I've been wrangling the computer all afternoon, and finally I have a virtual windows machine up and running! Two software packages later! Note to the world: do not buy Parallels. It does NOT work. It crashed windows each time I tried to load it, which was about a dozen times.
Off to read for a while. Or maybe I'll paint. I don't know what to do with myself now that the crisis has passed.
I couldn't agree more. Parallels is shit!!
Posted by: | August 22, 2007 at 01:16 AM
I'm really starting to wish I'd purchased the "other" brand. Nothing but problems. :(
Posted by: Dingle Barry | November 14, 2007 at 04:28 PM
I bought Parallels when it first came out. Upgraded 2 versions later and I watched it get worse with each one. Stuff wouldn't start up correctly or an upgrade to a newer version screwed up the VM of a previous one.
The last straw with me this week was an update to 3.0 and now my Vista install is totally worthless. Can't force the parallels process to quit and it just stays hung. Total garbage. I switched over to VMWare a little while ago and I'm sticking with it.
Parallels has lost a customer forever.
Posted by: Mikey | January 31, 2008 at 06:47 PM
Absolutely! Parallels is a piece of shit. Fusion has worked beautifully and easily on every machine I've installed it on. Usually after hours of frustration with Parallels.
Posted by: Enzo | February 21, 2008 at 02:56 PM
Couldn't agree more, Parallels works only temporarily until you get an error msg saying it can't find a virtual disk or some other .hdd or .fdd file. I've wrangled for hours with it, their website forums suck too; a bunch of recycled bullshit about what will fix the multitude of problems you will have (In the end nothing will make the shitty software work. Believe me I've tried everything including starting over 7 times with uninstall and reinstall. Crap, no wonder its so cheap.
Posted by: Joe Denick | February 26, 2008 at 12:41 AM
Count me in. Parallels shuts my mac down at least once a day. It hangs for no reason and is just plain slow. The annoying part is that after shelling out hard earned money for this pathetic product, I now have to do it all over again with Fusion. As a new mac user I count this as a major disappointment on an otherwise excellent OS
Posted by: Dave Wilkinson | March 11, 2008 at 12:05 PM
I couldn't agree more. I switched to parallels so I could work on autocad but still enjoy my Mac. Hah, there is no way. It runs sooo slow, I can't imagine what a game would look like.
Posted by: C Sanford | April 18, 2008 at 11:45 PM
I couldn't agree more. I switched to parallels so I could work on autocad but still enjoy my Mac. Hah, there is no way. It runs sooo slow, I can't imagine what a game would look like.
Posted by: C Sanford | April 18, 2008 at 11:47 PM
Parallels is malware.
Posted by: Danny | May 24, 2008 at 04:19 AM
I have been having ENDLESS problems with this POS software connecting to the internet. The most basic task imaginable, and parallels cannot do it.. All I use this garbage for is testing on IE and it can't even do that..
Crap, crap, crap, crap,
Posted by: Justin | September 22, 2008 at 04:54 PM
Parallels definitely sucks! And worst of all... there's no refund!!! Unfortunately, I bought it, deleted the BootCamp partition, added an extra 2GB of memory to my iMac (so I could dedicate 2GB to Paralles and 2GB to Mac OS X) and re-installed Vista with Parallels, only to find out that the software is useless, slow and hangs! I couldn't even play the simplest PC games there... messed up colors on the screen and low screen resolution. In the end, I had to completely remove Parallels, re-install Vista with BootCamp and go through the whole process of setting up the PC from scratch! Sh!t...
BootCamp is definitely the king so far...
I asked for a refund (like most dignified software houses are obliged to do) and realized that once I paid for the license key, there was NO refund - no matter if the software is useless to me!
Posted by: Chris | October 09, 2008 at 10:51 AM
Allow me to weigh in and provide an up to date comment about parallels 4.0 upgrade.
I installed the upgrade about 2 weeks ago and figured it was an easy import from version 3.x. I installed the upgrade and imported the virtual machine from the 3.x version. It crashed and would not boot. I called parallels support for assistance (selection the phone option for those with a serious emergency) and spent a couple of hours with the support guy allan who lives in India. He was courteous but could not solve the problem. I finally asked that the call be escalated to second tier -- he assured me it was and that I'd receive a call back in 24 hours or less. Nothing happened. No phone call. I sat by my telephone waiting for the call and nothing. A few days later I got an email suggesting I try some instructions that were unclear to me.
One of the instructions that WAS clear to me was to reinstall my 3.x OS and so I attempted that. It prompted me for a license key -- the only record of which is trapped on the volume I that the upgrade process corrupted. There was link to give me a temporary license which I clicked and was emailed a passkey that turns out to be invalid. Most likely only works with the latest version that I cannot get to work even with a valid passkey.
