As an employee of an EMC partner, I periodically get access to nifty demos as VMs. Unfortunately these are usually heavily geared towards running within a VMware hosted environment, and rarely if ever port across to Parallels.

While this wasn’t previously an issue having an ESX server in my lab, I’ve slowly become less tolerant of noisy computers and so it’s been less desirable to have on – part of the reason why I went out and bought a Mac Pro. (Honestly, PC server manufacturers just don’t even try to make their systems quiet. How Dull.)

With the recent upgrade to Parallels v5 being a mixed bag (much better performance, Coherence broken for 3+ weeks whenever multiple monitors are attached), on Thursday I decided I’d had enough and felt it was time to start at least trying VMware Fusion. As I only have one VM on my Mac Book Pro, as opposed to 34 on my Mac Pro, I felt that testing Fusion out on my Mac Book Pro to start with would be a good idea.

So, what are my thoughts of it so far after a day of running with it?

Advantages over Parallels Desktop:

• VMware’s Unity feature in v3 isn’t broken (as opposed to Coherence with dual monitors currently being dead).
• VMware’s Unity feature actually merges Coherence and Crystal without needing to just drop all barriers between the VM and the host.
• VMware Fusion will happily install ESX as a guest machine.
• (For the above reason, I suspect, though I’ve not yet had time to test, that I’ll be able to install all the other cool demos I’ve got sitting on a spare drive)
• VMware’s Unity feature extends across multiple monitors in a way that doesn’t suck. Coherence, when it extends across multiple monitors, extends the Windows Task Bar across multiple monitors in the same position. This means that it can run across the middle of the secondary monitor, depending on how your monitors are layed out. (Maybe Coherence in v5 works better … oops, no, wait, it doesn’t work at all for multiple monitors so I can’t even begin to think that.)

Areas where Parallels kicks Fusion’s Butt:

• Even under Parallels Desktop v4, Coherence mode was significantly faster than Unity. I’m talking seamless window movement in Coherence, with noticeable ghosting in Unity. It’s distracting and I can live with it, but it’s pretty shoddy.
• For standard Linux and Windows guests, I’ve imported at least 30 different machines from VMware ESX and VMware Server hosted environments into Parallels Desktop. Not once did I have a problem with “standard” machines. I tried to use VMware’s import utility this morning on both a Windows 2003 guest and a Linux guest and both were completely unusable. The Windows 2003 guest went through a non-stop boot cycle where after 5 seconds or so of booting it would reset. The Linux guest wouldn’t even get past the LILO prompt. Bad VMware, very Bad.
• When creating pre-allocated disks, Parallels is at least twice as fast as Fusion. Creating a pre-allocated 60GB disk this morning took almost an hour. That’s someone’s idea of a bad joke. Testing creating a few other drives all exhibited similarly terrible performance.
• Interface (subjective): Parallels Desktop v5 is beautiful – it’s crisp and clean. VMware Fusion’s interface looks like it’s been cobbled together with sticks and duct tape.

Areas where Desktop Virtualisation continues to suck, no matter what product you use:

• Why do I have to buy a server class virtualisation product to simulate turning the monitor off and putting the keyboard away? That’s not minimising the window, it’s called closing the window, and I should be able to do that regardless of what virtualisation software I’m running.
• Why does the default for new drives remain splitting them in 2GB chunks? Honestly, I have no sympathy for anyone still running an OS old enough that it can’t (as the virtual machine host) support files bigger than 2GB. At least give me a preference to turn the damn behaviour off.

I’ll be continuing to trial Fusion for the next few weeks before I decide whether I want to transition my Mac Pro from Parallels Desktop to Fusion. The big factor will be whether I think the advantages of running more interesting operating systems (e.g., ESX) within the virtualisation system is worth the potential hassle of having to recreate all my VMs, given how terribly VMware’s Fusion import routine works…

Parallels Desktop, Run Windows applications on Mac without rebooting. New Paralles Desktop 5 More Powerful.

>>> Try, Upgrade, Buy, More Info on Official Web Site <<<

Choose as much integration between Mac and Windows interfaces as you need, without compromising performance — choose from multiple different view modes.

• >>> Try, Upgrade, Buy, More Info on Official Web Site <<<
• New! MacLook Theme — Transform Windows applications by making them look like native Mac applications
• New! Crystal Mode — Pull the shades on Windows altogether. Access Windows and Mac apps from the Mac Dock
• Coherence Mode — Run Windows and Mac apps side-by-side as if both operating systems have melted together into one.
• Window Mode — Choose to run your Virtual Machine as a separate window alongside your Mac apps.
• Modality Mode — View all your Virtual Machines and programs running in transparent windows working in Mac OS X.
• Full Screen Mode — Don’t give up the familiarity of Windows. Replace your Mac desktop with Windows 7, Vista, or XP

Make Windows more Mac-like

Use Apple Gestures in Windows applications, map your keyboard shortcuts, or use Apple Remote to control Windows programs.

