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adildacoolset

macrumors 65816
For me, I was an avid Parallels user from the day it was released. Around version 3 I ran into a problem where it wouldn't run anything. It would just start and then crash back to the desktop. I tried everything even a clean wipe of my machine and it still did the same thing. They told me that there was a new version coming out and I should upgrade to that because it will fix the problem. It came out, I upgraded, it didn't fix the problem. At that point, they told me they had no idea and refused me any further support.

I switched to VMWare and have been happy with it.

Today I considered Parallels 8 because of the good deal via NewEgg. But their website leads me to believe that they won't give a free upgrade to 7 because it is an OEM edition. So I tried emailing them, calling them and online chatting with them about this. In all cases I was refused customer support because I didn't actively have a license with them. So in other words, they didn't want to help a potential customer answer a question. So screw them, no desire to buy it now.

Ouch
 

peaz

macrumors newbie
Oct 25, 2011
9
0
For me, I was an avid Parallels user from the day it was released. Around version 3 I ran into a problem where it wouldn't run anything. It would just start and then crash back to the desktop. I tried everything even a clean wipe of my machine and it still did the same thing. They told me that there was a new version coming out and I should upgrade to that because it will fix the problem. It came out, I upgraded, it didn't fix the problem. At that point, they told me they had no idea and refused me any further support.

I switched to VMWare and have been happy with it.

Today I considered Parallels 8 because of the good deal via NewEgg. But their website leads me to believe that they won't give a free upgrade to 7 because it is an OEM edition. So I tried emailing them, calling them and online chatting with them about this. In all cases I was refused customer support because I didn't actively have a license with them. So in other words, they didn't want to help a potential customer answer a question. So screw them, no desire to buy it now.

Hmm I feel for you. I had a different experience though. When I got my Parallels Desktop 5 license, it was pretty close to the release of Parallels Desktop 6 and it was about 1-2 weeks earlier than the eligibility for the free upgrade to version 6. I emailed them about it and they actually did provide me with a free upgrade. Maybe you can try emailing them again? Or reach them via their twitter account?

Anyways, I too recently got hold of both VMware Fusion 5 and Parallels Desktop 8 to see which was the better one from the usability standpoint, not from some synthetic benchmark. I wrote them up here at my blog (http://www.atpeaz.com/index.php/201...are-fusion-5-the-usability-comparison-report/) to avoid repeating myself everywhere. :) It's a pretty long one on the features that one would find useful, but in summary:-

- Performance is pretty decent on both VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop 8. But startup time, suspending and resuming is still faster on Parallels.
- Parallels handled Windows 8 much better than Fusion
- If Win 7 is your target host, Parallels Desktop 7 and VMware Fusion 4 are good enough.
- If Win 8 is what you wanna run, Parallels Desktop 8 is the way to go.
- If Linux is your thing, VMware has better supportability for all the different distributions out there. Also, its likely you'd also want to meddle with the advanced (virtual) networking settings with VMware Fusion.
 

peaz

macrumors newbie
Oct 25, 2011
9
0
Would P8 be faster than P7 on Win7? 'Which is good enuf'

Generally, P8 feels a lot snappier and faster than P7, overall. I run a WinXP, Win7 and Win 8 VM. All 'feels' faster. But having said that. I was already pretty happy with the performance of Win7 on P7. Hope this sort of helps...
 

Anijake

macrumors 6502
Oct 19, 2008
345
173
Brooklyn, NY
Does the new version of Fusion have support for gestures? The older versions I have tried did not and I found it quite annoying that I cold not swipe between web pages.
 

azahar

macrumors newbie
Feb 24, 2010
23
0
Europe
VirtualBox

I am surprised no-one has mentioned VirtualBox. It may not have all of the bells and whistles that VM and Parallels have, but as a decent alternative its pretty darn good. I have no problems running Linux Mint and Windows 7 on a MBP using it.

Oh, and its free!
 

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
I am surprised no-one has mentioned VirtualBox. It may not have all of the bells and whistles that VM and Parallels have, but as a decent alternative its pretty darn good. I have no problems running Linux Mint and Windows 7 on a MBP using it.

Oh, and its free!

I found it very slow compared to Fusion 3! On top of that, it was quite buggy, crashed several times in the first day that I used it. I just can't justify recommending it to anyone unless they need some solution and can't afford anything more (but then where are they getting windows from?)
 

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
No, when I tried P7 and F4 only P7 had gesture support.

Just wondering what they are doing. I guess the app takes the input gestures and creates some type of command to the internal application? I mean the windows apps don't know what the gestures are, they were not coded for it. So somewhere P7 was able to map them to something else. Interesting; I think the Fusion idea is to let the OS be the OS, it just passes the info in and out.

