My guess is "whenever Parallels feels it's ready". I find myself in the same space as you all the time - I wish they'd do the next release that fixes some of the issues I'm running into (I use Parallels all the time at this point - running XP under Parallels allows me to get into our VPN). But the reality is, it's a beta product and releases are driven by the development and QA cycle. Not much we can do about it. /D
Yes I know the standard answer is "when it's ready" for this type of thing. Parallels have had a quite frankly stunning update cycle so far and I guess I've just become used to seeing at least one release per week. The time since Beta 6 is probably the longest time between updates so far. I'm just really anxious to get to the point when I no longer need a PC machine at all.
They're probably working on some of the more challenging issues now. The product is already remarkably good. I've been doing production work with MS Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 un Beta 6. (At my own risk, of course.) I'm looking forward to truly functional USB support, so I can pull files and application components from my external drives. That's the major sticky point for me, but of course the product must be brought up to speed in all areas that affect the useablilty of the guest operating systems. I'll take the next version when it comes, and I have the greatest respect for the Parallels development team in determining when that time will be. The speed with which they have improved this product, and the degree to which they have involved their users reminds me of the good old days of lean, fast software development from my (relative) youth. There's obviously no bureaucracy dampening their process.
ditto Manatee. With the breakneck pace of Betas 1-6 we saw what could be described for the most part as relatively minor bug fixes and feature additions (full screen/resolutions). When you get down to hardware support like USB and Serial et. al. the situation is suddenly a lot more complicated. As much as I would love for Beta 7 to be out yesterday with full USB support and full Direct-whatever support, etc. if it didn't work well, or crashed constantly I'd be fairly pissed - right now B6 is about as stable as any other application (discounting of course the re-boot on sleep >.< ) I have used - I'd have to re-install B6 if B7 was like that. So, once you complicate the hardware support, you have many more areas for things to FUBAR up. I think we'll see some pretty cool changes with 7 but the parallels team want it as clean as possible. JM2C
I think a more fitting question is not beta 7 but the GA release, when do we get the GA copy a lot of us have prepaid for? I, frankly, don't want any more betas, I want the real thing. I do however suspect that it will be a month or two away. They are at a stage where they have some reali nitty gritty code to get ironed out and debugged, so its going to take awhile. Peter
I agree and given that this is the case Parallels should at least give an estimate of when those of us who have paid can expect to receive the finished product.
I thought a good estimate was as someone else said above "When Parallels feels it's ready". What does it matter when the final version comes out? You're either going to keep getting usable betas, or you're going to pressure them into releasing beta-quality stuff as "final". Just keep using Parallels Workstation, let them do their work, and be glad you got $10 off an already very reasonable price. It doesn't matter when the final version comes out, it's going to progress the same.
I'm happy to give the developers as long as they need to adjust the feature set and fix the bugs. I've been developing software for decades, and I know how sometimes little things can take a long time. What I would like is a guesstimate of when the next beta will be available so that I can schedule test time. I'd love to be playing with this product full time finding bugs, but life supervenes, and I need to schedule my time. If I know when to expect the next beta, I'll plan around it. If it's a surprise, it could be a week before I get to testing it properly. So Parallels folks, if you have any idea, I'd appreciate a heads up, and if you can't, well, the clock ticks on as does life. I am excited about the product.
Agreed, Microsoft is still trying to figure out if a VM is possible. Parallels team is amazing, most of us a using it fro production, which we know we should not be doing. Less don't rush the wonder team.
I don't mind waiting. Quality over quantity is the Mac way, otherwise we'd be on the PC platform, where there is tons of crap available.
