Update: Parallels Desktop 3.0 Build 5160 is available

[austinso]

Personally, I never liked coherence. And until this release (5160) I thought it was not as good as Unity on Fusion (not that I used Unity all that much either).

That being said, I think that coherence on build 5160 is better than Unity on Fusion build 51348. Sure there is a little bit of streakiness (drag a window with a mouse rapidly), but it is much better than Fusion. Might depend on your set up though.

The earlier v.3's were a mess for me, but this one seems to be much better.

Good CPU use. Doesn't hang up with sleep (as far as I can tell to date). And no loss of performance over time that requires a reboot. These last two were noticeable for me on my Macbook (1st gen) with Fusion.

Austin

P.S. I wonder how many of you with problems use it with bootcamp? I've never done so, and I've never had serious problems (except for the v3s until now). I also wonder how much of these problems that are found in both Fusion and Parallels are platform specific (i.e. to the particular version of Mac being used to build code).

 

[musk]

Do do the elements of the window still stutter when you move around a window? Has Parallels finally returned to stability in window movement in Coherence?

I've seen no hint of "instability" in Coherence mode. There is still stutter when moving windows in Coherence. I did not try any of the recent beta's but compared to 4560, the stutter is less pronounced and only shows the Windows desktop bleeding through when windows are moved very quickly.

I noted one other quirk in Coherence when using Expose. When entering Expose, window components from my Firefox window appeared overlaid on top of some of the other Windows apps. That is, the windows would break out and show themselves as expected in Expose, but junk from the Firefox window would show up on some windows. This seems to be related to the Cylence them I use in Firefox. When I switch Firefox to the default theme, this behavior stops and Expose works flawlessly.

 

[Vigilant]

I've seen no hint of "instability" in Coherence mode. There is still stutter when moving windows in Coherence. I did not try any of the recent beta's but compared to 4560, the stutter is less pronounced and only shows the Windows desktop bleeding through when windows are moved very quickly.

I noted one other quirk in Coherence when using Expose. When entering Expose, window components from my Firefox window appeared overlaid on top of some of the other Windows apps. That is, the windows would break out and show themselves as expected in Expose, but junk from the Firefox window would show up on some windows. This seems to be related to the Cylence them I use in Firefox. When I switch Firefox to the default theme, this behavior stops and Expose works flawlessly.

Well, you've convinced me to give this version a try, if what you say is true. The background bleed is all there is that is. In RC1 and RC2, it was almost as if the different buttons, and text fields had a quarter of a second delay from the rest of the window when you moved it. Like the different components of the window struggled to keep pace. Thats really the best way I could describe it. VMWare has the same issue you mentioned with Firefox, but it happens more often. That doesn't really bother me so much because Unity seems to typically run more smoothly for me, and smoothness and stability rule all. Watching the weird lag in the elements just irritates me, especially after seeing the near flawless window movement in Beta 1 or 2.

 

[Victor]

After upgrading to the new version I have no task bar anymore in XP. Any suggestions?

 

[Vigilant]

Go under window and click Show Windows Taskbar or somethign along those lines, that will fix it

 

[spot the blip]

I like the new build, apart from the pesky USB problem. Please, can someone explain why I get the "used by another application" error message? No response (not even an automated "you're in a queue, we'll get back to you") to the email I sent to tech support - thanks guys!!

 

[falco]

hmmm...when I check for updates, it's telling me that my installation is up-todate. I am running 4560.

same with me. upgrades should be available once they are released...

 

[spectre]

Since you seem to have the inside track on Parallels, perhaps through private communication with the developers or the support team, perhaps you would also ask them (and relay to the forum):

I'll try to answer in brkirch's stead

1) Why should it take "some time" for updates to appear? How much time is that? I would have thought that "check for updates" would do just that and return a correct answer. Is this a feature or a bug? If the latter, is it scheduled for a fix?

It just the regular process of releasing update. First we put new regular version on the website and then start to updating info for the Parallels Auto-Updater utility. There are many slightly different versions of Parallels Desktop from the different distributors (with some minor text wording changes or even in completely different language), so we need some time to make all these versions available through Auto-update. So Auto-Updater should become aware of the new version quite soon after the website announcement, but there still may be some delay.

2) Why should it be necessary to install Tools in safe mode? Not every user is familiar with this nor knows how to enter it. Is this a bug? It has persisted for some time. If it is necessary, shouldn't this be mentioned in the Parallels documentation? If a bug, is it scheduled for a fix? If not, why not?

