Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac Allows You to Run Windows and Even Another Copy of Lion

[djrod]

Originally Posted by L0s7man

I think it was ArsTechica who did extensive gaming review under Parallels6 and A LOT of games were totally playable.

There are few somewhat older or less performance heavy games that would work perfectly well under Parallels and that's a big benefit. I don't want to switch to Windows every time I want to play something; but if I know my system is powerful enough to run a VM and play the game, then why not?

Sometimes you can get away with making your own Cider/CXEX port or using Crossover Games or something, but running VM on top of a bootcamp partition seems like an easy solution.

I use VirtualBox for virtualizing linux; it works great; but they don't care for 3D graphics support. But Parallels folks do as that's one of their bigger selling points.

I did this video myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6TsCAPPqIU

[Feek]

I think I started using Parallels on version 3 and it amazes me when I see comments like "buggy as hell" because I've never, repeat, never had a problem.

My VMs all work, they work quickly and the program has never crashed.

I can only say as I see but for me, I've never had an issue with Parallels.

[GekkePrutser]

Originally Posted by BeauGiles

You can only virtualise Snow Leopard (and Leopard?) Server, the client EULA doesn't allow virtualising.

This was changed in July. The client is allowed to be virtualized now too. It's even mentioned in this article.

The article about the change

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Originally Posted by firestarter

I used to use Parallels - now a happy VMWare user.

If you have any interest in development, Linux and stuff like that then VMWare is a much much better choice. There's a large community of people out there producing virtual machines in VMWare format.

This is why I'm always sticking to VMWare. If I make any VMs on other systems (or even have some from work) they are always VMWare. If parallels made it possible to directly open VMWare-created VMs without having to convert them first, I'd consider it.

Having said that, this virtualization of Lion is a great thing and I hope VMWare will offer this soon too. They've always been a bit behind parallels in terms of features and performance but this is really a major feature they should catch up with soon.

[andy721]

But it can't play any recent PC Game

[SuperCachetes]

Originally Posted by Feek

I think I started using Parallels on version 3 and it amazes me when I see comments like "buggy as hell" because I've never, repeat, never had a problem.

My VMs all work, they work quickly and the program has never crashed.

I can only say as I see but for me, I've never had an issue with Parallels.

About 1/4 of the time Parallels wouldn't find my Boot Camp partition, so the virtual machine would say "no drive found" etc.

Another 1/4 of the time the Windows profile would get corrupted in some way, from something as simple as moving the task bar around the screen without me asking, to completely losing the profile and having to use a temporary one.

When I moved to Lion, of course V5 wouldn't work so I had to upgrade to V6. It was a disaster as far as I can tell... the VM would hardly ever work, and it was very unstable. I never really ran it enough to see if it there were speed improvements. I returned the software, got a refund, and took Parallels completely off my Mac. If I need Windows now, I just reboot.

Parallels was convenient (as I'm sure VMWare is, too) but in the end it was more hassle than it was worth for me. I'm not touching V7, but that's just me. YMMV.

[L0s7man]

Lion on Parallels = MEH

Lion as Xen guest = AWESOME?

I wonder if that can be done; will try soon enough...

[tatonka]

Very happy VMWare user as well. Never had bigger trouble with stability or speed, but then again I am also not using any heavy graphics.
Being able to move VMs from one system to another, even across OS boundaries, with no problem is a pretty huge feature in my book.

VMWare is updated less often which means that it doesnt always have some of the cutting edge features(for instance you still cannot virtualize Lion on it yet) ..

There are fairly simple workarounds to make VMWare install lion as well. Performance is not great, but I got it to work and play around with it a bit. Which then made me stick with my Snow Leopard system for a little longer.

T.

[cryingrobot]

Originally Posted by Feek

I think I started using Parallels on version 3 and it amazes me when I see comments like "buggy as hell" because I've never, repeat, never had a problem.

My VMs all work, they work quickly and the program has never crashed.

I can only say as I see but for me, I've never had an issue with Parallels.

Just visit their forum and see what awaits. The futility and insanity of trying to get the program to work the way it was advertised still runs hot in my blood.

[xxRONNIExx]

Ive been using parallels for over a year now and have never had a problem. Runs great with Lion...

[sladey]

Originally Posted by cryingrobot

Parallel 3 was very buggy and unpredictable. Upgrading to 4 was even worse since the PAID upgrade to fix their earlier buggy version 3 was itself very buggy. Following the seemingly insane advice I found on forums, I just kept trying the upgrade install and it just worked on the 4th try. Still, sometimes it finds the HD and sometimes it does not.