• New! Apple Gestures — Support for Multi-Touch trackpad gestures in Windows applications (yes, even 4-finger ones)
• New! Remote Control — Use Apple remote to control Windows applications or download our free iPhone app to manage virtual machines remotely
• Exposé — Easily organize and view all open windows in stunning style with a single keystroke.

• Spaces — Group our windows and reduce clutter by switching between views of open applications and windows

>>> Try, Upgrade, Buy, More Info on Official Web Site <<<

PARALLES DESKTOP IS MULTI LANGUAGES.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac: Run Windows applications on Mac without reboot with parallels desktop 5.

>>> Try, Upgrade, Buy, More Info on Official Web Site <<<

Faster

* DirectX 9.0c/9Ex with Shader Model 3
* All the security you need for Windows
* No compromise on performance or speed

>>> Try, Upgrade, Buy, More Info on Official Web Site <<<

The two titans in Macintosh virtual machine software have both kicked up significant updates in the last little while. Parallels Desktop 5 and VMware Fusion 3 both want your hard earned dollars, but is one better than the other? I had a look at both and here’s what I think about them:

Installing Windows: It’s a wizard driven install that makes the process dead easy. This is a tie from where I sit.

Overall Speed: Both products claim that they’re faster than ever, but for me Parallels Desktop “feels” somewhat faster than VMware Fusion in my “seat of the pants testing.” For what it’s worth, both products were on the same computer and the virtual computers had the same configuration. I’m not going to assign a winner to this category as clearly, your mileage may vary when it comes to subjective items such as speed.

Graphics: Both products have significant upgrades to their graphics abilities as they now support DirectX 9 and Open GL. That means that you can do Aero and Flip 3D in Windows Vista and Windows 7, not to mention run your favorite game as well (although IMHO, that’s better done in Boot Camp). I tried a few video games in both products and had no problems running them well in either product. This category is a tie.

USB Support: My usual test of the USB support is to plug my MobiKEY into each product and see how it handles it as the MobiKEY is a rather complex device that sometimes makes USB problems in a computer show up. Parallels Desktop 5 had no issue with the MobiKEY. I plugged it in and it worked. VMware Fusion didn’t see it at first. So I did some Googling and found this VMware Communities discussion thread that explains how to enable support for the MobiKEY. Even though it was referencing an older version of VMware Fusion, it worked. But the solution was not end user friendly at all. Advantage: Parallels Desktop

Eye Candy: If you’re an eye candy sort of person, Parallels has way more eye candy than VMware Fusion. You can make Windows apps look very Mac like and there’s a feature called Crystal View which hides all your icons in the Dock and the OS X Parallels menu bar, moving access to menu items and a newly created folder icon in the Dock which has all your windows shortcuts. I personally hate eye candy so I tend to turn this stuff off. Besides, it likely frees up memory if you do that as well. VMware has made some significant changes to their user interface that are subtle but useful. For example, one interesting new feature is the Applications Menu which lives on the OS X menu bar. You can do everything you’d do within the Windows Start menu so I can see it being handy for some users. Bottom line, I find the eye candy that VMware has more useful than the stuff that Parallels Desktop has. Advantage: VMware Fusion

Technical Support: The last time I wrote about support for both VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, I basically said that technical  support for both sucked. Now with their new versions, here’s what they offer. First here’s what VMware offers for  VMware Fusion:

For Fusion 3.x, installation assistance is offered for 18 months after product registration or until product end of life. Submit support requests either online or via phone; responses are targeted within one business day.

Now here’s what Parallels Desktop offers :

Customers upgrading to Parallels Desktop 5 to Mac or purchasing a new version of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac are eligible for the following complimentary support options:

• 18 months free installation support by Email, starting with November 4th 2009
• 30 day complimentary Chat and Telephone support

Clearly they’re finally starting to get the message that software sold to end users requires support that easy to access. Bravo! I’m declaring this a tie.

So who comes out on top? In my mind there isn’t a clear winner as it depends on what you need virtual machine software for. If you need USB support, go with Parallels. Hands down it has better USB support. If you simply need to run Windows or some other OS on your Mac, you can’t go wrong with either product. One thing that helps is that trials for both products are available, so you can try each out and see which one suits your needs better.

Not to be outdone by VMware Fusion 3.0, Parallels has released the latest version of Parallels Desktop today. In a press release issued early this morning, they highlight many of the new features in this release:

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac introduces more than 70 new features and enhancements, offering a computing experience that is:

Faster…

• Full support for Aero in Windows Vista and 7 through Windows WDDM driver, including Aero Flip 3D
• Virtual machine size automatically optimized for best performance with Parallels Compressor
• Improved performance for Linux guest OS from KVM paravirtualization

“The excellent 3D graphics performance of Parallels Desktop for Mac makes it Autodesk’s preferred Mac virtualization software for customers who choose to run AutoCAD or our other design and engineering software on the Mac,” said Andrew Mackles, Director of AutoCAD Product Management at Autodesk.  “We are excited about the further graphics enhancements in Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac and the potential to improve the customer experiences.”

