Parallels Host-Guest NIC slows host XP OS

I installed a trial of Parallels on Windows XP Pro (32-bit edition), on a machine called "office", and it's affecting the host OS performance. With the Host-Guest NIC enabled, any Windows application that calls getaddrinfo('office') pauses for 5-10 seconds while it enumerates that address. With the NIC disabled, getaddrinfo returns instantly. I can duplicate this 100% with build 2072. Haven't tried the release yet, given all the problem reports about it.

 

Looks to me like Windows is being sluggish when having more than one IP assigned to a NIC. Also, you're using netbios's names which are slow by design. Try using a DNS service.

 

Actually, "office" is both the netbios name and the local DNS host name, which is probably part of the problem (though I'm certainly not about to change either one). getaddrinfo on 'office.home.jay.fm' works beautifully. Unfortunately, I'm using an app that calls gethostname and then getaddrinfo on that host name, and I can't change it... and I'm fairly sure that's a common idiom, anyway.

I'm not sure Windows knows it's the same NIC; ipconfig /all shows two different MAC addresses.

 

If you're using a bridged interface, it's the same card. The virtual nic is only for host-only networking.