Anyone know if Fusion 5 has something like this?
 

tsboy69

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2010
139
0
No, sorry.

It involved going into DOS and typing several commands, of which none made sense. The end result was good though. Call customer service when you have some free time. I'd image the representative will do the same for you!
Good luck


How simple is that? Can you link me with how to turn off ads, or explain it?

thanks,

m
 

mkelly

Cancelled
Nov 29, 2007
207
218
i have no clue about this "advertising" on it. ive never seen such a thing.

Parallels on rare occasions pops up ads for either their latest version (if you're running an older version), or one of the various anti-virus/security products from their partners. I've seen it happen maybe two or three times in the past few years. Hardly intrusive, frequency-wise ... but it *is* irritating. I can understand promoting the next version of your product, but I dislike their partner offers.
 

do1984

macrumors member
Sep 7, 2012
37
2
I've tried the Fusion 5 for 20 days and it completely froze my rmbp for a few times, forcing me to turn it off from the power button. This always happened when I was using it with a thunderbolt display. Bought Parallels Monday, working flawlessly
 

kahuna0k

macrumors member
Jul 25, 2012
34
0
I've been using vmware for a long time in windows and linux, so my intention was to keep using it in OS X, but after trying two times to buy it online, without success, finally I got Parallels 7 on the Apple Store, and upgrade to 8 through the tech guarantee of Parallels. It's quite incredible how well integrated is everything with the rest of the desktop. I don't care too much about performance as I'm using it mainly for Visual Studio, but running windows at native Retina resolution with 150% font size is really great! :-D

Regards,
 

MichaelLAX

macrumors 6502a
Oct 31, 2011
843
23

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bsmr

macrumors 65816
Oct 4, 2005
1,037
266
Germany
A complete useless benchmark since they've optimised nearly everything to the max. It is only useful to less than 1% of the Mac users. Everybody else does not have those specs nor ability to tweak things. Also setting 4 virtual cpus for a vm when you have 4 physical cores is asking for trouble and shows very little understanding of what you are testing. The same goes for their previous VMware Fusion 5 benchmarks (they haven't got one for Parallels Desktop 8).

Full ack!

So what about benchmarks in idle or rare use mode... Any suggestions?
 

dyn

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2009
2,708
387
.nl
Arstechnica has posted their review which is an in-depth walk-through of the marketing talk from both Parallels and Fusion. It gives you a good idea on what the marketing talk in reality means. They do have some benchmarks but without telling what on earth they did so that's basically useless... I'd skip that part and read up on the Linux support elsewhere. Thus far they seem to be the only ones with a negative experience, everybody else has a very positive experience with the 3D stuff in Linux. Could be some configuration mistake they made (author does not seem to understand the principle of virtual cpus...). Anyway, go read it (don't skip the comments!) and judge for yourself :) Showdown: Parallels Desktop 8 vs. VMware Fusion 5.
 
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Miguel Cunha

macrumors 6502
Sep 14, 2012
387
102
Braga, Portugal
Slower

I am wondering which has better performance for running off bootcamp partition to play games(I hate restarting). Mostly I play older games (pre-2005).


Also is it faster or slower to run off bootacamp partition that to do that usual IN parallels/VM install?


My Machine is macbook 2.0GHz , 6GB ram, GeForce 9400m.
It's Slower. You'll get better results installing your OS in a VM than running from BootCamp. I tried in a faster in a more recent iMac and it shows. It's also buggier - the worst part.
 

Miguel Cunha

macrumors 6502
Sep 14, 2012
387
102
Braga, Portugal

notsosmartguy

macrumors newbie
May 18, 2012
17
0
3D software?

Hi, I'm curious if any of you know how do both Parallel and Fusion perform if I need to run multiple 3D software plus photoshop at the same time? Thanks.
 

dyn

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2009
2,708
387
.nl
Sounds like they're both crap on recent Windows games support, which is disappointing. Guess I might have to set up Boot Camp in order to run the new X-Com...
Boot Camp has always been the best option if you want to run games anyway.

@notsosmartguy: it depends on the 3D applications and what kind of jobs you are doing with them. Just like with a physical machine you can't do too much of such things at the same time. How much depends on the jobs.
 

MichaelLAX

macrumors 6502a
Oct 31, 2011
843
23
Boot Camp has always been the best option if you want to run games anyway.

@notsosmartguy: it depends on the 3D applications and what kind of jobs you are doing with them. Just like with a physical machine you can't do too much of such things at the same time. How much depends on the jobs.

DYN: are you saying there are times when virtualization will out-perform Bootcamp for games?
 
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