Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac claims speed superiority

[robmack]

Anyone know what the FPS games is in the screenshot?

[Jarman]

Originally Posted by robmack

Anyone know what the FPS games is in the screenshot?

Crysis.

[robmack]

Originally Posted by Jarman

Crysis.

Thanks

[Royboy]

Originally Posted by Foo2

FYI: if you have a .edu e-mail address, you might qualify for Microsoft's $30 Windows 7 Professional retail upgrade, rather than having to pay the normal retail price of $200. Be sure to tell Microsoft you have special communications needs at your institution. Otherwise you'll only get the Home Premium upgrade for that same $30.

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last week talking with Microsoft. Since I only own a Window 98 OS disc, I would need to buy a complete Home Premium Windows 7 OS disc, and not an upgrade. I was told that if I has a .edu address, which my son does have, then I could get what I needed for $99 under the academic discount.

I got the address and called back the next day. Now the story is that Microsoft doesn't sell a full edition, only upgrades, of Windows 7 under the academic account.

So now I'm back to paying $199 for the full version of Home Premium Windows 7.

Anybody know anything differently I can do to get it cheaper (legally)?

[justflybob]

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

I would think that more folks simply have a Macbook or a mini, not a Macbook Pro.

I would bet that would be true in most college settings, but for business? All I see when I travel is 15" & 17" MPBs. Not to mention when I attend developer events.

[cylon]

Sorry, but I just had to shell out the bucks 2 months ago to go from Version 3 to 4, since 3 wouldn't work on Snow Leopard. Now they want me to pay again for a program I use a once a month. I think not.

[myapplelove]

Originally Posted by Royboy

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last week talking with Microsoft. Since I only own a Window 98 OS disc, I would need to buy a complete Home Premium Windows 7 OS disc, and not an upgrade. I was told that if I has a .edu address, which my son does have, then I could get what I needed for $99 under the academic discount.

I got the address and called back the next day. Now the story is that Microsoft doesn't sell a full edition, only upgrades, of Windows 7 under the academic account.

So now I'm back to paying $199 for the full version of Home Premium Windows 7.

Anybody know anything differently I can do to get it cheaper (legally)?

$200 for that piece of crap. I would suggest you buy xp off ebay. If you wan to be legal...but legal or ilegal they ar such relative terms sometimes...

[myapplelove]

So what is the performance hit of vmware/parralels v. booting into windoze? Are there any numbers out there?

[brujaz]

Originally Posted by Royboy

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last week talking with Microsoft. Since I only own a Window 98 OS disc, I would need to buy a complete Home Premium Windows 7 OS disc, and not an upgrade. I was told that if I has a .edu address, which my son does have, then I could get what I needed for $99 under the academic discount.

I got the address and called back the next day. Now the story is that Microsoft doesn't sell a full edition, only upgrades, of Windows 7 under the academic account.

So now I'm back to paying $199 for the full version of Home Premium Windows 7.

Anybody know anything differently I can do to get it cheaper (legally)?

You can do a clean install of Windows 7 from an upgrade disc, and have it successfully activate without having to install twice. I just followed the instructions from here.

You could also buy an OEM version from a place like Newegg, and save some money.

[Pooch]

was very excited to download this version and try it out. i've been using fusion 2 and wanted to take a look at the new version of both vmware and parallels.

installed the thing and launched the app. the thing animates in the dock for several seconds. then sits there with no little dot/reflection below it (i.e., just like it's a non-running app icon in the dock). but when i right click the dock icon it says i can force-quit. (doesn't say open. doesn't say quit. says force-quit.) repeated a few times but with the same results each time.

so, whatever, i'll let parallels spend their time figuring it out. sigh.

the uninstall seems to work fine! ;-)

[gumguy]

If I recall, Fusion did not charge to upgrade from version 1 to version 2. BUT they certainly did (39.95) to upgrade to version 3, still, in my opinion, better than the 50.00 upgrade for Parallels to version 5. Don't forget, Parallels charged (not too long ago), 50.00 to upgrade to version 4 and to version 3, etc. They DING you every time and very often. I am still running version 3.0 of Parallels on my of my computers, ready to upgrade it to version 4, but have taken my time and now there is version 5 already. In my opinion, unless one has a new lap top or desk top and wants to to a clean install of Windows 7, then get the recent version of either VMWare or Parallels, they both do fine. BUT don't even think of trying to upgrade your virtual XP to version 7.....quite a pain in the rear I hear. As I have said before, VMWare can charge much less, much less often than Parallels for their upgrades because Fusion for Mac is just one of many many products VMWare makes. Parallels for Mac is....one product only, so I guess business is business. Just my thoughts.