At the most cases it is not necessary and update should go flawlessly in the Normal mode. But due to the great number of various Windows environments our users may have, sometimes software conflict or misconfiguration may cause some issues with installing Parallels Tools. And re-installing programs (Tools, in our case) in Safe Mode is a normal practice for troubleshooting. Although it may be not mentioned in the regular documentation, our Support Knowledge Base contains all the information needed for such troubleshooting - http://kb.parallels.com

3) If a restart is necessary before, during or after installation to avoid crashes, shouldn't this be described in the documentation? Is this a bug or a feature? Is it scheduled for a fix? If not, why not?

It's the same as for the Safe Mode - generally it's unneeded and is being used only for the troubleshooting purposes. Check this KB article, for example - http://kb.parallels.com/entry/21/235/

 

[spectre]

I suspect there could have been some problems with our mail server recently and we didn't receive your support request. At least I didn't find one in our support tracking system by your forum email address. Please try re-submitting the request and contact me by PM if you won't receive the response again.

I like the new build, apart from the pesky USB problem. Please, can someone explain why I get the "used by another application" error message? No response (not even an automated "you're in a queue, we'll get back to you") to the email I sent to tech support - thanks guys!!

 

[esgargs]

I am not sure if this is a serious bug, but in coherence mode, if I have like Outlook (for example) open and then I bring an Adium chat window on top of it, and then move my mouse around the screen to actually get on top of the windows program, it automatically comes to the front without my clicking anywhere on the screen.

Basically, Windows programs seem to be getting focus automatically for me just by virtue of having the mouse pointer sit on them.

This is getting annoying at times.

 

[Purplish]

Migrated to 5160 today without incident. Nice job Parallels and all you beta testers.

 

[Vigilant]

after reading enough, I decided to give this final build a go.

The components of the window seemingly falling lagging behind the rest of the window seems pretty much gone. You have to REALLY be looking for it to even notice it, so I'm not as concerned about it anymore. Also, so far, it looks like the delay when using user profile sharing seems to be gone. So far so good, now we just need the Visual Studio bug fixed, and everything will be golden. I'll continue to put this through it's paces.

 

[sev7en]

Well, I updated my previous version beta version with this one and it worked like a charm!

 

[Metasyntactic]

ETA on Visual Studio Bug Fix

Any eta on when the visual studio problem will be fixed?

 

[Vigilant]

Any eta on when the visual studio problem will be fixed?

Good question, good questoin indeed.

I'm surprised this shipped with this kind of work stoppage issue.

 

[teknetia]

I updated from the previous version to this and now parallels is telling me it needs a key to run?! I wouldn't have upgraded if I knew that I would have to purchase the software again. Where can I download the previous version so that I can get it working again?

 

[LCPGUY]

I upgraded from 2.5 to 3.0 (5160) last Thursday, 9-20-07 and everything went smooth as silk. 5160 is rock solid for me, even Photoshop. And my CPU usage seems no different than in 2.5, i.e., around 8 - 10%. I congratulate Parallels on a great product.

John

 

[brkirch]

I updated from the previous version to this and now parallels is telling me it needs a key to run?! I wouldn't have upgraded if I knew that I would have to purchase the software again. Where can I download the previous version so that I can get it working again?

Download link for Parallels Desktop 2.5 build 3214

Keep in mind that if you upgraded your virtual disks to work with Parallels Desktop 3.0 you will need to downgrade the virtual disks using Parallels Image Tool before you uninstall Parallels Desktop 3.0 (and I recommend you uninstall before reinstalling Parallels Desktop 2.5).

 

[David5000]

I upgraded from 2.5 to 3.0 (5160) last Thursday, 9-20-07 and everything went smooth as silk. 5160 is rock solid for me, even Photoshop. And my CPU usage seems no different than in 2.5, i.e., around 8 - 10%. I congratulate Parallels on a great product.

Just for information (not to be argumentative)--any positive differences?

Thank you,

David

 

[LCPGUY]

Just for information (not to be argumentative)--any positive differences?

Thank you,

David

Well, I don't use coherence, so that's not an issue. Ditto for smart select. The only positive differences I can see is 5160 seems faster and uses a "titch" less CPU. I really didn't need 5160, but merely wanted to be current, so I upgraded.