Smarter…

• A more Mac-like experience in their Windows applications through Apple Trackpad Gestures technology (pinch, swipe, rotate and more), horizontal scrolling and the application of Full Screen active corners and curl page effect
• Copy & Paste fidelity for formatted text and complete layouts including images, even between Windows and Linux guest OSs
• Freedom and flexibility to run Windows and Mac applications across multiple monitors

More Powerful…

• 7 times better graphic performance for games and 3D applications than the previous version with Direct X 9Ex with Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 support
• Superior graphics performance for Linux guests through OpenGL 2.1 support
• Full hardware resources can be utilized with support for 8 virtual CPUs, 64 bit Windows and Snow Leopard Server 64 bit
• Easily move PCs (including Windows 7) and 3rd party virtual machines to the Mac  with the enhanced Parallels Transporter

It really sounds like they’ve put something together to go to war with Fusion 3.0. Hopefully they have this nailed down as the last time that Parallels came out with software, they ran into accusations of shipping buggy software, accusations of shipping pre-release code among other things that created a major public relations nightmare for them. Hopefully this time will be different.

Parallels Desktop 5 is out today and I plan on downloading a copy of it and putting it head to head against Fusion 3. I’ve been using Parallels Desktop for a couple of years now, but I’ve been experimenting with Fusion 3 lately. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Ok, va bene, avete ragione: vi ho giustamente rotto i co***oni con Mac, Apple, iPhone e compagnia bella per anni. Ma ora non posso che condividere con voi anche le gioie che il mondo Mac mi ha donato e la mia sempre più convinta adesione a questo sistema operativo, a questa azienda, a questo marchio.

Il gran giorno è arrivato. 24 aprile 2009, Unieuro di Trezzano sul Naviglio, provincia di Milano. E’ un giorno di sole quando i neosposi Chiara e Francesco si apprestano ad entrare presso l’Unieuro per ritirare una serie di regali della loro lista nozze: ma sono lì anche per acquistare il pc per casa loro.

Francesco non ha dubbi: è arrivato il giorno del suo primo Mac. Anche Chiara è piuttosto convinta: infatti l’ha già visto e le piace, ce l’ha il cognato Fabio e la sua ragazza Viola, ce l’hanno alcuni amici. Insomma, è un sistema bello, facile, divertente. E poi perché non fare l’acquisto ora, per iniziare bene la convivenza anche dal punto di vista informatico?

Francesco ha le idee chiare: iMac. Non perché il Macbook non piacesse (per quanto i nuovi modelli alluminio non lo fanno impazzire – è un fan del vecchio Macbook nero, e sa che un giorno se ne comprerà uno, anche usato, non importa). Ma perché in casa un desktop ci vuole, con una bella stampante di fianco magari. E poi anche perché portatili già ne ha uno: sì, ok, è un pc, il buon vecchio Compaq che finora gli ha portato tante soddisfazioni. Ma per ora basta così, vuole sedersi comodo con un pc da tavolo.
Quando sta per staccare l’assegno non ci crede: il suo primo Mac, cazzo!!!
Calmati Fra, è solo un computer. Ma sarà che già sente nell’aria le canzoni che scriverà con GarageBand, o i video che monterà con iMovie, o le foto che scorrerranno via in iPhoto.. insomma, una gran cosa!
E che bel viaggio, con quello scatolone bianco dietro il sedile.
Per tutta una serie di ragioni (quella sera una cena dai genitori, poi il fatto che prima c’era da montare la scrivania sulla quale mettere il Mac) la prima accensione avviene il day after. E già dal primo clic è subito amore.

E qui torniamo dalla terza alla prima persona, con una disamina tecnica delle impressioni che un utente fortemente Windows-based come il sottoscritto ha avuto dell’ambiente e del mondo Mac.
Premetto che sei mesi sono pochi per una valutazione generale. Ci sono ancora delle applicazioni con le quali non riesco a trovarmi appieno, e il buon Windows XP virtualizzato in Parallels aiuta non poco nelle indecisioni. Ma posso dire ormai che con il Mac ci lavoro sempre più volentieri e sempre più disinvoltamente.
La prima cosa che del Mac mi ha colpito è la pulizia grafica e la sobrietà unita alla funzionalità. Sul desktop non c’è nulla di più di ciò che serve: i menu sono chiari, e utility come Spotlight e Exposé sono autentiche droghe, una volta che ti ci abitui! Pensare poi che nello spazio di un monitor si cela tutto l’hardware di un pc è qualcosa davvero di stupefacente: c’è una webcam, c’è una fessura laterale che è un’unità dvd superdrive, un modem wireless, un’unità bluetooth… insomma, già il case è una magia.
E poi la velocità. La prima volta l’ho acceso, ho inserito le quattro cose che chiede per creare l’utente e poi mi son trovato tre secondi dopo già sulla scrivania. No, non è possibile mi son detto. Un avvio che dura pochissimi secondi. E idem la chiusura! che meraviglia!
E vogliamo parlare delle velocità di calcolo? l’ho subito messo alla prova con Handbrake, programma per creare video compressi (Xvid, etc). Ecco, giusto per capirci. Per fare un Xvid da 700 mega, con il pc di prima, ci volevano almeno 4 ore: e parlo di una situazione dove avevo già copiato il dvd sull’hard disk. Con l’iMac e con Handbrake, con il dvd dentro il superdrive, in 45 minuti hai fatto tutto. E ci siamo capiti.

