Hello to everyone still reading the forums! Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta 6 (WITH hotfix) is awesome. Parallels, you have made an excellent product and have much to be proud of. I'm using WinXP Pro SP2 professionally on a daily basis and your product has vastly improved my workflow. I thought I would post my thoughts about three small areas of improvement: 1. Is it me or did the boot time dramatically slow with the latest release? Not a huge deal, but the faster the better. 2. Trackpad button selection problem when ctrl-clicking. I'd say "mouse selection" problem but I have no problem with my two button USB wireless mouse at all. All three buttons work the way their supposed to with the external mouse. The problem is, when you Ctrl-click a file or folder that isn't selected with the build in Mac Book Pro trackpad button, the context menu that comes up is not for the target, but for the target's containing folder. You have to first select the file (or folder) then ctrl-click it. As small as that issue sounds, it's kind of a big deal for someone who's used to the way Windows is supposed to work. Especially if you prefer to single-click to open folders -- having to select it first won't work at all, because it just opens the folder. 3. This is just a heads-up: the built in Parallels shared folder doesn't work at all. I can open \\Psf but every time I try to open \\Psf\[share name] I get "The network name cannot be found." I had no problem mapping a network drive, however, so again, just a heads-up. Thanks again for a great product. --Dylan
1. The boot time is indeed not only dramatically slow, it hogs the whole system down for a minute! It's truly terrible. Shutting down, then starting the VM again is a bit faster, but if I close PW completely, and then re-run it to launch VM, the slowness is back. 3. This problem had been observed for Windows 2000 installation with latest patches. I wrote about this problem in another thread. Some guy had it working with just Win2k and SP4, but after getting latest updates installed, it didn't work thereafter.
The trackpad problem with ctrl click is evident in MS Office running on the PC side. In word, control click brings up a dialog box, not the contextual menu for example to correct a misspelled word (did I just misspel misspel ?) Hope they address this. Otherwise, this is an unbelievable product. I am using it heavily for work.
Just to confirm, I am running an XP SP2 install and can concure the boot is v.slow and does seem to cripple my os x install for several moment. It's not just a Windows 2K issue. thanks for any progress you guys can make.
yeah, i havent experienced a <10 second boot time since beta 1. i first thought it was a fluke of some sort, but it happened consistently until i upgraded to beta 2, and havent seen that boot speed since if that can be achieved again... all i have is one word: wow
...but beta 1 didn't have network, sound, usb, native/custom screen size, shared folder, DVD,...etc. I am happy with the current boot time as long as the VM is stable, fast, works well as a Mac program.
Boot Slowness with Win2003 Server Just wanted to add my 2 cents. I am running a Win2003 Server SP1 VM and I noticed a significant increase in boot time with the latest beta release. I too noticed that if I restarted the VM, the boot time would usually return to a normal (quick) speed. But, to reiterate, starting the VM fresh takes noticably longer. Also note that the increase in time occurs after I CTRL-ALT-DEL and enter my username/password. The boot time to the password prompt is fast. The slowness just occurs while actually logging in. Please fix! Otherwise, its a great product. I've pre-ordered!
