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

 

[VTMac]

I know this is a beta and I understand that it is our problem when things go wrong, but this is ridiculous. You make no mention of the this issue in any of the guides. You make no mention of it in the post at the top of this thread and you have so far completely ignored numerous requests from your customers to address this verbally or with an update.

Clearly this feature is unusable right now and since everyone who is trying this with a legitimate copy of Windows XP has this issue, I'm at a loss to why Parallels could not have had the same issue and hence reported on it clearly and up front.

Mark

Actually anyone getting their licenses via corporate or MSDN will not have this problem. And that is a whole lot of people who are legitmately using XP. So while I understand the frustration, I can also understand why Parallels didn't encounter this in their own testing as they are almost certainly using MSDN or Corporate licenses, given the number of copies of XP they must have running on various test and development machines.

 

[Platinum Samples]

No. For 3D acceleration, you'll still need to dual-boot.

What this means is merely that you can share one and the same Windows XP installation between Parallels and Boot Camp, thus saving you a lot of space.

Not to mention if you have apps like Adobe CS2 you only need to use one instance of the 2 installations you're allowed.

 

[BEIGE]

fyi - uninstalling the Boot Camp tools and rebooting fixes Macdrive

 

[chucker]

I know this is a beta and I understand that it is our problem when things go wrong

Then why do you ask "where was the warning"? The very fact that it's a pre-release is a big warning. You simply don't EVER install a pre-release on a production machine, and if you do, then that's your responsibility and yours alone.

 

[manfredell]

I have exactly the same behavior. Palm HotSync worked in previous builds, but not 3036,

Confirmed.

Too many bugs! I’m reverting to the 1970 beta.

 

[MacSardine]

I downloaded the Beta and I love the new direction for Parallels. It came out in perfect time as I had a project I worked on all day that I could take full use of Coherence mode. I was using SPSS on the Windows side, as well as a few Office products. On the OS X side, I was running Word, Firefox and Preview. It worked really well and made work a breeze.

I did, however, want to report one possible issue. After using Parallels for most of the day yesterday, I started it up today and asked me to pick to VM I wanted to run. I have both Vista and XP installed. I chose XP, but said that it was already in use by another Parallels Desktop. This was after I just started my comp. I even shut down and restarted my comp to try again, only to get the same result. I know that I shut down Parallels properly after using it yesterday as I always do. Anyway, I just wanted to get this information out there for you guys. Don't bother trying to help me fix this issue; I've reverted back to the stable release so I can access this work I did yesterday. I'm only reporting this for your benefit.

Again, thanks for the great release!

 

[retrospek]

Actually anyone getting their licenses via corporate or MSDN will not have this problem.

I get my copy from MSDN and I only have 10 licences for WindowsXP (which is believe is standard on MSDN). So I'm not sure why you are saying MSDN people don't have this probem with activation ?

 

[spullara]

I have the Mac Pro- beach ball problem too so how do you get to set the memory manually if the machine is locked up?

It beachballs for me even if I manually set the amount of system memory. What did you set it to and how much memory are you allocating for your VM?

 

[VTMac]

I stand corrected. The more recent MSDNs XP licenses have 10 activation limits. The ones from around the time XP was originally released do not. Thankfully I have those....

 

[Portdogmc]

1) Control Panel (in Start Menu, Start -> Control Panel; in Classic Start Menu, Start -> Settings -> Control Panel)
2) Display (should give you the first window)
3) Advanced tab (is the tab depicted in the first window).
4) click the button as shown in the first screenshot, below the colors. You should get to the second window now.
5) go through the tabs until you find one that looks like the one in the second screenshot. Turn the hardware acceleration slider all the way up.
6) Click OK in both windows. You may have to reboot.

darn that didnt work. the slider was already to the far right(on hardware accelaration all the way up.

 

[don montalvo]

I have the Mac Pro- beach ball problem too so how do you get to set the memory manually if the machine is locked up?

force quit parallels desktop. first set parallels memory in parallels desktop preferences > manually (we set client workstations to 50% of your total machine memory). then set memory for your parallels virtual machine...edit > virtual machine > memory to something lower (we set to 80% of parallels desktop value).

don

 

[don montalvo]

I know this is a beta and I understand that it is our problem when things go wrong, but this is ridiculous. You make no mention of the this issue in any of the guides. You make no mention of it in the post at the top of this thread and you have so far completely ignored numerous requests from your customers to address this verbally or with an update.

Clearly this feature is unusable right now and since everyone who is trying this with a legitimate copy of Windows XP has this issue, I'm at a loss to why Parallels could not have had the same issue and hence reported on it clearly and up front.

this update provides a solution for those of us who have parallels rolled out to many users in a corporate environment. individual licenses have an issue booting windows back and forth between parallels and bootcamp. parallels is aware of the issue - just be aware this is NOT a parallels issue...microsoft windows senses one license is being used at the hardware level (bootcamp) and one is being used at the virtualization level (parallels) and disables activation each time you move back and forth.

i agree, it's irritating...but keep in mind, microsoft already stated publicly they will not allow this. take this up with microsoft. for parallels to try to work around this would amount to sponsored piracy.

don

 

[don montalvo]

No. I but I got the same error.

