Parallels Desktop – Build 3186

Parallels Desktop for Mac – the latest final release, is now available. It’s Version 2.5 build 3186 and can be downloaded from Parallels.com.

This release consists of mainly bug fixes going back to the previous Release Candidates and introduces no new features since the final Release Candidate.

New and improved features added since the last Final Release/2.0:
Read more

Parallels Desktop – 3170 Release Candidate 3

Another Release Candidate (RC) is out for Parallels Desktop for Mac. Build 3170 – Release Candidate 3170. This release concerns mainly global sharing and adding Microsoft Windows Vista Upgrade support as well as bug fixes from previous Release Candidates.

Changes/Updates (From Parallels.com):
PLEASE REMEMBER: this is Release Candidate software. While this build gives you the rough understanding of the final set of features to be available in Final Release later on, it is still a “Candidate” and thus is still not recommended for production use. Do backup your virtual machines before trying them with this build (from Parallels.com)

* Windows Vista Upgrade support added. If you’re planning to upgrade your Windows XP installation to Vista, shut down your guest OS and go to Actions->Prepare Windows Vista Upgrade… menu item. Parallels Desktop will tune your Virtual Machine and start it. All you need to do is to wait till Windows XP is loaded, insert Windows Vista CD and start the upgrade.

* Global Sharing option is now disabled by default. We believe the feature has received enough testing already. From now on, you make the decision to enable real drag-and-drop or not. The new behavior is :
** On your first drag and drop attempt you will be prompted to choose whether you’d like to enable Global/Local sharing or just copy the file to Windows.

* The difference between Global and Local sharing are:
**Global Sharing – shares the whole Mac filesystem.
**Local Sharing – shares only your Home folder(a nice enhancement request we had received from beta testers.)
NOTE! Global sharing is forcibly disabled for all existing RC1 and RC2 installations upon RC3 upgrade.
* USB fixes. Both stability fixes and new devices support. Feel free to check your favorite device with RC3 and report to us if it still doesn’t work (beta@parallels.com).
* Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” experimental support. The best virtualization solution for Mac is now available for early Leopard adopters.
* And many other fixes…

Download here at Parallels.com

Video of 3D Game/Acceleration on VMWare Fusion

There is a YouTube video making the rounds, purporting to show VMWare Fusion running a 3D Accelerated/Direct-X based game in Windows, running under Mac OS X, and doing it fairly smoothly.

Fake or real? Looks real, but considering that VMWare Fusion shares a codebase with the VMWare Workstation (for Windows), it seems like even if it was a Windows-based machine with various changes to make it look like Mac OS X, it still is pretty clearly running under VMWare, which means that at some point it would end up in Mac OS X.

It doesn’t look like it’s a new game, but it’s still impressive.

Macworld: Running Vista Home on a Mac

Macworld has a hands on with Microsoft Windows Vista Home, loading it up under Parallels Desktop and Apple’s Boot Camp. They were able to install it under Parallels.

Excerpt:

If you care about running Windows on a Mac, you’ve undoubtedly heard that the end user license agreement (EULA) for Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium forbids you to use these versions of Microsoft’s latest operating system release with virtualization software—software that allows you to run operating systems other than the Mac OS in a windowed environment within the Mac OS. Such virtualization software includes the popular Parallels Desktop for Mac. What the reports on this matter don’t reveal is whether this is simply a legal restriction or also a technical one….
Cutting briefly to the chase, Vista Home Premium installed perfectly well. Once it was up and running I noticed that the Aero effect was nowhere to be seen—Parallels simply couldn’t emulate the kind of graphic card/power necessary to make it work. I then asked Vista to install the latest Vista updates—something I understood to be a problem for others who tried it.

Vista Home Premium running on a Mac via the latest Parallels Desktop beta

No problem. Vista downloaded the updates, installed them, I restarted, and everything continued to work.

Parallels Desktop – Build 3150 – Release Candidate 2

Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3150, Release Candidate 2 is available for download from here (Parallels.com). This virtualization application for Mac OS X offers mainly fixes/updates regarding USB 2.0 devices, as well as a bunch of Coherence improvements

Release Notes/Information from Parallels.com
PLEASE REMEMBER: this is a Release Candidate software. While this build gives you the rough understanding of the final set of features to be available in Final Release later on, it is still a “Candidate” and thus is still not recommended for production use. Do backup your virtual machines before trying them with this build.

This build provides several very important fixes to the problems found in previous Betas and Release candidate:

* The widest list of fixes are USB ones. Web cameras including iSight should work fine since now. Many other devices reported by beta-testers should work as well.
* Another wide list of fixes and improvements are Boot Camp fixes.
* Since RC2 it is possible to utilize Boot Camp partition installed not on the same disk as Mac OS X is.
* Many BSOD conditions are fixed.
* For advanced users it is now possible to edit Boot Camp partitions configurations via VM’s .pvs configuration file (check this thread for details http://forum.parallels.com/post42129-1.html).

* Several Coherence improvements:
* Windows’ Start menu is now shown if one clicks Parallels Desktop icon in Dock if user has his “Show Windows Taskbar” option set to off
* VM now remembers if it was last shut down in Coherence mode and starts in it next time
* Clicking on Windows application on Mac now starts VM in Coherence mode with selected application.

* Stability fixes – lots of segmentation fault (Parallels Desktop window closes unexpectedly) conditions are now fixed;
* The nasty memory leak found in live screenshot in dock feature is now fixed.
* And many other fixes…

Several important known issues:
* Mouse pointer may disappear during Parallels Tools upgrade. To have it reappear, right-click your mouse or uncapture and capture again the keyboard input
* Parallels Tools setup does not autostart in Windows NT guest OS. You should manually start the tools installation process.
* Windows 98 does not restart if the process is initiated within guest OS. You should manually restart it.
* Aggressive connecting/disconnecting of multiple USB devices may result in guest BSOD or segmentation fault.
* Some USB devices don’t work yet.