E passiamo al pacchetto iLife 09.

Su iTunes c’è poco da dire: ormai tutti lo conoscono e tutti lo apprezzano. La versione Mac è chiaramente più veloce di quella pc, essendo nativa su quella piattaforma.

Safari è eccezionale, ma io ancora uso Firefox: mi ci trovo più comodo. Stesso discorso per Thunderbird, anche se pian piano mi sto avvicinando a Mail.

iPhoto è certamente il programma di iLife che so usare meglio. Splendida la possibilità, tra le altre cose, di geolocalizzare album ed eventi: in questo modo diventa davvero l’album dei momenti della tua vita. Grande Steve Jobs, ci hai preso dentro ancora.

iMovie è estremamente interessante: purtroppo lo conosco ancora poco, non avendo ancora avuto il tempo sufficiente per farci tutti gli esperimenti necessari. Stessa cosa per Garageband, anche se con questo ci ho già lavorato un po’ di più, creando tra l’altro una serie di suonerie per iPhone targate The Crow!

Altre funzionalità, come Time Machine, ancora non le ho usate. Ma il Mac è un mondo e come tale ci vuole tempo per conoscerlo.

Cosa mi ha sorpreso? la stabilità, la semplicità d’uso e la velocità. Tutte qualità che conquistano, quando il pc serve per fare le cose fatte bene.

Conclusioni? Sono soddisfattissimo del Mac. Lo ricomprerei subito. E ora Redmond deve proprio fare un miracolo per farmi ritornare ad avere un pc, Windows 7 o non Windows 7.

Lunga vita ad Apple. Lunga vita a Steve Jobs.

Parallels, spécialiste de la virtualisation, lance plusieurs nouveaux produits dont un faisant clairement de l’oeil à tous les utilisateurs qui voudraient se tourner vers le Mac en ayant peur d’être perdus.

Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition est vendu 99 euros.

Parallels Desktop 4 pour Windows et Linux est vendu 69,99 euros.

Source : PCInpact

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Der erste Eintrag für die Rubrik “HotSpots im Tal” ist fertig. Ihr findet ihn… rechts. Unter die Lupe genommen habe ich das Chili Royal in der Nordstadt. Es gibt Bewertungen, Preise, Fotos, naja ein kleines Review halt. Viel Spaß damit. Weitere folgen demnächst.

Achja, ich habe eben noch das hier entdeckt .

Paralles Desktop 4.0 Switch to Mac Edition

Nett. Hätte das nicht ein paar Tage früher kommen können? Egal. Trotzdem nett. Vor allem das Demo Video. Ich dachte immer Leute in Videos müssen die Firma repräsentieren. Ich hatte ein anderes Bild von Parallels.

Danke fürs Lesen

I got a press release from Parallels this morning announcing Parallels Desktop Switch To Mac Edition. In a nutshell, here’s what it does:

• It includes two hours of interactive videos that help PC users learn the Mac platform. I’m sure that the geniuses at your local Apple Store are overjoyed to hear that.
• When you’re ready to switch, an included USB cable and a piece of software called Enhanced Parallels Transporter will move the entire PC (licensed operating system, applications, files and data) to the new Mac.
• Parallels Desktop 4.0 then takes the contents of the PC that you just migrated and lets you run it as a virtual machine.

It sounds slick and is worth considering if you are moving from PC to Mac. It’s also cheap. It’s $100 US and available today.

I’d love to try this out and move my wife from her WinXP box to a Mac. Any chance you can hook me up Parallels?

I kveld har jeg installert Parallels Desktop på min iMAC 24. Jeg har brukt Vmware i flere år, men kjøpte nå den nye versjon 4.0 av Parallels. Førsteinntrykket er meget bra. Hastigheten er faktisk bedre enn Vmware på denne maskinen og jeg har begge installert her. Jeg kjører nå windows i coherence mode og integrasjonen med Mac er ganske utrolig.

Det ser ut som om denne versjonen av Win7 Ultimate er blitt endra bedre enn den versjonen jeg har hatt det siste året. Egentlig er det merkelig at en betaversjon er så stabil og som får Vista til å virke som et uferdig produkt i forhold.

Nå blir det å teste windows for å se hvordan hastigheten blir når jeg presser både Mac og Windows samtidig.

