VMware and Parallels not working on new Mac Pro?

[robinp]

I've been having a nightmare trying to get windows working on my mac. Has anyone else succeeded with either/both of these apps? I just want to know if it is something fundamental with the new architecture that will require and update to them or if it is my installation of OS X which is the problem!

Thanks

 

[Tesselator]

It was extremely simple for me.

Step 1: Install and register Parallels Desktop
Step 2: Point it to an ISO or DVD of any windows version when asked.
Step 3: Install the parallel tools on the Windows VM so that it's actually useful.
Step 4: Wait for viruses to attack.

I'm on an older Mac Pro though - if that makes a difference. (it shouldn't)

 

[robinp]

It was extremely simple for me.

Step 1: Install and register Parallels Desktop
Step 2: Point it to an ISO or DVD of any windows version when asked.
Step 3: Install the parallel tools on the Windows VM so that it's actually useful.
Step 4: Wait for viruses to attack.

I'm on an older Mac Pro though - if that makes a difference. (it shouldn't)

Erm yeah it's been preety easy on previous occasions hence the question! I'm installing a fresh OS X system on a fresh disk to see if that helps

 

[robinp]

Ok, so it seems my hunch was largely right. A fresh install and vmware loads and will mount my bootcamp partition. It didn't, however, do it painlessly. Halfway through it reported an error saying that it couldn't load the bootcamp disk but then proceeded to just about manage it. All the automated installations largely failed but once they were done it (so far) seems to be working.

 

[Cliff3]

If you're running an 8 core MP and VMWare, make sure you're running 2.02 as apparently there is a bug with earlier versions.

http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/...r-reason-to-upgrade-to-vmware-fusion-202.html

 

[Boneoh]

I just setup my new Mac Pro. I wasn't happy with some of the problems that I've had with Parallels over the past few years, so I bought VMware Fusion for $59. I did a clean install, then imported my Parallels image into VMware. This took about 15 or 20 minutes for a 16 Gb file. Since then, all has been working fine. Seems to perform very well. I am happy with VMware, won't be going back to Parallels.

Not trying to bash Parallels, but I've had a few issues over the years, and the support was lackluster at best. I had one windows install fail on an expanding hdd setup. The file grew to 30 gb in size, when only 15 gb was in use. It would not successfully compress. I eventually had to extract the source code from the image and start over with a new image. This killed a few days for me.

Darned Windows seems to really take a while to get everything installed by the time you get the os, all of the software development tools, and Office installed and service packs, patches, etc.

One issue that was never resolved is that Parallels would for some reason attempt to wake up my external firewire drive when I right clicked a file in the Windows guest OS. The external is a Raid 1 and awakes one drive at a time. It takes about 20 seconds to wake up. This drove me crazy, and no one at Parallels could even understand what I was talking about.

Another Parallels issue was something to do with Coherence. I only use Windows for software development, and do not want Coherence. Apparently when I upgraded to v 4, it turned it on for me. A lot of shared applications were setup which I did not want. So right clicking on a file in Windows displayed a long list of Mac apps to open the file. The reverse was also true. This was annoying, since my needs are for running Windows in a sandboxed environment.