Jul

18

2007

box_1.jpgParallels has released their latest Parallels 3.0 virtualization software for the Mac. Along with Elgato’s EyeTV software, I find Parallels to be the best third party applications for the OS X desktop. If you have never used Parallels before you are in for a treat. If you already are a Parallels user, version 3.0 has enough new features and improvements to make it an essential upgrade.

New features in Parallels 3.0

* 3D Graphics supported for Windows (DirectX and OpenGL)
* Parallels Snapshots - take a snapshot of your virtual machine, then rollback your guest machine if needed.
* Parallels Explorer - access files without launching Windows
* Parallels SmartSelect - open Mac files with Windows Programs / open Windows files with Mac Programs

Along with these new features, Parallels has a improved their impressive Coherency mode, added the ability to import VMware Workstation/Server and Virtual PC virtual hard disks to a Parallels virtual machine via Parallels Transporter and provides a more streamlined wizard for installing Windows and other operating systems via Installation Assistant. Parallels can now work with Boot Camp partitions although it has some fairly significant limitations. Those limitations would be : 1.) cannot suspend or pause Windows on Boot Camp 2.) Snapshots and the Undo disk feature are not available for Windows on Boot Camp 3.) Compressions cannot be performed for the Windows on Boot Camp Partition.

Regardless, that is a whole lot of new features! I was impressed with just about all the new features except for Parallels SmartSelect. The potential security risks Parallels SmartSelect could bring is more trouble than its worth. The other features were all impressive in various degrees.

Installing Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac was as easy and non-eventful as installing most Mac applications. I upgraded from the previous Parallels version without any troubles. Furthermore I was able to use my Windows XP virtual machine, after it was converted for Parallels 3.0 by their wizard, with no problems whatsoever.

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Parallels 3.0 - Install Linux (Ubuntu Feisty Fawn)

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Installing Ubuntu’s Feisty Fawn did give me some problems but they were easily resolved. Prior to booting into live mode, the guest machine would freeze up regardless of whether it was booted in regular mode or safe graphics mode. The workaround was to hit the fn + F6 keys upon the first boot screen and then entering “live vga=790″ (without the quotation marks) to get it working in live mode. From there the Feisty Fawn installation went fine.

Once I booted into a complete Feisty Fawn installation I was happy to learn that Parallels now offers Parallels Tools for Linux. To enable Parallels Tools for Linux, simply mount Library/Parallels/Tools/vmtools-linux.iso via the Configuration Editor or via the little cd icon at the bottom of the Parallels guest os window. Once vmtools-linux.iso was mounted (I had to do 1 reboot to see the mounted vmtools-linux.iso icon on the desktop) I then typed in “sudo sh parallels-tools.run” via the terminal (from the corresponding /media/cdrom directory) to have Parallels Tools enabled. Things like Coherence mode and 3d support are still only available for Windows, but at least Linux has some nice acceleration with Parallels Tooks and the ability to move freely the mouse in and out of the Parallels guest OS window. Furthermore Snapshots worked in Linux as well.

* Useful tip - You will need to use “right click” sooner or later and to do so the default keys are cntrl + shift + the mouse click button

Parallels 3.0 OS Window View

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The OS Window View would be the most familiar way to run your guest operating system in Parallels and Window View worked great in version 3.0. If you want to run 3d games, Window View works much than Coherence view did. The most notable things I noticed about Window View would be the more eye pleasing icons available on the right panel of the Window View gui. Not exactly earth shattering, but it slicker Web 2.0 icons for stop, pause, play, fullscreen, coherence, snapshot, revert to snapshot and run snapshot manager all looked great.

Parallels 3.0 Coherence View

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Coherence View in version 3.0 has seen some nice improvements. Speed improvements were noticeable immediately, while the program itself seemed to run more stable (less momentary lockups of the computer etc.). For the uninitiated Coherence View allows you to run Windows programs “virtually” on your OS X desktop, saving you the hassle of switching between the host and guest OS. It’s possible to configure your virtual machine to boot up straight into Coherence mode. Simply check the appropriate box on the Booting Options tab in the Configuration Editor. It should be noted Coherence View works only with Windows. It would be nice to see this option for Linux as well.

