Very Slow Startup for Parallels 5

11 days... Parallels where are you?

Open post to all,

Many people in this thread are experiencing a very valid issue. Slow parallels application startup times of 5-6 minutes.

This has been noted and duplicated and is directly related to Parallels 5 and Spotlight. (please see my previous posting for a work around).

I know a lot of people posting are evaluating as well (as I am).

So can anyone from Parallels give us an update on this issue?

Thanks,

Peter
 
Timings

For what it's worth, I have a new 17" MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM and 250GB spare on my hard drive, and I rarely ever use Spot Light.

This is how long it takes Parallels to get going:

0s - Click Parallels dock icon

10s - Progress bar appears (does not animate and appears frozen)

45s - Parallels start-up screen appears

So that's 45 seconds, just to get to the start up screen... Enough time to go to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

0s - Clicking on my Windows XP VM to start it

10s - A black blank window appears

30s - "Click here to start" appears with "Windows XP" in grey text on black background. Automatically continues...

1 min 20s - "Windows XP" grey text animation appears to freeze

1 min 58s - Windows login screen finally appears! Hooray...

So that's a further 2 minutes before I can login. Enough time to have gone back to the kitchen, made that cup of tea and come back.

It feels slow, it looks slow, it is slow, and not what I expect, taking almost 3 minutes to get started, on what is a very fast laptop. At least I have a nice cup of tea though...

Matt
 
You would think by now that companies, such as Parallels, would understand that when they make a major release there may be regressions. No amount of beta testing is going to uncover all problems. So the development team should be kept in place for a month or so post release to rapidly fix the few remaining regression problems with a series of "patches" that resolve the initial regressions. A series of patches each week to 10 days is far better than waiting and waiting to get initial release glitches resolved.

It has been 3 weeks now since this "slow startup" situation was reported. I don't think anyone is faulting Parallels for not finding every last glitch in a program this complicated prior to release, but lack of a timely response after a product is deemed "production ready" and released is inexcusable!!
 
Any News ?

I too have upgraded and now find Parallels/Windows unusable - It takes over 10 minutes to load, and then slows my mac down to a crawl. I have tried turning Spotlight off, but when I turn it back on again it takes hours to re-index the disk.

I am very dissatisfied.

G Southall
Chester
UK
 
Replicated and Solved

After many frustrating hours, I "solved" the issue, by meaning that now it starts very quickly. Now is up to Parallels to really fix it.

Here it is:

Basically as for everybody, when starting the app, I would be in "limbo" forever. Then I read the post about spotlight and... unmount any external or additiona drive (even USB keys), and Parallels starts in seconds.

Basically, what happens is that for some reasons, when you start the application, it starts to read all the other devices, and that takes forever.

I did a few tries and it is consisten: Macbook Pro, just seconds, MacBook Pro and Time Machine and/or other drives: ages.

Parallels developers: any ideas
 
Donald D,

Don't you mean diagnosed and you have a work around? This problem sure doesn't seem to be "solved" at all.

Unmounting drives and stopping Spotlight is not a solution, but a degradation of OS X capabilities that allows Parallels to start up faster.

I think the "bug" in Parallels is extremely well documented for some time. The wait is now on for Parallels to fix their software.
 
Extra disks?

is iDisk counted amongst the drives that causes the problem? If so, how do I disable it? I have no other usb drives plugged in at the time of start up.

I have now been three days without proper access to my few, but vital, Windows apps.

Why no response from Parallels? Not even on their troubleshooting topics.
 
same problem here

i have a BRAND NEW Mac w snow lep on it. a 27" 3.06 ghz machine thats running like I bought it in 1987. in fact it took hours to install this parallels program.

i was running vmware but heard this was a better solution for my AUTOCAD software.

what am i doing wrong or do i need to go back to vm?
 
Add me to the list with a support ID

Snow Leopard
P5
Win7

10+min to fully boot Win7
My Mac slow to the point of uselessness.

Support ID: 1084529
 
I'm having this exact same issue with the icon bouncing for a while until the landing screen shows up inside Parallels. This is before I try to start any VM and basically just the time required to start Parallels itself.

Has the Parallels dev team recorded this as a bug and is looking into it or is this being regarded as a non-issue? Given so many of us have the same problem this totally looks like something that needs attention.

Parallels guys, please chime in...
 
Reported Problem Report

Support ID #1108332

In Activity Monitor mds thread goes as high as 60% of CPU performance. Once at 0% startup of Parallels right away.
 
The irony...

The irony is that this problem did not exist in the Parallels 5 beta. The beta ran just fine. I'd have never upgraded to the shipping product had I known these problems were going to happen.

Whatever is the cause of the problem it was introduced between the beta and the final product.

I check every day to see if there's an update yet. I'd REALLY like to hear from Parallels on this.
 
Definitely Spotlight-related

I, too, tested disabling Spotlight, but rather than add the whole drive to the do-not-index list, I tried it with just the home folder. Results:

before: 1m of icon bouncing in dock, followed by 4.5m more before Parallels opens.

after: 10s tops

Of course, it's not a solution, but maybe evidence of the problem, and a sometimes workaround.


Tim
 
well, just to let you know guys,
VMware Fusion is having a similar issue as well though it is less hassle to fix temporarily.

For VMware Fusion, all you need to do is putting "Virtual Machines" directory to Privacy tab in Spotlight.

Now that I already uninstalled Parallels 5.0 since I felt like it is slowing my whole system down (maybe not true), I cannot try this for Parallels 5.0.

Since Parallels.app itself loads extremely slowly, try putting Parallels.app to Privacy tab in Spotlight as well.

:)
 
Same problem. It takes 2:35 to get to the Parallels welcome screen. I have no other programs running, no network drives, no usb keys, 88GB free on my HD, and a new MacBook Pro with 4GB of ram.
 
Of course, I don't want to switch programs. I just want them to fix the problem with Parallels 5. I'd also like to at least hear an update from someone from Parallels on the status of things.
 
Probable fix: Add VM folder to Spotlight Privacy

The slowness was attributed to Spotlight on my computer. I've seen this behavior with Microsoft Entourage 2004, which caused the Mac to creep like a snail because Spotlight was trying to scan the proprietary MS Database where its messages are stored.

I saw the same occur with Parallels 5 (upgraded from 3.0). To improve performance, I made this change:

1. Open System Preferences.
(If Parallels is running, SHUT DOWN (don't suspend) all VMs and quit Parallels before continuing.)
2. Open Spotlight Preferences.
3. Click on Privacy.
4. Click the + button to select a folder or item to omit from Spotlight scanning.
5. Choose the folder where your Parallels VMs reside (the default for user-only access is /Users/homefolder/Parallels. If you put your VMs elsewhere, be sure to add those locations to Privacy.)
6. Close System Preferences.
7. Restart.

Once that was done (and after tweaking the memory of the VM for my tastes), Parallels works normally both in application and VM speed.
 
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