Parallels will not stop compacting

Hi,

I have a 2011 Macbook Air with 4GB ram, 128GB hd, OS X 10.7.3 and Parallels 7.0.15054 running Windows 7.

Parallels asked if I wanted to "compact" to save disk space. I did, and now there is a screen with "Windows 7. Compacting..." displayed, no progress bar, and no indication of how long this will take. It has been on for over 2 days.

How do I stop this process from occurring so that I can use Windows 7 again? Is there a bug in the compacting process with my setup, as I would like to save disk space at some point if it's easily attainable.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Run VIrtual Machine (in case it has been Force Quitted). Run Activity Monitor on Mac. Find prl_vm_app process and kill it. Try to restart the VM. But i must tell this issue may lead to virtual disk corruption.

 

Parallels compacting takes long? Killing it may lead to disk corruption??

I kept receiving the pesky pop-ups whether I wished to compact Windows XP in Parallels. No need --- except I hated those pesky pop-ups, so I said yes. BIG MISTAKE!!! Now it keeps on showing me a counter counting up, no indication how long this takes --- and the previous entry apparently says it may take 4 days or more!! The answer from Parallels: you can kill it, but it may lead to virtual disk corruption? Does anyone there understand that one needs these machines for carrying out work, not as beautiful fish tanks, displaying a counter for a week or so? This software has so many flaws, unbelievable, unbearable, really. I have suffered through too many now --- switching back to Dell with Windows. Ditch the Mac. Parallels is a play thing who want to show their friends that they can also open a Windows window on their sleek Mac, not for serious work.

 

I suppose you had very heavy and not-defragmented Windows virtual hard drive. This message you are talking about is not just a message for your information about some fancy option - it is very important to compress disk time to time and avoid disk over-growth and system over loading.

Please keep it running so far - i think (as it often happens) th process will run faster - especially if you quit all other applications on Mac

 

Compacting Parallels

YanaYana: "it is very important to compress disk time to time and avoid disk over-growth and system over loading" .... sounds like a "Parallels bug" to me. And you only get a clock ticking up, with no indication for how long this will take, not even a warning that this takes hours! A question back: does it occur to anyone at Parallels that one sometimes really needs the machine, and cannot afford getting stuck in some Parallels-only black hole? Apparently not. And that's not the only problem: I had so many, I lost count. It is a VERY flawed software.

 

Well actually frequency of compression depends on how often you use the the virtual machine.
It is not a bug for one reason, we use expanding virtual hard drive for virtual machines - it expands when you add some data to you Windows VM, but it cannot shrink automatically as any other standard expanding virtual disk. In case you actively use the virtual machine - disk would expand very quickly.

 

Bug or Feature?

YanaYana: you wish to call this a feature, not a bug. Fine, whatever. The point is still: as a user, I wish to use the program, and not be in a situation, where I click on some innocent-looking option that Parallels givew me, only to then next stare at the screen, where a counter is ticking up to no end in sight for hours, and being told that killing this process can wreck the the filing system and make it entirely unusuable. Moreover, the user is not advised about the potentially dire consequences of killing this: one learns this, after desperately searching the Internet when being stuck with the counter to infinity. Call it whatever you like, but this just isn't what I expect from a well-designed software. Moreover, this is not what I get when I use Windows on a PC: so this is an added complication to using MS Windows, that is there just due to Parallels. The combination of both worlds can be a genuine nightmare.

 

I understand your frustration and value your feedback. I wonder what is the current situation? had the compression finished successfully?

 

Compacting Parallels

it did finish, after a few hours.