[kamui]

Originally Posted by Pooch

installed the thing and launched the app. the thing animates in the dock for several seconds. then sits there with no little dot/reflection below it (i.e., just like it's a non-running app icon in the dock). but when i right click the dock icon it says i can force-quit.

Yep, if Parallels is upgraded from from 4 to 5, with a ceratin setting a major bug can show up, which results in a black screen or in the Blue Screen of Death. But there is a simple solution to this:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/6873

Otherwise a first look at it gives the impression that WindowsXP is booting *much* faster and also is running faster. So far so good.

[Pooch]

Originally Posted by kamui

Yep, if Parallels is upgraded from from 4 to 5, with a ceratin setting a major bug can show up, which results in a black screen or in the Blue Screen of Death. But there is a simple solution to this:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/6873

Otherwise a first look at it gives the impression that WindowsXP is booting *much* faster and also is running faster. So far so good.

this was not an upgrade from 4 to 5; it was a clean install of 5.

and this was not a b*** screen of death; the parallels app simply fails to launch, even worse than my san francisco mayor newsom's bid for california governor!

[mstone]

Horrible experience with this upgrade. Completely unusable.

Original configuration:

Mac Book Pro 3,1
4 gigs Ram
Plenty of disk space

Snow Leopard
Previous installation of Parallels 3 (which was disabled by SL)
Vista Home Premium previously installed

Downloaded Version 5 ran install
Choose >use virtual machine >Activate key> ok > indicated I needed to upgrade VM > Ok > upgrading..... 1/2 hour later... You need to continue manually > ok > insert Vista install disk and run setup.exe > I go find disk....returned to find Vista is already running > recovered from serious error you must restart > Ok > Shutting down windows.... 10 minutes > Activate Parallels again > Upgrade VM again 2 of 4 > You must continue Manually > Ok > Vista starts anyway > need device drivers > ok > find on internet > Ok > failed finding ethernet driver > Ok later > Ok > Upgrade Parallels > ok > Activate VM again > upgrading 3 of 4.....30 minutes > You need to continue Again again again restart Windows... 30 minutes > Locked up > reboot Mac > start Parallels > Activate VM again > Parallels tools not installed > ok > upgrading 4 of 4... 30 minutes > lock up > reboot mac > start Parallels > activate again > HOORAY VISTA IS RUNNING only an hour an 45 minutes later. Try to run windows update crash. Try to run Norton, crash!

Try to run anything stalls for 1-2 minutes try again then waiting, waiting then error message Firefox unexpectedly quit but it is running anyway, SLOW SLOW SLOW .

Everything is like molasses. You can't tell if anything is launching running whatever. Painting the screen is pathetically slow.

Completely unusable.

BTW before SL and before Parallels 5 version 3 with Vista was running perfectly.

Just my experience your mileage may vary.

[nofear1az]

Originally Posted by Royboy

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last week talking with Microsoft. Since I only own a Window 98 OS disc, I would need to buy a complete Home Premium Windows 7 OS disc, and not an upgrade. I was told that if I has a .edu address, which my son does have, then I could get what I needed for $99 under the academic discount.

I got the address and called back the next day. Now the story is that Microsoft doesn't sell a full edition, only upgrades, of Windows 7 under the academic account.

So now I'm back to paying $199 for the full version of Home Premium Windows 7.

Anybody know anything differently I can do to get it cheaper (legally)?

Buy a Windows 7 upgrade disc, you don't need the full version. Go to newegg.com to order it the cheapest.

You could go with a regular upgrade version which is transfferable
or You can go OEM version but it will be tied to that machine after activation and will not be transferrable if you swap out your computer.

[mstone]

Well, 5 hours later finally got everything working. Apparently, and not really a big surprise here, Windows must have been doing mystery installation stuff in the background which hindered the usability of the computer and caused erroneous messages to be displayed regarding the status of the installation progress.

If I could offer any advise, it would be just walk away from the computer after each 'ok' click and come back in 30 minutes. If you have a lot of patience there is a reasonable chance you will eventually get a full installation - many hours later.

[DJRumpy]

Originally Posted by brujaz

You can do a clean install of Windows 7 from an upgrade disc, and have it successfully activate without having to install twice. I just followed the instructions from here.

You could also buy an OEM version from a place like Newegg, and save some money.

Your own link says the same thing. You must do a double install. The first to establish your 'previous version' and the second install on a separate partition.