Paralllels 3.0 - 3D Games

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In the past, the most requested feature for Parallels would have been for 3d acceleration and with Parallels 3.0, 3d acceleration is now available. Although 3d acceleration via DirectX and OpenGL doesn’t work perfectly (you can’t play a lot of the newer more graphic intense games yet) you can now have acceleration for applications like AutoCad and play games like Half Life or Far Cry. If you plan on using Direct X make sure you check “Enable DirectX support” in the Video tab in Configuration Editor.

The first game I tried was Quake 4, with mixed results. The installation went fine and the game ran. Graphics were surprisingly good, but framerate was to choppy even with the lowest game settings. Bumping up the allotted RAM for the guest os and Video RAM didn’t help to make Quake 4 run any smoother.

I then tried a much older game but a cool game nonetheless called Ages Of Empire II. AOE II did run perfectly in Parallels 3.0. I haven’t played that game in years and did enjoy playing it once again. The only hiccup with AOE II was that the startup screen seemed to be using 8-bit color, but once the actual game started color looked like 32-bit graphics and the frame rate was very smooth.

I then had the urge to try out Ages Of Empire III, which is a fairly recent game with significant hardware requirements. Surprisingly AOE III also ran well, though once the game got busy framerate slowed down significantly.

Also, on the previous Parallels versions I did try to play a game or two of FreeCell but would give up because of the extremely slow graphics. In Parallels 3.0, FreeCell ran like a native application!

Parallels has listed these games and applications to have been tested and run well in Parallels 3.0

Games
Alien Arena 2007 / Baldur’s Gate 2 / Call of Duty / Counter Strike 1.6 / Descent 3 / Doom 3 / Duke Nukem Manhattan Project / Dungeon Siege 2 / Far Cry / GORE – Ultimate Soldier / Half Life 1 / Hitman Codename 47 / Hitman Silent Assassin / Hitman Contracts / Max Payne / Max Payne 2 / Neverball / Prey / Quake 1 GL / Quake 2 / Quake 3 / Return to Castle Wolfenstein / Scorched 3D / Serious Sam – The First Encounter / Serious Sam – The Second Encounter / SiN / Tribes / Unreal Tournament 2004 / Warcraft 3 / Worms 3D

Applications
Autodesk AutoCAD 2008
RhinoCeros4
AeroFly Pro Deluxe
SketchUp Pro 6 AVID SoftImae XSI 5.11

Parallels 3.0 Explorer

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Parallels Explorer is a separate application you can run via Applications/Parallels/Parallels Explorer. With this application you can browse Windows files on your virtual machine when the virtual machines is not turned on. The benefit to this feature was the ability to quickly open Windows files without having to boot up the guest OS. Unfortunately Parallels Explorer works only with Windows at this time. The application was unable to browse my Linux installation directory. Also the current version does not support BootCamp Partitions.

Parallels 3.0 Snapshots

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Parallels 3.0 now includes the familiar “Snapshots” feature that should be familiar if you have used VMware in the past. Snapshots allows you to rollback to an early snapshot of your operating system. As an example, if you create a snapshot of Windows XP shortly after installation you can revert back to that pristine state weeks later when your Windows XP installation is saddled with malware and spyware. A minor caveat with the current version of Snapshots is that if you revert back to a previous snapshot all changes made to the virtual discs and configuration will be lost.

Parallels 3.0 SmartSelect

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This feature allows you to instantly open Mac files within your Windows virtual machine or have windows filed opened within OS X. The problem I have with this new feature is the potential for security breaks. One of the best things about having a virtual machine running is that the guest os are sandboxed from the host operating system. This way the virtual machines cannot harm the host machine. The possibility of giving Windows access to my home folder in OS X is not something I want to do. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to believe that someone could exploit this feature to gain access to my private data files.

When I did try SmartSelect I found the feature to be useful in a limited way. As an example I had a jpg file in my Windows virtual machine. With SmartSelect I was able to right click the jpg and have the file opened with Adobe Photoshop in OS X. Although that was a nice feature, once you start playing with Office for Mac and Office for Windows and having word, excel, access, or email files opened up by Office for Windows, I think this could lead to some potential security hazards on the Mac side.

Thinking about the potential security hazard SmartSelect could create, when I first tried to open a Mac file in a Windows program I received this pop window.

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I gladly declined to accept.

