12-inch MacBook and Parallels Desktop 10

[mikebp]

I have a MB on order, but wanting to know if anyone has had some experience using parallels desktop 10 on it, with a Windows 7 OS VM?

Currently I'm using a Mid-2011 13" MBA with this and it runs well enough, though 4Gb RAM is probably the most limiting factor.

Thx.

 

[happyslayer]

I am running Parallels 10 on my new rMB 1.2/512. I know you asked about Windows 7 but I have yet to install it. (I will be though.) However, I have installed the latest Windows 10 Technical Preview 10061 as well as a Chrome OS load and the Latest Ubuntu 14.04. All of them are running great. Using iStat Menus, I can tell you that they do raise the temp a bit - about 10-20 degrees C on average - and that the battery life is worse while the VM is running. Exactly how much is a bit hard to tell since it depends on what else I am running on the OSX side, but I would guess an hour or two less with a Parallels VM running. I don't do a a lot of stuff with the different OS's, mainly just some testing and getting a feel for the various OS's so I am familiar with them when I have to deal with them in my job (I'm a computer consultant.) I will be installing a Windows 7 Pro load, hopefully this weekend. I misplaced my extra Product Key and only just found it this morning when cleaning my office. I'll report back if I find any issues. But so far, all the OS's are running well and feel pretty snappy. There is a slight delay when re-sizing the OS Windows but that happened on my 2014 rMBP as well.

 

[mikebp]

That's good to hear. I purchased the 1st gen MBA way back and I experienced overheating / slow-down problems as soon as I tried to run a VM (XP back then). So I'm being cautious about a 1st gen rMB.

I did see in this thread that a few people have noticed a slowdown with large file copies over WiFi...

 

[Mattymoocow]

i have 1.2/512. Running a Windows 7 x64 VM under Parallels 10. It runs fine, I was previously running the VM on a 2012 15" MBP i7. The same VM would start/shutdown and suspend/resume a little bit faster on the i7 CPU, but once running i can't tell the difference when using it to be honest.

 

[mastercraft813]

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro on my 1.3/512 via Parallels 10 and I've had zero issues so far (*knocks on wood*). I have to admit that I am a bit worried about its effect on the battery life, but I haven't tested it yet.

 

[Thalesian]

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro on my 1.3/512 via Parallels 10 and I've had zero issues so far (*knocks on wood*). I have to admit that I am a bit worried about its effect on the battery life, but I haven't tested it yet.

That is great to here. I travel a lot for work and have to give day-long presentations running both MacOSX and Windows. If this can run virtualization and video out to a projector for a few hours, then I am thrilled.

 

[tillsbury]

I'm running Parallels 10 fine here on a 1.3, but am a bit annoyed that the licence won't let me use it on two computers non-simultaneously. Unlike pretty much every other bit of software on here, they want me to buy two copies in order to be able to run my single virtual machine on either my desktop or laptop. And therefore upgrade two copies each time too.

So I'm revisiting VirtualBox for now.

Remember that Windows under Parallels eats battery like crazy, so don't bet on "all day battery life"

 

[matt2053]

I've got 3 VM's up and running in Parallels 10 on a 1.1.

- Windows 8.1
- Windows 10
- Ubuntu 14.10

They all work fine except Ubuntu doesn't seem to handle the Retina display very well at all.

 

[iRun26.2]

What screen resolutions can you choose in Windows running under Parallels?

 

[matt2053]

What screen resolutions can you choose in Windows running under Parallels?

These are the options I have with the MB running at Default (1280 x 800).

 

[matt2053]

And if I switch to More Space (1440 x 900) I see this.

 

[iRun26.2]

And if I switch to More Space (1440 x 900) I see this.

Are you using an external monitor? (Why does it show such high resolutions above what the rMB can even show?)

 

[matt2053]

Are you using an external monitor? (Why does it show such high resolutions above what the rMB can even show?)

No, that's on the internal display.

Windows handles Hi-DPI scaling different that Mac. Mac just does @2x Retinal scaling. Windows... I won't even try to explain it because I don't know Windows as well as OS X.

But what I can tell you is that, for example, if you have the rMB display resolution set to "looks like 1280 x 800," the OS actually draws everything twice as large (2560 x 1600) and then shrinks it down to fit the screen. And, because Windows if you have the rMB display set to more space (1440 x 900), it draws 2880 x 1800 and scales that down to fit.

Because in this case Windows is running in a virtual machine with OS X, Windows sees the higher resolution the OS is drawing before it gets scaled down. If I were using Boot Camp, Windows would only show options up to 2302 x 1440.

 

[khongaeng]

Battery Life details

Anyone else have experience with the battery life?

I have a 11in Air i7 from 2011 and opening Parallels took my battery life down by half and the fan usually kicked into high gear.

I'm hoping that the new Macbook does a better job of throttling Parallels, but I'm curious if anyone else has experience on battery life. Performance for me in parallels is not so important as I'm only in office and outlook, but battery life is the deciding factor

 

[YnotJ]

I have a MB on order, but wanting to know if anyone has had some experience using parallels desktop 10 on it, with a Windows 7 OS VM?

Currently I'm using a Mid-2011 13" MBA with this and it runs well enough, though 4Gb RAM is probably the most limiting factor.

Thx.

It's works fine but I can't get the USB working. It's was working fine om my MacBook Air, I think Parallels have too work on the USB-C compabillity

 

[facrat]

Note that (months after release) it's still not possible to create a Parallels VM from a Boot Camp install due to the different SSD sector size on the 12-inch Macbook. Parallels can't read the partition table properly. Devs have gone completely AWOL, so no idea when/if this will be sorted.

However, the latest VMWare Fusion Technology Preview now has a fix for this (and the license is free). Fusion is a lot slower and less optimized generally than Parallels, but for now this is the only solution if you want to run the same Windows installation in both Boot Camp and OSX.

 

[YnotJ]

I have got the USB-C too work on new MB 12"

 

[KPOM]

Note that (months after release) it's still not possible to create a Parallels VM from a Boot Camp install due to the different SSD sector size on the 12-inch Macbook. Parallels can't read the partition table properly. Devs have gone completely AWOL, so no idea when/if this will be sorted.

However, the latest VMWare Fusion Technology Preview now has a fix for this (and the license is free). Fusion is a lot slower and less optimized generally than Parallels, but for now this is the only solution if you want to run the same Windows installation in both Boot Camp and OSX.

Thanks for the information. I didn't realize it was a Parallels issue. I switched to using Windows 8.1 inside a pure VM after I nearly hosed my MacBook trying to run a Windows 8.1 Boot Camp partition as a VM, but had been considering using Windows 10 as an opportunity to go back to a Boot Camp partition. I'll stick with the VM for now, but will see if Parallels sorts it out in the new version.