I've never seen such a stupid upgrade path in all my years.

[Jarman]

Originally Posted by robmack

Thanks

You are welcome Maybe you didn't realize they just used a still image (the one I linked) for their ad and not an actual in-game shot of Crysis running in Parallels Desktop 5. Pretty cheap on their side...

[bettieblue]

Originally Posted by mstone

Horrible experience with this upgrade. Completely unusable.

Original configuration:

Mac Book Pro 3,1
4 gigs Ram
Plenty of disk space

Snow Leopard
Previous installation of Parallels 3 (which was disabled by SL)
Vista Home Premium previously installed

Downloaded Version 5 ran install
Choose >use virtual machine >Activate key> ok > indicated I needed to upgrade VM > Ok > upgrading..... 1/2 hour later... You need to continue manually > ok > insert Vista install disk and run setup.exe > I go find disk....returned to find Vista is already running > recovered from serious error you must restart > Ok > Shutting down windows.... 10 minutes > Activate Parallels again > Upgrade VM again 2 of 4 > You must continue Manually > Ok > Vista starts anyway > need device drivers > ok > find on internet > Ok > failed finding ethernet driver > Ok later > Ok > Upgrade Parallels > ok > Activate VM again > upgrading 3 of 4.....30 minutes > You need to continue Again again again restart Windows... 30 minutes > Locked up > reboot Mac > start Parallels > Activate VM again > Parallels tools not installed > ok > upgrading 4 of 4... 30 minutes > lock up > reboot mac > start Parallels > activate again > HOORAY VISTA IS RUNNING only an hour an 45 minutes later. Try to run windows update crash. Try to run Norton, crash!

Try to run anything stalls for 1-2 minutes try again then waiting, waiting then error message Firefox unexpectedly quit but it is running anyway, SLOW SLOW SLOW .

Everything is like molasses. You can't tell if anything is launching running whatever. Painting the screen is pathetically slow.

Completely unusable.

BTW before SL and before Parallels 5 version 3 with Vista was running perfectly.

Just my experience your mileage may vary.

Hmmm. So I had Parallels 4 and it worked fine. It had replaced Fusion 1.0/2.x which was slow and buggy for me, high CPU here and there for no reason. Anyhow Parallels 4.0 still worked for what I did (many windows vm's for sysadmin testing) when I did a clean install of Snow Leopard. Parallels 4.0 still worked with SL.

However my main job at work is supporting a large ESX environment, so I wanted to go with Fusion being a VMware product. So I UN-INSTALLED Parallels 4.0 leaving my many Paralles 4.0 VM's on the drive.

I then installed Fusion 3.0. I then tried to convert my Parallels 4.0 VM's. All of them failed with the same error after some time, telling me the VM's were not shut down properly, which was false. I then created a Windows 7.0 VM in Fusion 3.0, new and it worked as advertised.

Fusion 3.0 is slower in Unity mode than Parallels 4.0, the windows glitch if drag them around. Parallels 4.0 did this as well, but way less. The Fusion Menu bar icon is nice, very similar to the dock icon in Parallels 4.0, however when I try to add icons to the list, many are NOT choosable, just not in the list. Things like Active Directory tools, which I use daily. I can drill down through that menu but I cant add them to the first level menu.

Fusion 3.0 still lacks some tools like Cloning, or Cloning to a Template. This I find odd because VMware workstation on the PC has this and so does Parallels 4.0. Useful tools are just missing for users of VM products.

Anyhow I bought the Paralles 5.0 upgrade yesterday. I UN-INSTALLED Fusion 3.0 and rebooted. People need to do these things. I installed Parallels 5.0. I opened several Parallels 4.0 VM's just fine and ......(Drum Roll).....I converted my Windows 7 Fusion 3.0 VM just fine. Parallels 5.0 is even smoother than 4.0 in Cohesion mode, which was already better that Fusion 3.0

Parallels on the Mac is ahead of Fusion no doubt about it.

[cdyates]

Originally Posted by Royboy

Well, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone last week talking with Microsoft. Since I only own a Window 98 OS disc, I would need to buy a complete Home Premium Windows 7 OS disc, and not an upgrade. I was told that if I has a .edu address, which my son does have, then I could get what I needed for $99 under the academic discount.

I got the address and called back the next day. Now the story is that Microsoft doesn't sell a full edition, only upgrades, of Windows 7 under the academic account.

So now I'm back to paying $199 for the full version of Home Premium Windows 7.

