Parallels Workstation 2.0 Final

First Impressions

 

  1. Unsigned drivers for the Virtual NIC during installation—not a big deal for individual use, but this can be a show stopper for some companies. 
  2. Reboot after installation—kind of annoying now, especially since VMW Workstation and VPC can get around this.
  3. Can’t run in PAE mode!  This is a big deal, you need to add lines to your Boot.ini file, and then reboot your system to use.  VPC and VMW have no such problems.

  1. Here’s the boot.ini after modification (yes, this system is x64 capable, its an Athlon 64 4000+):

[boot loader]

timeout=10

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (for Parallels Workstation)" /fastdetect /noexecute=alwaysoff /NOPAE

  1. After the reboot, the automatic modifications to the boot.ini failed.

  1. So we get an endless loop from Parallels

…but I just did.

  1. Unfortunately, neither the Parallels website or the Install PDF make any mention that you need to disable PAE mode, or how to get it to actually work.  I could not find any KB articles on the site either, the only support option is to email them.
  2. I had emailed them a while back when I'd first used the beta and got a fairly quick response, so this seemed like a good opportunity to try again.
  3. After a few initial emails back and forth, Parallels did not reply to my last email.  Its been about a month, and I still haven't heard from them.  Sad.

Note: I was able to install Parallels Workstation 2.0 on an older P4 system, with no x64 extensions and install a VM successfully.

Note: The VM Tools drivers for Windows VMs are not digitally signed yet, either. (Still the cause in the 2.1 beta)

Another note:  There is currently no "Save State" feature like VPC and VMW have.  (This feature added in 2.1 Beta)

Note: PAE mode is now supported! While this isn't the best solution for solving a customer problem, at least I can use it on the machine I intended.