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Für gerade einmal €36 ($49,99) gibt es die neueste Version von TechTool 5 und Parallels Desktop 4, sowie neun weitere Programme dazu. Wer schnell reagiert erhält noch 2 weitere Programme gratis dazu. Wer also bislang noch kein Programm zur Systemwartung und Fehlerbehebung hat oder auf seinem Rechner ein weiteres Betriebssystem schon immer installieren wollte, sollte jetzt zugreifen. Das von MacUpdate Promo angebotene Bundle ist nur für eine limitierte Zeit erhältlich. Das Paket hat einen Wert von €360 ($520) und kann von der Seite MacUpdate Promo heruntergeladen werden. Weitere Programme werden dem Paket noch hinzugefügt. Wer hierzu informiert werden will, muß sich unter daily MUPromo registrieren.

Just for €36 ($49,99) you will get the newest version of TechTool 5 and Parallels Desktop 4 plus 2 additional programms if you are quick. More programms will be added after subscribed on daily MUPromo. The bundle has a worth about €360 ($520) and can be downloaded on MacUpdate Promo.

A new build of Parallels Desktop 4.0 is now available for users to download. The release notes are here, but here are the key highlights:

• Improved 3D graphics in Windows virtual machines.
• Problems with Palm synchronization in Windows virtual machines – fixed.
• Random disconnection of USB 1.1 devices in Linux virtual machines – fixed.
• Invisibility of the text mouse pointer on black background in Windows virtual machines – fixed.
• Problems with SMB shares in native Windows Boot Camp installations that have Parallels Tools installed – fixed.
• Problems with Shared Networking on Snow Leopard host computers – fixed.

Strangely, it didn’t show up in the updating utility that is part of the application. I only tripped over it by accident yesterday. But that didn’t matter to me as I normally download the full installer and then I normally do a uninstall and reinstall of the software. Usually that avoids issues, but this time I ran into this issue that others have posted about on the Parallels message boards.  I didn’t use any of their suggestions to solve it. I instead followed this Parallels knowledgebase document to solve the problem. Once I got past that, I was able to update my VM’s and go to town.

Overall it doesn’t “feel” faster, but I haven’t had the chance to really push it yet. That’s something I plan on doing tonight. If you’ve tried this build, leave a comment with your impressions.

I’ve been looking for something like this for some time to settle the the “Who is faster? Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion” argument (or to stir it up some more). MacTech decided to do some benchmarking on these visualization products for the Mac, and their very extensive document on the subject is truly worth reading if you run one of these applications (or you’ve been on the fence deciding which one to run). What’s the bottom line?

In the majority of overall averages of our tests, Parallels Desktop is the clear winner running 14-20% faster than VMware Fusion. The one exception is for those that need to run Windows XP, 32-bit on 2 virtual processors, VMware Fusion runs about 10% faster than Parallels Desktop.

That kind of surprises me. I’ve felt that with the latest version, Parallels Desktop has closed the gap in terms of speed, but VMWare Fusion has always “felt” faster to me. But feelings and hard numbers are two different things. While I have little reason to doubt their results (as the methodology appears to be sound), I’d love to see someone else validate these numbers.

Any takers?

UPDATE: Just to add to the fun,  Ben Gertzfield of VMWare has posted something on the ARS Technica discussion boards that says that Fusion will run faster on the Mac Pro computers that were released on Tuesday:

I’m particularly excited about the new Mac Pro’s support for Extended Page Tables in its Nehalem processor.

This is a huge benefit to virtualization software: without EPT, a big chunk of the heavy lifting that a virtual machine has to do is emulating the “map virtual memory address X to physical memory address Y” work that a traditional MMU does.

Not to toot my own horn (okay, I’m tooting my own horn), but VMware Fusion 2.0.2 comes with support for EPT baked right in. Assuming all goes well with the final Mac Pro hardware (we haven’t gotten our hands on it yet), you should see a pretty significant performance boost on the new Nehalem CPUs when running Fusion virtual machines.

So does Parallels Desktop have a similar feature? I can’t give you a straight answer on that. I tried looking around for any indication either way and couldn’t find it. Perhaps someone out there can point me towards the right resources to answer this question (or perhaps someone from Parallels can chime in with an answer).

I recently endured a rather difficult experience: installing Windoze XP on my MacBook.  Because I’ve been getting busier with website design and coding as of late, I’ve also been struggling with how to test my CSS and XHTML code across mutliple browsers and operating systems.  I had Parallels Desktop installed on my MacBook, but had been noticing quite a performance decrease every time I opened my WinXP virtual disk (probably in part due to the fact that my computer is a few years old and has 1 GB of RAM which is the minimum memory requirement to run the software).

Parallels has a great concept (and with enough memory, great software) that allows users to run MacOSX and Windows literally side-by-side in the same window and allows nearly instant switching from one to the other.  I should be able to start up my MacBook into OSX and from there, boot into the Windows XP OS within a Mac window.  It worked for me for a while, but eventually, I got tired of waiting for Windows to boot up and run slowly (after I’d already been using the MacBook to full capacity with other programs).  Therefore, I thought it would be a good time to switch over to BootCamp.

