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I've bought 3 different versions of Parallels, all of them within a month or two of a new version which I had no idea was coming, and all of which then required me to pay again for the new version. My favorite was the one I bought literally the night before the next one was released. No love from Parallels on that one either.

I realize we can't always expect a company to offer upgrades for free, but this is the only one where I've had it happen this many times, and have gotten no concessions.

Thank you
 
I've pretty much gone off parallels since their sneaky, underhanded behavior regarding ads:

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=258991

The summary is that they will show you ads when you launch Parallels. Each ad has a checkbox next to it "don't display next time," but it only disables that particular ad. Whenever they push out a new ad, you will be shown the new one, and you'll need to check the checkbox again if you don't want to see it more than once.

There is a "defaults" command you can run to disable ads altogether, but Parallels itself refuses to acknowledge this.

We understand your desire to turn off the in product notification feature of the product. As each notification is displayed, you can choose to not show that again by checking the “Don’t Show This Again” box on the screen, but we cannot turn off the notifications all together within the product at this time.

For the most part, I only use the software for PC gaming, and even on a recent high-end iMac I find myself needing to use Boot Camp for most moderately intensive games anyways. If I had to do actual work, I would surely be using VMWare or VirtualBox instead.
 
I have issues with certain applications in coherence mode. Office 2010 works ok but for instance Mybase is giving me issues. I see only half of the application, can't maximize and when I drag the application it disappears behind the window. This worked fine in Parallels 7.
 

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No issues for me, Windows behaves as it should. No messed up windows, and screen resolution settings are fine.

EDIT: added screenshot

I thought the Windows apps would be smaller if its using 1:1 mapping. If you have OSX on retina 1440 but a full screen Notepad in coherence mode it would be very small but the rest of OSX would be fine
 
I'm a bit miffed at the expensive upgrade fees. Both Parallels and VMWare are both guilty of this.

Nearly every OS X upgrade breaks either Parallels or Fusion, requiring a paid upgrade. The upgrade fee for Parallels is actually more expensive than that for the OS itself!

This means on every OS X upgrade I have to think about an additional $30 to $50 because of this breakage. Nice racket you've got going there, Parallels and VMWare.
 
They do appear to have a knack for interesting timing, some of it unfortunately related to the OS X release dates. People upgrade the OS or buy new hardware with it on as soon as it's launched. If they then buy Parallels it's at the end of the cycle of the old version, with the new one undergoing final testing on the RTM version of the OS.

With this in mind I've been holding off putting Mountain Lion on my Mini, purely because it's running Parallels 6, which is unsupported on ML. I've upgraded an old Fusion license to Parallels 7 (with a free upgrade to 8) so it's upgrade time for the Mini now. Incidentally the Fusion license was an competitive upgrade from Parallels 2 which was a bargain £9 a couple of years ago. Seems to work in your favour to play VMware and Parallels off against each other!
 
- Open in Internet Explorer - When a website doesn't render well within Safari, launch it in Internet Explorer with a click of a button

Why in the hell did they waste their time with this "feature"?
 
I thought the Windows apps would be smaller if its using 1:1 mapping. If you have OSX on retina 1440 but a full screen Notepad in coherence mode it would be very small but the rest of OSX would be fine

Smaller? That's a full 1920x1200 desktop you're seeing, which is a quarter of the OSX desktop running at highest scaling setting. Seems to be exactly right to me.
 
I bought Parallels 7 on their birthday sale and it turned out to be a scam because after two months they want me to pay again, 49 dollars for an upgrade LOL :eek:

No thanks, I will buy a full version of VMware Fusion instead.
 
The magic of "Up To"

- Improved Parallels Desktop 8 performance - up to 30 percent faster for input/output (I/O) operations, 30 percent faster for games and up to 25 percent faster for virtual machine operations such as boot, suspend, shutdown and resume, when compared to Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac

I've been using Parallels since it first came out. If all these performance improvements they've quoted for every release were fully achieved, the Parallels VM would be able to run Windows far faster than any PC available.

I've found it a great product with my only gripe being the incessant pop-up advertising in the last few releases that can't be disabled.
 
