Parallels (17 months later)

I'm one of the Mac supporters at work. Recently, I was assigned the task of reloading a MacBook Pro (2.16 Ghz, 2 GB RAM) with OS X Leopard and Boot-Camping with Vista SP1 and using Parallels to have access to the Boot Camp partition.

Things were going well (aside from a few slow downs due to shipping issues). Until I started working with Windows Vista in Parallels.

After I got all my software installed, including items such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office, I started my testing of the software in Parallels. This didn't turn out so well. I fired up a few Adobe applications, such as Photoshop and ImageReady. Along with IE (7 of course, per Vista's requirements) and Microsoft Office. The only problem that I found was that the system was unable to run Photoshop. Granted, we were running the Parallels Virtual Machine hardware, so I can't really blame either Parallels or Adobe for the problems I was having. --Where I can blame Parallels is for the system being unable to free up memory and being unable to shut down afterward.


Once I was done testing, I was getting ready to gather up a few things and return the laptop to the Director that assigned me the task of getting the computer configured.

All I had to do was shut Parallels down, and test the system one more time in Windows Vista under Boot Camp. This is where my problems began...

Parallels just wouldn't shut down. The system got far enough in the shutdown process that I was unable to bring up task manager. After waiting for over half an hour to shut the system down, I finally gave up and clicked on the Parallels "Stop" button, which informed me that it was possible that I would lose data if I agreed to the improper shutdown. Since I had waited for so long, I did agree, and the unit powered off. I tried to turn it back on, and guess what happened....

The system was unable to boot. It would "blue screen" at boot. It was really quite frustrating. So I booted into Boot Camp, and loaded the system in safe mode (regular mode also wasn't working for Boot Camp). I found the .SYS file that wasn't working correctly, one of the Parallel Tools system files, I moved the file, and restarted the computer. I didn't notice any other major problems, so I called it "Stable" and moved on to restart the computer into Mac OS X Leopard for Parallels testing.

Upon starting Parallels, I didn't seem to have too many problems. I had to reactivate, but that was a problem that Parallels clearly documented as a known issue with Parallels software. Strange that it would come up now, after the previous problems I had with the system, but not quite unexpected. And, after activating Vista, the system did boot normally. I tested the software, and found everything to be operational. So I called it "Stable" and shut the Parallels virtual machine down. I then rebooted the computer, to load up Boot Camp to be sure that the system was still stable on that side.

I was quite surprised to find out that Windows, on the Boot Camp side, needed to be activated. I thought it was strange, but once again, this issue was documented by Parallels. So I reactivated Windows. Things were working just fine. I was able to access all of the programs and all of the drivers seemed to have installed correctly. I called it "Stable" and decided to reboot into Leopard to test Parallels (post Boot Camp side activation) to see how it held up).

Boot Camp started normally, but it needed activation. Once it was activated, it worked swimmingly. I found no major problems, aside from the fact that Photoshop wouldn't start up. No big deal, since most of the graphic design would be done from within the Boot Camp partition.

For certainty, I decided to reboot the PC into Boot Camp to see how the install of Vista came though. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well --once again, it needed activation. I went around with Boot Camp and Parallels for nearly three hours, trying to figure out what was causing the system to deactivate itself. The only thing that I could conclude was that the .SYS file that I moved was the source of the problem. Unfortunately, since the system was being so stable without that file, I decided to actually delete the file, and reinstalling the Parallels System Tools did not seem to help my problems at all.

My options, that were once limited, now seemed to be down to one: reinstall Windows and see what happens.

I did just that. The system was behind schedule by two days now, but it was coming along well enough. I was able to get the operating system and the software configured and tested within a few hours. I found no obvious problems. So I called the Director, and informed him that the PC was ready for pick up. I went though a tutorial on how to use some of the features of Parallels and reiterated the limitations (and apparent sensitivity of the software). I didn't want him to be out of the state and have the system crash on him.
* * *
The following Monday, I received an email stating that the system wasn't able to boot into Boot Camp or Parallels - it was blue screening at boot. Mac OS was working fine though.

I made it into work early that day and immediately took to working on the MacBook Pro. I met up with the Director, he explained that he was finally able to get the Mac to boot into Windows after following instructions he was able to dig up with extensive digging though the internet, but found that the Parallels Tools, which he no longer trusted (since it was the cause of the blue screening issues) was unable to be uninstalled unless it was running from within Parallels - which he uninstalled from Mac OS (I would have done the same).

Unfortunately, the only option I could figure out, was to reinstall and reconfigure the Parallels software and uninstall the tools from within Parallels, and hope for the best.

The first attempt didn't work so well. The cursor turned into it's new version of the hour glass and was just "clocking" as we waited for the control panel to load up. After waiting for a decent bit of time, Windows returned that Explorer.exe had failed. We had to power down Parallels from the Parallels Stop button. Luckily, upon rebooting it, we were able to get the system into Parallels and we were able to remove the software without problem.

* * *
Well, the happiness and joy of a job well done didn't last long. It was only a few hours later that the Director contacted me to let me know that the drivers for the audio in Windows died out, he was in a desperate state to get the system up and running as soon as possible or he would miss a plane shortly there after. I did a quick check of the system, but I was unable to find a cause for the hardware problems. The system kept reporting that there was no audio devices installed. It was also reporting that all the drivers of the system were installed, just that there was no audio devices installed in the MacBook Pro.

The director eventually had to switch to using a regular Windows based laptop to take with him out of state, but he wanted to take the MacBook Pro with him to tinker with it to see if he could get it back up and running.

A few days later, he contacted me to let me know that he wants to try reloading Windows Vista to see if that will rectify the issues. This time, Parallels will be a "no-go for launch."