Summary

Parallels has done a great job of improving an already impressive Parallels Desktop for Mac. With version 3.0 you finally have 3d acceleration (although it may or may not work with the latest games), ability to take snapshots ala VMware and some nice refinements to the familiar Parallels features like Coherence Mode. I did find the new Parallels SmartSelect feature more trouble than its worth from a security standpoint and would recommend against using that feature. After using Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac extensively for the last month I find the application to be an indispensable tool for my Macbook. Highly recommended.

Pro’s :

3D Acceleration is finally available.
Snapshot mode is available for Windows and Linux.
Coherence View seems to run more stable in this version.
Parallels Tools now available for Linux

Con’s :

SmartSelect could potentially be a security hazard.
Whiz bang features like 3d Acceleration, Coherency, Parallels Explorer works only with Windows.
Parallels Compressor does not work if Snapshots have been taken.

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Users Rating: 8.92 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars (12 votes)

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Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac
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10 Comments so far

  1. 10 Jason Says: February 6, 2008

    Thanks. I had not been able to install parallels tools on Ubuntu until I came across this post. Your advice worked.

    “To enable Parallels Tools for Linux, simply mount Library/Parallels/Tools/vmtools-linux.iso via the Configuration Editor or via the little cd icon at the bottom of the Parallels guest os window”

  2. 9 luna6 Says: August 25, 2007

    Hmm…Johnny I didn’t do anything special with AOE III. Installed in Windows XP via Parallels. Crashes might be the norm since it requires a newer Direct X version. On my computer (Black Macbook 2.0 Ghz) the game ran well, until the action started to build up then it slowwwwed down tremendously. Sorry not much help there…about how to make AOE III run better.

  3. 8 Johnny Says: August 25, 2007

    I noticed you were able to run AOE III. I’ve had it crash repeatedly, even though I clicked the video acceleration tab. Did I miss a step?

    thx

    Johny

  4. 7 Ankhman Says: July 26, 2007

    I have not tried installing the latest version of Ubuntu and Parallels Tools for Linux. However, I do agree the Smart Select feature is a bit troublesome. I had one point had MS Excel files on my Mac set as default to be opened by Windows Excel. This made it much more time consuming to open the file with the Mac version of Excel (when I really wanted this to be the case)? Otherwise, version 3.0 is very cool with Windows (I personally use Windows 2000, due to the licensing issues and software keys needed with XP and Vista).

    GREAT REVIEW!

  5. 6 luna6 Says: July 19, 2007

    Robert - thanks for the correction. I double checked and you are correct about the branches. The warning window “..you will lose all the changes in the current state of the virutal machine” applies only to changes made since the last snapshot taken. I tried this and sure enough Snapshot 2, 3, 4 are still there and working fine. So before reverting back to a prior snapshot, make sure you don’t have any recently created data that you need saved (otherwise make 1 more snapshot to be on the safe side) - or that data will vanish.

  6. 5 Robert Says: July 19, 2007

    luna6,

    You are not entirely correct :)
    If we follow your example and revert back to Snapshot 1, this way Snapshots 2,3 and 4 won’t be lost - Parallels Desktop will just create another branch in the Snapshots Manager and you’ll be able to switch between these branches (S1 -> new data and S1 -> S2 -> S3 -> S4 - new data) any time you like :)

  7. 4 luna6 Says: July 19, 2007

    Snark as an example…let’s say you have made 4 different snapshots at four differents times. Snapshot 1, Snapshot 2, Snapshot 3, Snapshot 4.

    If you would like to revert back to Snapshot 1 - then Snapshot 2 and Snapshot 3 and Snapshot 4 are now gone forever and data you created since then. Of course you could backup important data then revert to Snapshot 1, but it’s less convenient.

  8. 3 Snark Says: July 18, 2007

    >> “Snapshot mode - if you revert back to a previous snapshot all changes made since then are lost.”

    You list this in the “Cons”. But isn’t it the main value of snapshots, so you can go back to a previous state?

    I would like this as a “Pro”, not as “Con”.

  9. 2 LoLL Says: July 18, 2007

    Well, nice job !
    I maybe update to 3.0 now after read your article.

  10. 1 Rich Says: July 18, 2007

    VMware Fusion actually looks more promising than Parallels. Especially if you want to run Linux.