It was late March when I first called. We are now in the second week of April and the problem is not yet resolved. The second tier support messages are just emails (THAT's RIGHT NOBODY EVERY CALLED ME BACK AS PROMISED by Allan) and they lag by about 2 days on average.
IF YOU HAVE A BUSINESS COMPUTER DO NOT USE PARALLELS. Unlike mainstream windows apps -- to the best of my knowledge you cannot go hire a support person in your area who knows parallels. You have to depend on parallels support and wait in what seems to be a very long queue.
For almost two weeks I am completely unable to access important business data. The only reason I bought a MAC was because I could run Windows on it with Parallels. Dumb move in retrospect -- I figured that major software companies who develop for the Mac OS were probably going to be as service oriented as the general Mac philosophy of quality before quantity. It appears I may have been very wrong about that.
Douglas Bamlett
Posted by: Douglas Bamlett | April 08, 2009 at 01:44 PM
Ditto on everything said here about Parallels. Just the other day, I tried to install version four to make up for the considerable shortcomings of version three, and all I'm getting now are Windows errors. I just finished trashing all remnants that I could find of the software off my hard drive and literally threw away the software box with the CD so I'd not be tempted to try it again. It's junk! From now on, on those rare occasions when I need to use Windows, I'll just do a restart and rely on Boot Camp.
Posted by: Cory | May 25, 2009 at 06:41 PM
Well I have been going in circles with this company.
I purchased Modernbill some time ago version 4. Unfortunately, I am unable to update my domain name and email address online and have to try and have one of their "Russian" or "East Indian" techs do it for me.
They sell shitty software and then charge you for support.
Plesk and SWSoft were always resource hogs... stay away from any of their products.. try DirectAdmin, Ensim... anything but Parallels.
Posted by: Jack | May 29, 2009 at 07:21 PM
VMware FTW. Nothing else to be said. Parallels has extreme feature creep. :D
Posted by: Fred | June 06, 2009 at 04:26 PM
The new home of http://www.boycottparallels.com is.... (drum roll) HERE!!!
Posted by: Barack Hussein Obama | June 10, 2009 at 09:27 AM
lol.. mac users are so funny when they say parallels is slow.. welcome to the world of virtualization. its not supposed to be fast unless you have a computer with very nice specs and the only mac with good enough specs to run at speeds that are respectable is the mac pro and for $2500 i can think of a few things i'd rather buy.. maybe you can just build a pc for less than 1/4 the price of a mac pro.
Posted by: bob | July 01, 2009 at 09:30 PM
@bob
You are missing the point. The whole reason why most of us bought a mac is because it Just Works. We don't like fiddling with crap (well, I do), we don't like buggy software, and we don't feel like buying a new computer every 6 months. Which is exactly why parallels is such an enraging program.
Frankly, I'd have been willing to pay the exact same amount of money to NOT have to deal with the nonsense that parallels gave me.
Posted by: ron | July 04, 2009 at 06:27 PM
Parallels is certainly buggy - look at the complaints on this board. To add insult to injury, look at the insane support policies of the company. They have a seemingly endless number of unresolved bugs, yet insist on customers paying for service for BROKEN software. Not installation issues, not Windows issues - issues with Parallels itself! Unacceptable! And the numb nuts that saddled them with the ultra-paranoid and broken licensing system they use should be fired, then burned at the stake.
My campus has signed on on all future Parallels purchases, and we have insisted on our money back from Apple from when we purchased this POS package. Some needs to start a class action suit against this arrogant, fraudulent pig-sty of a company.
Posted by: John H | July 14, 2009 at 04:50 PM
Agreed... parallels is total crap. Started a facebook group.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107431973014
Posted by: Joel Barger | July 29, 2009 at 05:20 PM
parallels 4 is 100% crap... bought a box version... prompts me to dl and install newer version...
OK... dl never completes.... so i install old (box) version... and then use up date. dl the update and try to install... will not install .. "close VM windows vista" I dont have a guest os installed yet..
parallels 3 was no frigging picnic either.. but at least i could get some functionality from it.
at this point... I will break out my old dell laptop and use it for the windows programs i absolutely have to use...
paralles is 100% buyer beware
Posted by: bill foley | August 30, 2009 at 03:17 PM
Okay, the nail in the coffin: I'm running Windows as a guest under OSX, and I get these friggin pop-up ads pushing Parallels add-ons. Switching to VMWare now...
Posted by: PMA | September 28, 2009 at 03:16 PM
Parallels did not work on my MBP.
Posted by: Scott | November 03, 2009 at 11:12 AM