Knowing full well that what I was about to do could be risky business, I made sure to back up EVERYTHING from my Mac HDD onto an external drive and a few DVDs.  I then sat down with my Mac and BootCamp to start the install process.

At first, BootCamp wouldn’t partition my HDD because some files were “unmovable.”  I determined to completely reinstall Mac Leopard in order to have a “clean slate” from which to begin the Windows install (this is also why I backed everything up first, I knew I would be erasing the whole drive shortly).  After the Leopard reinstall, BootCamp partitioned my disc well, and prompted me to insert my Windows CD to begin the installation process.

Unfortunately, having moved to Korea 3 years ago, I no longer had my old (then new) Windows XP (before SP1 even) CD.  That being the case, I was able to buy a get a different copy of Windows XP in Korea from a third party vendor to attempt my install.  Of course, I knew that I would be installing Windows in the Korean language, but I already had plenty of experience changing Windows XP languages after install.  I’d performed numerous Windows XP installs in the States when I worked for Tech Support at my university, so I assumed that this install would be just as straight-forward as all previous installations.  However, I hadn’t counted on seeing a graphical user interface (in Korean) to “aid” me in the partitioning and installation of my disks.  

Needless to say, the install didn’t go quite as expected.  It seems the Windows install wiped the Mac OS off the computer’s boot record and didn’t write it’s own properly, so that the next time the computer restarted, I was faced with a Mac “gray screen of death.”  This experience did however remind me of the importance of keeping the original install discs of any software (particularly OSs).  But that’s a post for another time.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was wrong with the MacBook, or how to make it respond to anything at all (couldn’t even figure out how to get the CD ejected).  I just let it sit for a few hours while I went to church hoping that it would do something, but it never did.  I decided to just take a night off, away from the computer that night and try to find the solutions to my problems the next day at work.

In the past, I’ve always had an extra computer in close proximity to me anytime I needed to do repair work.  This would allow me to get online and troubleshoot any problems I wasn’t immediately aware of how to solve.  However, this time, my only additional computer was at work.  True, Korea being the 4th most wired country in the world, with Internet Cafes on most major street corners gave me a few extra options for troubleshooting, but I decided not to rush things, and just wait for work.

At work the next day I found a few boot-up key-combinations I wanted to try to get the Mac to boot from its original install discs to reload OSX.  The key combos are as follows and found on this site:

Apple Boot Key Combos:

Bypass startup drive and boot from external (or CD).... CMD-OPT-SHIFT-DELETE
Boot from CD (Most late model Apples) ................. C
Force the internal hard drive to be the boot drive .... D
Boot from a specific SCSI ID #.(#=SCSI ID number)...... CMD-OPT-SHIFT-DELETE-#
Zap PRAM .............................................. CMD-OPT-P-R
Boot into open Firmware ............................... CMD-OPT-O-F
Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in open Firmware ... CMD-OPT-N-V
Disable Extensions .................................... SHIFT
Rebuild Desktop ....................................... CMD-OPT
Close finder windows.(hold just before finder starts).. OPT
Boot with Virtual Memory off........................... CMD
Trigger extension manager at boot-up................... SPACE
Force Quadra av machines to use TV as a monitor........ CMD-OPT-T-V
Boot from ROM (Mac Classic only)....................... CMD-OPT-X-O
Force PowerBooks to reset the screen................... R
Force an AV monitor to be recognized as one............ CMD-OPT-A-V
Eject Boot Floppy...................................... Hold Down Mouse Button
Select volume to start from............................ OPT
Start in Firewire target drive mode.................... T
Startup in OSX if OS9 and OXS in boot partition........ X or CMD-X
Attempt to boot from network server ................... N
   (Hold until Mac Logo appears)
Hold down until the 2nd chime, will boot into 9?....... CMD-OPT
OSX: Watch the status of the system load............... CMD-V
OSX: Enter single-user mode (shell-level mode)......... CMD-S

Trying “C” to get it to boot from CD got me nowhere, and trying “OPT” to choose my boot device (I thought I might be able to tell it to complete it’s half-finished Windows install) only provided me with a black mouse pointer that moved around the screen when I moved the mouse.  Finally, I decided to take it back to the Apple Store I’d bought it from, and let them take care of it.

The Apple Experts didn’t fail to impress me as they had the computer ready the next day by lunch, complete with OSX and WinXP partitions (and it only cost around $30, or 30,000 Korean won).  Fortunately, or unfortunately, they had used the original install discs I’d given them in order to put the OSs on my systems which meant I had a large Mac Leopard partition, and a small Korean Windows partition.