Customer support was useless. Since the much improved Word 2011 for Mac, the only reason to use the virtual windows has been gaming and no serious gaming can be done on a virtual system. I am going to give Vbox (free) a try just to have the option to run W7 if I ever need to for some reason.

I rank Parallels somewhere between Bongo Buddy and Norton Antivirus in terms of utility. On the low end, you have that malicious software that costs you money, uses up your system resources, slows your computer to a crawl and nearly impossible to get rid of and the other end you have the irritating but free Bongo Buddy.

Ummm..... B O O T C A M P

[DisMyMac]

Does this allow Blu-ray playback?

[fhall1]

Originally Posted by Feek

I like Parallels and I've been a [registered] user for quite a few versions now but I don't really like their pricing upgrade structure.

It's also frustrating because I know that I could buy this upgrade and then in a few months time it'll be included in one of the bundles, probably for less than I have to pay for the upgrade

I know I'm not being forced to buy the upgrade as Parallels 6 works perfectly well and this time I may just wait for whatever bundle it is this time to come along.

Totally agree....looks like they screw the folks who updated from v5 to v6....same price to upgrade to v7 no matter which version you come from.

Also, $49 to upgrade....$39 for student edition? Upgrade should be priced less than someone else can buy the full version.

Guess I'll wait until it's in a bundle pack...

[gauchi]

Does anyone know whether I can run this on a snow leopard host with lion as guest? (I want to try lion before i upgrade my main system... There are some "features" that I'm not quite convinced of.)

Concerning VmWare: It seems it does not use any system resources while no guest OS is running - in contrast to parallels 4, where I had to unload the kernel extensions to make sure MacOS runs smoothly when alone. On the downside it seems to be slower for 3D games.

[Marx55]

The problem with Parallels Desktop is that it fails when used to control external machines via USB. VMware Fusion works great for that.

[Boston007]

Parallels is GARBAGE

Use VirtualBox or VMWare and you won't look back

[Christina1971]

Originally Posted by gauchi

Does anyone know whether I can run this on a snow leopard host with lion as guest? (I want to try lion before i upgrade my main system... There are some "features" that I'm not quite convinced of.)

I'm wondering this, myself.

[Snypod]

Parallels 8 will be out before I can say "Hey, didn't I just upgrade Parallels?", so I'll wait. I'm quite content with Parallels 6 which provided such a massive speed boost over 5 and has been running rock solid for 11 months, even after the upgrade to Lion.

[Shivetya]

Upgrade price is obnoxious.

I like 6, but damn if I am going to give them $50 to upgrade to 7.

[wol]

VirtualBox is a quite cost-effective (i.e. free ) alternative for those who want to run a Windows, Linux or Solaris guest OS on a Lion host. Seems to interface nicely with USB devices (though I haven't had a change, yet, to test it with an external Blu-ray drive)

[Roller]

I used an earlier version of Parallels but switched to VMWare when I couldn't get a Parallels upgrade to work. VMWare has been very stable for me, though the latest app updater kernel panics for me when I run it under Lion. Parallels is updated almost too often, while VMWare isn't updated often enough.

[TDMR]

"Yo dawg, i heard you like Lion-.."

Sorry, I'll get my coat.

[wrldwzrd89]

I've used Parallels Desktop since version 2. I did not realize that their upgrade structure was so much worse, price-wise, than VMware Fusion was. This thread's comments suggests to me that it might be wise for me to consider all my options before upgrading.

I am also a VirtualBox user, due to Parallels' relative lack of Linux support.

[Chupa Chupa]

Cool but must agree w/ my fellow Parallels to VMWare switchers. I don't have anything against Parallels except that it routinely failed me in a very bad way and VMWare has always been solid. If the choice is stability vs. features I'll pick stability every time b/c w/o it you have nothing but a pretty s/w box cover - metaphorically speaking of course.

[SoGood]

And where's VMware? It's been a long time since VMW had an upgrade for Fusion. But I hear there are some good things in the next version that's currently in beta. Get on with it guys!

[Wingsy]

Originally Posted by GekkePrutser

This was changed in July. The client is allowed to be virtualized now too. It's even mentioned in this article.

What is mentioned in that article is that the EULA was changed to allow LION client to be virtualized, not SNOW LEOPARD client.

What I need, before I switch to Lion, is to be able to virtualize Snow Leopard so I can run a few apps that require Rosetta. Some of those apps have no upgrade path to Lion and they are essential to my business, so I'm stuck using SL.