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Updated 3/18/08: I was contacted by Parallels and put in touch with one of their support technicians. They’ve advised me to do two things: re-install Parallels, and re-create the VM from its HDD file. They said this should resolve any instability issues. I’m going to give it a try as soon as my parents and I can schedule another iChat Screen Sharing session.
Last night was the second time that Parallels Desktop for the Mac (3.0, latest build) has crashed for no reason (become unresponsive and froze the entire system) and has corrupted a Windows XP VM, thus wasting several hours of setup work, not to mention certain tax documents.
Parallels is installed on a 24″ iMac which is otherwise completely stable and recently purchased. It runs the latest version of Leopard. Everything else on the iMac works as expected, except Parallels.
At this point, Parallels has caused me to lose over 10 hours of my time fixing the messes it leaves behind. I advise you to steer away from Parallels unless you want to be in a similar mess. I understand VMWare has a competing product. I may switch to that.
It’s ridiculous on Parallels’ part to crash and corrupt the VM in such a way that it can’t be recovered. It doesn’t make sense that it would be that irresponsible as a company. I honestly wish I knew what’s causing it to crash, but the only product I can pin the blame on right now is it. The iMac is in perfect shape. It works like a champ otherwise. Parallels is the steward that’s supposed to take care of the VM and make sure that it stays functional, and it obviously hasn’t done its job.
The first time it happened, I repaired the OS by re-installing it from the XP Install CD. The applications and documents were preserved (I think), but then I had to go through several hours of updates and troubleshooting within XP. I worked in multiple sessions over several nights to do this. By the way, the XP install is from a brand new CD, and it’s a full, boxed retail version purchased from a local store.
I didn’t get a chance to finish all of the updates when it crashed again (tonight), and I couldn’t boot up the VM, again. This time I decided to use Time Machine to see if I could restore the VM that way. Thankfully, that worked, but I still lost two precious hours of setup work that I can’t get back. I’ll have to re-apply a whole bunch of fixes and updates now.
I had high hopes for Parallels. I was one of its early supporters when it came out a couple of years ago, and told my friends and contacts about it. Now that I’m actually using it in real-world conditions, I find it really frustrates me. It’s certainly fast, and runs great, but the crashing I cannot live with. I’m open to talking to a Parallels technician if they want to take a closer look at the setup, but still, based on my recent and repeated dismal experiences with Parallels, I’m going to advise you to pass on it.
Things might have been okay if Parallels crashed and the VM remained safe and usable, but the fact remains that Parallels corrupts the VM every time it crashes, and that’s just not safe enough for my needs. Having to rely on Time Machine and/or frequent snapshots as constant crutches to uphold an unstable piece of software is not a viable business practice.
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You have something strange going on. I’ve got an XP install of Parallels (3.0, build 5582) running just fine under Leopard. It’s been rock solid; I have not experienced any of the issues you describe.
It will be interesting to see how VMWare compares. I’ve been using VMWare for years (since 1.0) on my Linux workstation at work.
Comment — March 12, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Raoul -
Ben from Parallels here. I saw that you’re having some weird issues and I want to help. Email me at ben@parallels.com and I’ll get you on the phone with a tech who will get this straightened out for you today.
Cheers,
Ben
Comment — March 12, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Jeremy, I’ve got Build 5584 installed. What bugs me is that it’s a brand new iMac, just configured a few weeks ago. It’s the latest and greatest, and it doesn’t make sense that this would happen to it. And if it’s just me that these sorts of things are happening to, can I please get a break??? Seriously… I’ve had so many technology-related problems in the last several months, and I’m tired of it all. I just want things to work for a change. The sad part of all this is that my Vista desktop at work (from Dell) has been the only somewhat stable piece of hardware and software that I’ve used in some time. It’s just not funny, especially for a Mac fan.
Ben, thank you for contacting me! I sent you an email a little while ago with the background info and my contact information. I look forward to hearing back from you and I hope whatever is causing these problems can be resolved.
Comment — March 12, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
Raoul,
I have same problem. VM corrupted 4 times already. All 4 times it happened unexpectedly, data was lost … Luckily I was doing snapshots and I can restore most of the work.
Did Ben’s suggestions actually worked ?! Please advice I need to know …
Thanks
Comment — March 27, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
[...] say so myself. I installed the latest updates from Apple on their two Macs. Installed SP3 on their XP virtual machine running on Parallels. (Which reminds me, I need to check with my mom soon and see if Parallels will continue to give her [...]
Pingback — May 15, 2008 @ 10:03 am
Hi Raoul,
I’m having the same problems with Parallels 3.0 — only I’ve installed Fedora on a BC partition. It, too, has been corrupted by a crash of Parallels. I’m unable to run a program inside Parallels for longer than 30 minutes before it crashes. Please let me know what Ben has to say.
For the amount of time (money) spent on working around problems with Parallels one could buy a decent PC to run their software.
Comment — June 14, 2008 @ 4:45 am