Fortunately for me, I’ve already had quite a bit of experience changing OS languages in Windows XP, so I thought this would be a quick trip to take XP from Korean to English.  However, this was not the case.  It turns out that in order for me to install Windows Service Pack 3 (a requirement for changing the OS language) I needed to have Boot Camp 2.1 installed on the Windows partition and the Mac Leopard discs I had only contained Boot Camp 2.0.  

Every time I tried to install SP3 without the Boot Camp 2.1 I got some sort of “insufficient space error” which I knew was crazy since I had well over 6GB of space the SP3 installation could have used.  Well, it turns out that there is a minor error in registry key values in a Boot Camp 2.0 version of Windows XP.  Namely, there is no “BootDir” value in the right place, so when SP3 searches for that value and comes up empty, it assumes that there isn’t enough space on the drive to install itself.

I downloaded Boot Camp 2.1 and tried to install it, but that also failed.  The Windows installer kept crashing every time I opened it.  I did some searching on the ‘Net and came up with the possible solution that additional video drivers were creating difficulties installing the update, so I uninstalled all my additional video drivers and tried again.  Failure again.  Well, luckily for me, I also ran across this work-around to create the registry key that was needed by SP3 in order to install:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.
4. In the text box under the Name column, type “BootDir” and press ENTER.
5. Right-click the name BootDir, and then click Modify.
6. In the Edit String Value dialog box, type the drive letter for your system drive, and then click OK. For example, if your system drive is C:, type “C:\”.
7. Close Registry Editor.

I did that, restarted, and tried the SP3 install again.  SUCCESS!  I was able to install SP3 at that point, and change my whole system over to English.  I then installed multiple Internet Explorer browsers, Firefox, Opera, and others to aid in my CSS and XHTML code testing.  Now I’m able to test code across browsers AND across Operating Systems.  Finally, at the end of it all, I am extremely grateful I had the presence of mind to backup everything on my MacBook before starting the whole process (especially considering all my code was on that drive).  Otherwise, I’d have had much more to regret than simply installing Windows on a Mac.

I just got a tip from a beta tester of Parallels who received an e-mail from the company asking him to submit a review of Parallels Desktop 4 on the Apple Store and Amazon.com:

Thank you for your recent comments and suggestions to the Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac Beta Program Survey. Your invaluable feedback helps us better meet the needs of our customers by improving future versions of our products.

Submit a Review
Why not take your feedback experience further by sharing your experiences with the online Apple community? By submitting a product review at Amazon.com or Apple Store (Online), potential users can take advantage of an unbiased online resource to assist them in making a purchasing decision.

While this isn’t the sort of thing that Belkin has been caught doing in the past, one has to wonder if this can be considered distasteful. Consider this: Parallels is trying to get people who have a positive bias towards Parallels desktop to write reviews that help to alter the perception of the software in the minds of end users. If you take into consideration that Parallels Desktop 4 has had some rather negative press on a variety of fronts that likely affects how the product is perceived by end users, this might be seen as an attempt as trying to spin doctor things in their favor.

What do you think? Is Parallels doing something wrong, or are they justified in doing this? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Oh, if anybody from Parallels wants to comment about this, feel free to do so. I’d love to hear your side of the story.

A new version of Parallels Desktop For Mac appeared on it’s website today. According to the release notes, it promises substantial bug fixes and improvements over their last release including:

• DirectX 9.0 with Shaders Model 2 support
• Windows 7 inside the virtual machine (experimental)
• Apple remote disk support
• SSE4 support (better performance for media applications)
• General performance improvements.
• Improved USB support (performance, USB1.1 compatibility fixes).

Given that Parallels has been the target of critics who have accused the company of releasing beta code as well as buggy software to its users which has forced their CEO to fight back against these charges, one hopes that this release will put an end to this noise once and for all.

I have not installed this release yet, but I plan to later today when I get some time to do this. If you you’ve tried this release and have some feedback on it, please leave a comment and let us know what you think. I will try to monitor things in cyberspace just in case something “interesting” appears.

UPDATE: Parallels has a press release on their site about this. Mentioned in this press release is this:

Customer Experience Program
Ensure Parallels continues to meet your needs by providing information on your use priorities and preferences. Customers choose to opt in or out at installation and can fully control their settings through the configuration editor.

I’ll have to install this to see what this means for end users.

UPDATE #2: I just installed it. No issues so far. Here’s what the Customer Experience Program means for users:

If you choose to participate, Parallels will automatically start to collect anonymous information about your hardware configuration and the way you use Parallels Desktop. Using this information, Parallels can learn how to improve Parallels Desktop and the features you use more often.

So they’re doing what Microsoft has done for a while. Intersting. I’m guessing that it comes out of the issues that may have existed with Parallels Desktop 4 and how it was handled.

Oh yeah, it does seem a tad bit faster overall. But USB speed is clearly faster than their previous release.

