Comment on Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac by Matt Eye “Matthew”.
Best version so far,
Now the version 6 of Parallels worked very well on Snow Leopard and Lion (later found the ‘shutdown problem’ in Snow Leopard/Lion not a Parallels issue, even though the cause I couldn’t find out). The only problem with version 6 was its somewhat laggy resume from suspension, but this has been improved in version 7, and Windows XP runs a little quicker too–whether startup and shutdown. Wow, shutdown is a bit faster now. The interface of Parallels takes on the Lion look, which I don’t care for as much (why Apple didn’t stick to the traditional blue candy cane look on scroll bars I am not exactly sure, but it may have something to do with iOS interface).
Five stars for performance (the best in this version yet), and the bugs that other reviewers have mentioned, I have not come across. My Mac Pro is exactly four years old now (yes, late September 2007). It does help having 10 GB of RAM, even though for my needs, Windows XP runs fine on 512 MB allocated (but then I don’t have a lot installed, and no antivirus program, a common culprit for slowdown). Upon occasion (when starting the Virtual Machine), Parallels gives a message though, that you need 256 MB of video memory (NVIDIA) for 3D acceleration, but I just ignore this because I don’t do gaming or other 3D work on Windows. If any other gripe is very minor, and previous versions didn’t do this… When I minimize Parallels 7, and go to restore (left-click on the Dock), it likes to restore to 640 x 480, and then I simply click the green ‘+’ sign to maximize it back to where it was before. I won’t dock anything off (or 4.5 stars would be fair) because I find many other minor niggles (quirks) in Lion that irritate me mildly, more often.
Installation took a little time and went smoothly, but my bad (operator error) for having disabled Internet connection when installing Parallels Tools. It gave an error report message but I simply ignored and went to the menu to reinstall the tools. It has happened to me before (not the error screen but sometimes when an older version of the Virtual Machine were shutdown improperly). This was often due to the Finder not responding–Parallels had a tendency to cause unresponsive behavior, but I haven’t yet seen this in version 7, so the bug must’ve been corrected–so far. Everything has worked fine at this time.
I recommend this version. Still have version 6 that I just upgraded to version 7 with the discount. Keep in mind that in order to receive updates from their site (I didn’t buy Parallels 6 and 7 on Amazon), you should register. It takes a minute or two. It does, in some cases, give a popup, asking if you want to install Kapersky, but I don’t care for this antivirus program, originally because I thought it caused Mac not to shutdown properly. I had tried running Malwarebytes’ Antivirus or AVG Antivirus, but they didn’t play nicely with Windows XP running on Parallels 6, and there were unwanted ads. AVG isn’t free anymore, at least in the version I tried. I just don’t go online with Parallels (as I use Firefox or Chrome on Mac, which is safer anyway), leaving the Internet connection (adapter) disabled, enabling it if necessary. As far as the offer to buy Parallels 7, I went ahead and did so, and have been glad since. Important note though, if I recall correctly, if you have version 4 (had many bugs and very slow performance in my trial use) or earlier, the upgrade key won’t work for version 7. Good luck.
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