Anybody know anything differently I can do to get it cheaper (legally)?

if you go to newegg.com or fry's, you may be able to get an OEM full version for around $100 if you buy it with a qualifying piece of hardware like a stick of ram or hard drive or something. Good opportunity to upgrade something while getting the OS for 1/2 price. I think the rules for the OEM software are only that you get no formal support from microsoft.

[lowededwookie]

I've been using Parallels 5 Beta for the past couple of months and it is a rock solid app and runs Windows 7 very very smoothly.

I've never heard of this Crystal View so I'm going to be doing more research on this.

The fact it now also supports VMWare machines makes me know I'm going to be sticking to Parallels.

I've tried VMWare 3 and it's alright but there's always something about Parallels that draws me back. I just prefer it for some reason.

[brujaz]

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

Your own link says the same thing. You must do a double install. The first to establish your 'previous version' and the second install on a separate partition.

I've never seen such a stupid upgrade path in all my years.

I don't think you read the instructions right. I used method 1 + 2 from the link. Install once on a clean hard drive, do a quick registry hack, run slmgr /rearm, then activate.

I definitely only did one install. I do agree that the upgrade path is pretty dumb.

[DJRumpy]

Originally Posted by brujaz

I don't think you read the instructions right. I used method 1 + 2 from the link. Install once on a clean hard drive, do a quick registry hack, run slmgr /rearm, then activate.

I definitely only did one install. I do agree that the upgrade path is pretty dumb.

You do realize that in order to hack a registry you have to install Windows first? Upgrade versions of Windows since Vista will not install when an existing install of Windows isn't present on the target disks already.

The reg hack is just to activate windows, which is an entirely separate issue.

[brujaz]

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

You do realize that in order to hack a registry you have to install Windows first? Upgrade versions of Windows since Vista will not install when an existing install of Windows isn't present on the target disks already.

The reg hack is just to activate windows, which is an entirely separate issue.

I'm apologize DJRrumpy, I must not be explaining it right.

If you follow methods 1 + 2 you can do a clean install of Windows 7 without having an existing install of Windows.

I'm not just saying this, but have actually done it twice. I installed Windows 7 Home Premium on a brand new hard drive on my wife's Dell laptop. It was the only hard drive installed, and never had anything on it. The Windows 7 DVD did a clean install with no problems. I then followed methods 1 + 2 from the site I mentioned previously, and then activated.

I also did the same with Windows 7 Professional with Parallels 5.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by mstone

Well, 5 hours later finally got everything working. Apparently, and not really a big surprise here, Windows must have been doing mystery installation stuff in the background which hindered the usability of the computer and caused erroneous messages to be displayed regarding the status of the installation progress.

If I could offer any advise, it would be just walk away from the computer after each 'ok' click and come back in 30 minutes. If you have a lot of patience there is a reasonable chance you will eventually get a full installation - many hours later.

I had weirdness after upgrading also. I use a single XP image and it was unusable after upgrading. I rebooted the VM a few times, then opened the config and set all the resource vars to min and restarted, and it worked just fine! I tweaked things up from there, but if this is any indication, setting the VM to use less is much better than setting it to use more.

Now the Windows apps are quite snappy and I'm quite impressed. It was rough going there for a bit though.

[badtux]

I call "bulls**t" on the "Parallels 20% faster than competitor". On the Windows 7 "Windows Experience" mini-benchmark, the *only* benchmark on which it's faster is 3D performance. That's with an identical fresh install on both VMware 3.0.0 and Parallels 5.0. 3D performance appears to be 20% faster with Parallels, but disk performance and overall CPU performance are lower than VMware, and everything else is identical between the two.

VMware also integrates Windows 7 better into the environment. You get a menu item in your toolbar to allow easy access to Windows programs and easy switching to other modes while in Unity mode. In full screen mode you have access to a toolbar item to switch out of full screen mode -- no more remembering alt-delete-control-meta-foo-bar-enter to get out of full screen mode.

Parallels does have one other place where it surpasses VMware other than in 3D performance: It auto-shrinks your disks. That of course is useless if you have Windows 7 installed on Boot Camp, since you have a fixed size disk at that point.

My take: Run Parallels if you want to run games on Windows 7 in a virtualized environment. Run VMware if you want to get work done, the upgrade worked seamlessly and the overall VMware Fusion environment is better (especially if you are using VMware in your corporate environment and want to easily import virtual machines from your corporate environment). Since I have Boot Camp I have no need to run games in a virtualized environment, and our corporate infrastructure is built around VMware. Thus Parallels is out to pasture for me.