Yes, I know that the title isn’t grammatically correct, but I wanted to use Serguei Beloussov (Parallels’ chief executive) exact quote. Basically, in this ComputerWorld article, he says that Parallels Desktop 4 is a quality product and that a “Couple Of Dozen” users who frequent the company sponsored support forums are giving the world the impression that it’s not:

Beloussov maintained that it was a very small group — “a couple of dozen,” he said during the interview — who are posting negative comments about the upgrade on the company’s support forums. “It’s actually quite a small number who are getting upset,” he argued. “I have engineers coming to me who are asking ‘Why do we get this reaction? There are only a few people making noise, and there are no real problems, only problems of perception.’”

“Happy customers don’t go to forums,” Beloussov maintained. “And lots of [problems reported in the forum] have been resolved in Desktop 4.”

Now that’s 100% true. Happy customers just use a product and don’t say a word. Customers with problems scream from the rooftops. That’s true for any product. I’ll also note that Parallels doesn’t censor its support forums like Apple has been known to do:

“We do not moderate our support forums,” Serguei Beloussov, Parallels’ chief executive, said on Tuesday, referring to the practice of monitoring, and sometimes purging, user comments. “We became a victim of our own open policy.”

I’ll applaud them for not zapping negative comments as it takes balls to stand up there and take shots like that. But I think they need to do more. I think they need to do what Comcast has done and reach out to disgruntled users and fix their issues. I also think that they need to adequately explain the fact that a pre-release version of the software might have slipped out to users. Plus in general, they need to increase their customer service efforts generally as you have to pay money to talk to a live human being, which is a big deterrent in terms of dealing with issues from an end user perspective.

The fact is that from where I sit, this release does everything it claims to. It’s faster and more stable than the previous version. Plus the graphics support is better. I really think Parallels has a winner here. But if they don’t get a handle on what the public perceives, then they might as well hand over this market to VMWare.

The Register is reporting that Parallels might have shipped pre-release code in boxed versions of Parallels Desktop 4:

“On the launch day, November 11, boxed software buyers received PD4 build 3047, dated October 16 2008, whereas customers downloading the software from Parallels’ website received build 3522 dated November 8 2008.”

That’s not a minor difference from where I sit. But a Parallels sock puppet spokesperson said the following:

Jenny Ellis, world-wide communications director for Parallels, said: “The version of Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac that was shipped in the boxes was absolutely market-ready … Whilst the version that launched in boxes and the version that’s available online were different, it is not the case that one was a pre-release version, or was in any way less ready for customers. Both completed the acceptance testing process and both are fully supported by Parallels.”

Gee. That sounds like a wee bit of spin to me. I’ve worked in software development environments in the past, and this explanation sounds really disingenuous. You may want to consider the following as well:

Parallels Desktop’s build history includes the first release candidate, build 3035, and the second release candidate, build 3051.

The boxed software, build 3047, would sequentially fit between the two release candidates. Bugs in build 3047 could be reasonably expected to have been fixed in later builds of the software.

This would explain a lot of things. As I said when I first posted this story, I have had no issues with Parallels Deskotp 4. That’s because I’ve been using builds 3522 and 3540 which I downloaded from the Parallels site. That makes this story completely plausible from where I sit.

So, I would recommend the following if you have issues with Parallels Desktop 4 and you’re using something other than builds 3522 and 3540. Download the latest version and do an uninstall and reinstall of Parallels Desktop 4. DO NOT UPGRADE an existing install of Parallels Desktop. Then update the Parallels Tools on your virtual machines. I suspect that this might solve some of the issues that people have been complaining about.

Parallels Desktop 4 has been out for a couple of weeks now and has already had one major update, but that that hasn’t stopped users from being ticked off at the company. Threads like this one have sprung up on their support forum with angry users proclaming VMWare Fusion’s superiority. Other threads like this one have users asking for their money back. But there is a large list of threads describing a variety of issues including slow speeds and upgrade issues.

Now, I have been using Parallels Desktop 4 and I have not seen any of this myself. In fact I have found this release to be a bit faster than version 3 as well as being more stable. Plus I uninstall and reinstall the application every time I upgrade which from previous experience helps to avoid issues. So maybe that’s why I have no issues. Or perhaps I am just lucky?

In any case, I’d love to have Parallels respond to this. Perhaps someone from the company would be kind enough to leave a comment or send me an e-mail explaining their side of the story. If I hear from them, I’ll post whatever they send me in an update.

In the meantime, VMWare must be enjoying this.

Parallels posted an update to Parallels Desktop 4 on its servers [Warning: Direct link to the download] yesterday. The full changelog is here, but from what I can tell it is meant to clean up some issues that were likely floating around in the version that hit the streets last week. I’ll give them points for coming up with this so soon after releasing a new version. It shows that Parallels is attempting to get the upper hand in this market.  I guess that I should mention that VMWare also released an update to VMWare Fusion 2 on the 14th as well. It has a bunch of bug fixes in it that their users will like.

Oh yeah, InformationWeek reviews Parallels Desktop 4 and its compared to VMWare Fusion 2. It’s actually a good resource if you want a (mostly) balanced review of both products.