I'm a computer programmer and everyone I know uses VMware Fusion. Virtual machines that were created from a PC can be used on a Mac with Fusion. What advantage does Parallels have (besides the price)?

Is it because VMWare is better of is it because most people use Windows and Parallels is Mac-only?

Personally I have used both programs, however Parallels feels a lot more user-friendly to me.
 
I've been using Parallels since it first came out. If all these performance improvements they've quoted for every release were fully achieved, the Parallels VM would be able to run Windows far faster than any PC available.
Not really, since they use percentages you'd never get identical performance. ;)
I've found it a great product with my only gripe being the incessant pop-up advertising in the last few releases that can't be disabled.
I find this (and other similar comments) interesting, as I have been using Parallels since v4 and I have never gotten a popup advertisement.
 
No thanks, I will buy a full version of VMware Fusion instead.
No one is making you upgrade. That said, if you are keen to go VM Ware and plan to do so shortly, I used the code "ws9beta20" to get 20% discounts when upgrading both VM Ware Workstation and VM Ware Fusion to the latest releases. Testing it just now, it seems to work for non upgrades too.


I find this (and other similar comments) interesting, as I have been using Parallels since v4 and I have never gotten a popup advertisement.
The only one I recall getting in about 18 months was asking me if I wanted to install Kaspersky tools on the VM. I opted for no after ticking a check box and that was the last I heard of it.

While they have never nagged me, I noticed while downloading VM Ware Fusion (I have both Fusion and Parallels) today that there was two download versions...a "lite" and a full. The difference seemed to be that the full had McAfee antivirus included in the file, not dissimilar to my experience with Parallels. Went with the Lite version and I'm sure thats the last I'll hear of it. Also resulted in the download being just shy of 1/3rd of the size of the McAfee bundled copy of VM Ware Fusion.
 
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Guys, I don't recommend getting Parallels 8 at all. Just for one reason, they'll spam you with ads. Yes, ads..in a paid product.

They have the balls to insult customers suggesting that they're not ads and we *wanted* them to give us those information. You can find out here: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=258991

Even if it is a bug in Parallels, they should've never have been there in the first place.

At least VMware has the decency not to pull off those scams and ripping us off *properly*.
 
Got the upgrade email

Purchased parallels 7 on July 24th and I have a rMBP waiting for this update. :mad:

I got my upgrade email from Parallels. It says "Because you purchased your product within our Tech Guarantee period (on or about July 25, 2012), you are eligible for a free-of-charge upgrade to the new Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac!"

Hopefully you didn't lose the upgrade on an account of just one day. I got the download link and I am going to do this today when I get out of work.

Best wishes and good luck to you!
 
No one is making you upgrade.

That's just it, they DO force you to upgrade. Parallels frequently breaks when you upgrade to a new version of OS X. Their only response is "upgrade to the latest version, at full upgrade cost." With OS X upgrades coming out every year now, this is ridiculous.

F them, and F VMWare Fusion too. I've moved to VirtualBox for my limited virtualization needs. It's not as good as VMWare or Parallels but it's free and works fairly well.
 
Why in the hell did they waste their time with this "feature"?

There are several web based applications I use that only work properly in Internet Explorer. It should be no surprise that this includes Microsoft Outlook Web App and Microsoft SharePoint, but there are plenty of non-Microsoft, web-based applications that are similarly designed only for Internet Explorer.

So I'm actually excited by this feature.
 
Hey guys! There's this really cool thing built into OS X that's not only free but allocates all of your system resources to your second OS of choice. It's called Boot Camp. Ever heard of it? :rolleyes:
 
Well, i finally took the plunge, after using Parallels 7 for the year, i finally bought it, and as i do, they announce they are upgrading me to 8 for free ... :D

Sadly this means i am now legit on all my installed software, i feel like my youth has finally passed :rolleyes: and im all grown up.

Suddenly my stance on piracy seems to have changed since i can afford to pay for stuff. (still think windows license costs are a rip off though, Windows Vista and Windows 7 Licenses cost me the same as my iPad :eek:)

To people getting ad problems, Install Little Snitch, and block Parallels from accessing the ads, you ll never see one again
 
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