MacBook Pro, OS X 10.4.8, 1.5 GB of RAM.

Would love to know what to do to fix it.

I also had problems installing the Parallels Tools for BootCamp. At first it wouldn't run, giving an error that it couldn't run something. Then it finally did run, but then just ended. There was no completed message and I don't see a Parallels folder in the Program Files folder. So not sure if Parallels Tools are even installed.

i got that same error when i didn't select "parallels" at windows boot.

don

 

[toonerh]

Mac Pro Multiple Hard Drives

Please add support for a Windows XP partition on a different physical internal hard drive for Mac Pro users. Both GUID and MBR partitioning should be supported just as Mac OS allows.

Maybe even R/W access to Firewire and USB external drives, too (not as useful).

I have my Drive 1 all HFS+ and Drive 2 XP, Vista and Linux.

Great release, BTW!

 

[pab3329]

It woud be nice to get a bit more information on this Boot Camp option, and how it works. It is THE feature that I was waiting for, so this is very good news indeed. But, I would want to be sure that the Parallels access to the Boot Camp partition does not compromise or change, in any way, the native Windows boot.

I have seen a couple of posts that suggests that the Parallels access to the Boot Camp partition does somehow change the native Boot Camp installation of windows. Does the HW configuration change in any way? how would harware issues be tackled? For example, my Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse works great in the native boot into windows. An earlier test of Parallels that I did obviously was not supporting that mouse (USB 2.0?). So, what happens when I use this newer method of accessing the Boot Camp partition from Parallels, and it encounters an issue like this?

I suppose I'll wait until the dust settles a bit - I only have 1 machine to test it on, and I can't afford to have something go wrong.

Alternatively, could I partition my WIndows Boot Camp partition into two, and install another copy of Windows on that second partition, and use it as a test environment for the Parallels Boot Camp partition option? What happens in Parallels when it detects two physical partitions, each with a copy of Windows on it?

 

[mdilling]

Well Done !!!

This beta of Parallels is simply great. Fortunately, I have had none of the problems reported. I do not have Boot Camp. I got rid of that when I bought Parallels. I have tried the hard disk compacting and didn't have any problems with it. So, this is not a global problem, but more limited. The coherence feature is simply icing on the cake. Thanks for a great beta release. I hope the rc and actual release are just as great.

MacBook (black)
2 GHz clock speed
2GB ram
17 GB Parallels VM

 

[sfwasabi]

Infinite Reboot

Hi.

I'm using a 2ghz Intel Core Duo MacBook with 2gb RAM. My VM is a Windows 2000 Server with all updates. 1500 mb is assigned to Windows. No Bootcamp.

I was running 1970 fine, when I read all these great reviews about 3036. I downloaded and installed it, ran it, and it gets stuck in an infinite reboot. I log into Windows, the initial system tray programs and icons load, and then Parallels shuts down, pops up a "Report this error" window with a snapshot and a log file, and reboots.

 

[nevyn]

On Coherence Mode
Windows windows are grouped. Clicking in one Windows window brings forth all Windows windows. This is, of course, not the expected behaviour. I suppose you're 'just' making the desktop transparent and still have everything in one big window. Moving each Windows window into a real MacOS window each would be a great addition.

On being The New Classic
I'd love silent guest OS booting, just like when Classic boots No fugly DOS window, just a nice aqua progress bar until all's loaded.

 

[BostonMac]

Windows XP Reactivation with Boot Camp?

Running Boot Camp in Virtual Machine will need to reactivate your Windows XP installation.

Will the reactivation go through automatically or do you have to talk to a tech at Microsoft to get approval for it?

From the User Manual, it appears that it is possible to use the same copy of Windows XP with both Boot Camp and Parallels. Is that correct? If so, it will save the expense of buying two separate copies of XP.

 

[fritza]

Boot from Boot Camp doesn't work.

Parallels Desktop 3036 Beta
MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 20.09 GB free in the MacOS partition
Boot Camp partition 4.19/8.83 GB free, FAT partition, default partition name NONAME unchanged
Installed Parallels Tools for Boot Camp per instruction.
Created new VM, custom configuration, Boot Camp.
Attempting to start the VM results in an alert sheet saying Unable to open disk image Boot Camp!
Renamed the FAT partition to Boot Camp, restarted Parallels Desktop, clicked start button.
PD solicits an administrative password, then repeats the Unable to open disk image Boot Camp! sheet.

Windows-in-Boot-Camp is unusable.
Reported to [email protected] .