pain for when I get to school and I need to boot up Parallels for outlook but need shared networking.

I've uninstalled, reboot, re-installed, reboot cycle several times to no avail.
 
Ok. figured this one out. Had to go into Network Preferences and click ok, then apply when I closed system preferences.

Now if FAT32 support was there, I could reclaim the gigs I so desparately need.
 
Godrifle said:
I disagree. I much prefer build numbers.
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Users do not know what build numbers ARE. Find me one major product that uses a build number prominently. Build numbers are fine for more detail, especially for betas, but why is it that unless you really look, you don't know what version Parallels is? What was v2.1, v2.2, and now (apparently) v2.5? This is why people are complaining that USB 2.0 and Direct3D and such haven't arrived - they don't realize we haven't hit the next "major version", because we don't know what version it IS.

The last software I recall using build numbers were the betas of Mozilla, and even those had corresponding version numbers and a roadmap for what was coming in each version. It was something you could track to, both for end users and developers.

Of course, knowing how much stuff is coming in the next paid upgrade may dissuade people from buying Parallels now (ACPI, USB 2.0, Direct3D?).
 
Great update with 2 questions

You guys did an amazing job!! This update is awesome, looking forward to whatever else you can think of.

Two questions for you:
1. I have several old Virtual PC 7 disk images that no longer work on my MacBook, it is possible to convert those raw disk images? How is "Parallels Transporter" supposed to work?

2. One pet peeve of mine is I find it annoying that every time I hit Apple-Tab to switch apps, or Apple-<whatever> to do something the Start Menu pops up. Is it possible to autohide the start menu if the Apple key is held down for a number of seconds or if an alternate key is hit? Maybe even having a delay for the start menu to pop up, unless the Apple key is hit and then immediately released. Your mapping of Apple-AZXCV is great, if you could take it this one step futher it would be even better.

Keep up the good work.
 
One more thing Coherency

One additonal oddity that occurs in "Coherency" mode is when the screen saver pops up. It hides all your background apps, by default this creates a black abyss with a floating window, could you have a way to shut off the screen saver when in "Coherency" mode?

Also the "CMD" prompt has issues displaying in Coherency mode unless another app is behind it. The effect is pretty strange, try it if you have not already.
 
Same problem. I ended up deleting the reinstalling Vista RC2 and it is now working perfectly - well, except that Coherency mode doesn't work in Vista.

Where's Snapshot feature? That's so vital in virtual systems I can't believe it's not been implemented yet. They shouldn't be wasting their time on worthless visual effects (like when a window spirals close) and stick to features.
 
mouellette said:
One additonal oddity that occurs in "Coherency" mode is when the screen saver pops up. It hides all your background apps, by default this creates a black abyss with a floating window, could you have a way to shut off the screen saver when in "Coherency" mode?

Also the "CMD" prompt has issues displaying in Coherency mode unless another app is behind it. The effect is pretty strange, try it if you have not already.
Click to expand...

check key map settings...it appears shift-alt-control is used for two options...

don
 
jer_fido said:
Jonahan: "I just installed the new beta and before Vista worked .. now it only boots in safe mode with networking disabled it blows up here..."

I have the same exact issue and there are others in this thread with the same issue as well. Hopefully the Parallels Team has seen our postings and is working on a fix!

By the way, my Vista VM was shutdown prior to upgrading to the latest beta. My WinXPsp2 and SUSE 10.1 VMs work without issue with the latest beta. It's the Vista VM that is hosed right now....
:(
Click to expand...

I'm having the same problem with the new beta of Parallels and Vista RC2. It worked fine after initially installing the new beta, but after installing the tools, I can no longer boot into Vista whatsoever. I hope a solution is around the corner.
 
Compressor seems broken in 3036, here, too...

I'm having the same problems with 3036:

- Compressor isn't working -- it runs, restarts normally, runs part two, goes through the progress bar, then the screen dims..........and stays that way. Cancel doesn't work... only quitting the program works.

- When quitting, the program just quits hard, and posts an error to the system. It doesn't go back to the startup screen correctly. When quitting from within the Compressor problem, it pops up a screen "suspend/shutdown"....and then bails.

- Boot Camp (on a FAT32 partition) doesn't work, with the error "couldn't load..."

- Printing via USB to my HP DeskJet 1120C is broken (but my Epson RX500 is okay?!).

I like Coherence...but I think I'll back-date to 1970...and hope for 3037+ to follow soon? 3036 is causing more problems than it's worth at the moment....
 
Thank you for putting in multiple virtual NICs. I can now deply LTSP solutions from a virtual machine. Also, the Vista auto-install works flawlessly. Gotta hand it to you.
A few problems:
I can't get my machines to hide anymore (as in Parallels menu/Hide Parallels Desktop), it does nothing now. I can minimize the machine into the dock, but hide does not work. A few oddities with mouse behavior in Linux machines (after releasing the mouse as an input device, the virtual machine cursor will kind of follow the Mac OS cursor around for a bit). Running multiple machines is insanely slow. I've got a linux server virtual machine that should be using at most about 4% of the processor and 10% of the memory. If I open another, similar virtual machine, my entire computer just grinds down. I expect more realistic proc. usage from the machines allowing for much friendlier multiple virtual machines.

All in all though, I'm ecstatic about the multiple NICs and the new look. Great job guys! Keep up the good work (USB 2 and burner support and you're going to own the mac VT market)
 
so I fixed my problem by uninstalling parallels and then searching for every related file and deleting it manually. reinstall and works great.

is there a way to get parallels to use two monitors? i would love to use coherence with both of my monitors.

it also created two start up profiles in XP (profile 1 and parallels) how they both work so how do I get rid of the other?

thanks
 
Coherency

To make Coherency mode more perfect:

on "hiding Taskbar" the Startmenü may integrate into the Contextual Menü of the Dock Icon. There also the started application/windows can be shown.
 
Btw: Network interfaces?

Are we supposed to have en2 AND en3 in network ports on the Os X side? It just seems kinda clunky to me.
 
Dear Parallels Team and associated experts

Nataku said:
so I fixed my problem by uninstalling parallels and then searching for every related file and deleting it manually. reinstall and works great.

[snip]

thanks
Click to expand...

I've been installing over old builds for several iterations now. I've never had a problem on my MacPro/2 GB RAM setup with standard video card.

Should I be following Nataku's procedure to clean out any and all older files to get optimal performance?
 
Problem whith Keyboard

Hello.Excused for my English but are Italian.
I have installed the newversion of indeed optimal Parallels.
But I have a problem. After tohave installed the tool for BootCamp,
restarted in native way the keyboard and the mouse of mine macbookpro
do not answer more and they do not allow me to select
nothing and all it turns out blocked.
Help me
 
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Multiple Monitor Support for Coherancy Mode

Just placing my vote for multiple monitor support in coherancy mode. I do lots of moving between displays and this would make the version close to perfect. Other things on my wishlist: the start bar shows up about 3-4 pixels over the bottom of my display, can that be fixed?, put windows icons on mac desktop, let me choose a default VM to load, and then offer a menu option to load the chooser.
 
"Use Boot Camp" option always greyed out

First I have to say that I am very excited by the efforts of the Parallels team. The Coherence mode is fantastic. However I have problems with the new Boot Camp option:
After installing Beta 3060, booting Boot Camp installation of Win XP and installing Parallels Tools for Boot Camp in every dialog of Parallels the Option "Use Boot Camp" is still greyed out. Any suggestion? (I am running german Windows XP System builder Edition)
 
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