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20 Replies Last post: Aug 5, 2007 5:01 AM by whitedog   Go to original post 1 2 Previous Next
Click to view REO's profile New Member
REO
5 posts since
May 25, 2007
15. Aug 4, 2007 12:24 PM in response to: MacPCJustCreate
Re: Early Adoption, Betas, & Other Crap
Whitedog,

I believe you will like Fusion. I also tried Parallels, but it could not "see" my dive computer when it was connected (USB). With Fusion, I can "see" my dive computer and download my dive data.

When you download Fusion, it includes a well-written Getting Started, with a section on using Fusion with your Bootcamp partition. Follow the instructions regarding installing VMware Tools, and you will only have to reactivate Windows once.

Ron
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Click to view Peter Cohen's profile Macworld Editorial
Peter Cohen
4,605 posts since
Feb 5, 2003
16. Aug 4, 2007 1:53 PM in response to: ndelc
Re: Parallels launches new public beta
Quote:<hr />
Anyone used Parallels or Fusion with Windows games?

<hr />


http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/gameroom/2007/06/parallels/index.php
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Click to view one_technologist's profile New Member
one_technologist
9 posts since
Feb 7, 2006
17. Aug 4, 2007 6:51 PM in response to: MacPCJustCreate
Re: Early Adoption, Betas, & Other Crap
I've experienced the same issue on a corporate image that I imported but not on one I created from scratch.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Make sure you have a shared directory
2. Install update
3. Choose your image
4. Select Optical drive and disable it. This prevents Parallels Tool from loading
5. In the Your HD Name/Library/Parallels/Tools/ directory, double-click on vmtools.iso
6. Copy contents into shared directory folder of choice
7. From within Windows, navigate to the directory and run PrlTools.exe
8. Reboot after install and it should work
9. Enable optical drive again

You'll have to perform this after every update that updates Parallels Tools.
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Click to view whitedog's profile Enthusiast
whitedog
1,276 posts since
Aug 9, 2004
18. Aug 4, 2007 8:56 PM in response to: one_technologist
Re: Early Adoption, Betas, & Other Crap
I followed the procedure you recommended carefully, but after the tools update Parallels continues to crash every time I launch Windows. After trying it I had to revert to a snapshot again to get to a version of Windows that doesn't crash Parallels. In any case, I'm not clear how disabling the optical drive prevents Parallels Tools from loading or how this is supposed to affect the subsequent install. There is nothing in the designated optical drive. But thanks for trying.

By the time Parallels comes up with a solution, if they ever do, I'll be using VMWare Fusion. If it proves more stable and at least as easy to use as Parallels used to be, I'll be steering clients to Fusion in the future. Though it apparently doesn't bother the folks at Parallels, who have yet to respond to any of my problem reports, I'd hate to have a client blaming me because a product I recommended started crapping on them the way Parallels Desktop has been crapping on me. For those clients I do have who use Parallels I have not recommended the version 3 upgrade - nor will I.

Don't anthropomorphize computers - They hate that.
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Click to view one_technologist's profile New Member
one_technologist
9 posts since
Feb 7, 2006
19. Aug 4, 2007 11:22 PM in response to: whitedog
Re: Early Adoption, Betas, & Other Crap
What disabling the optical drive does is prevents loading of the iso image as a disc and running Tools installer. For me it blue screens before I get to the Windows XP desktop on this particular image I have.

But the work around allows me to update successfully on that image. On another XP image, it's never an issue.
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Click to view whitedog's profile Enthusiast
whitedog
1,276 posts since
Aug 9, 2004
20. Aug 5, 2007 5:01 AM in response to: one_technologist
Re: Early Adoption, Betas, & Other Crap
After all the confusion I went back to the Parallels Support Forums and found the solution I had tried after the previous update - and forgotten. Ugh! Disabling Shared Applications solves the problem of Parallels crashing on Windows startup after updating Parallels Tools. http://Shut down Windows; go to the Edit menu in Parallels, select Edit Virtual Machine; select the Shared Applications item in the left-hand list; uncheck Share Windows Applications to Mac and Share Mac Applications to Windows. I had turned these off before but I guess the build 5060 beta update turned them on again. Since I had no reason to expect this, I was struggling to solve the problem all over again and forgetting the solution I'd found before. The moral? Too much troubleshooting muddies the mind. Sigh....

I hope this works for others who are having similar problems. Personally, I have no use for sharing applications anyway. Clearly the potential conflicts outweigh any possible benefits. In my opinion this feature should just be stripped out entirely.

Don't anthropomorphize computers - They hate that.
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