Love Parallels but don't love the way it constantly reminds you to upgrade your RAM? Fear not. Check out this app for making your Parallels experience as smooth as butter.

As with most things in life, here cash cache is king...
[Read more of the backstory at macosxhints]

Let us know how you fare.

I might be fortunate, I've never had any problems with memory when I'm running XP Pro in Parallels. I leave it running on another virtual desktop and hardly ever reboot. I don't run lots of things in XP as its just for a few applications and I only have 1gb in my Macbook.

Be interesting to see what Parallels say about the 'issues'.

I downloaded it and I also downloaded that Application Enhancer but I cant get the PD Tweaker to open/
how do I do this?

Absolutely incredible. I found I had these symptoms yesterday (parallels had been open and running for 2 days and the host had slowed to treacle-speed) and today there is a fix - Drew is a genius.

3 hours running so far and its not showing any signs of slowing the host down.


@ Elrithranduil -



Install Application Enhancer
Open System Preferences
Select Application Enhancer
Press the "+" Key on the bottom of the window and navigate to where you saved PD enhancer.

Thanks I figured it out... and had a quick look in Parallels I have the feeling (can be mistaken) that my XP experience has become a lot smoother Thanks for the tip

How is Windows XP running under parallels on your hackint0sh?
Does it slow down your system?

When I run Windows XP under Parallels, its slows down my hackint0sh as hell!

Anyone facing this issue on hackint0sh?

I run Win2K as thats all I need. It works perfectly well for the one app I need to run. I stuck win2k on a diet using this too....http://www.litepc.com - that helps as you can throw away a load of services that don't need to run.

Bear in mind that on our CPU's, we don't have the VT extensions, so parallels has to work a lot harder to run windows. Change the CPU to a D 920 or better and it'll run sooo much faster, they have the VT extensions that parallels can take advantage of.

Nah ofcourse it makes my hackintosh a bit slower for example I want to see the dashboard the widgets take quite some time to load. It is still however really workable just turn of all the fancy XP things. Put the theme on Windows Classic. Iam not sure but maybe decreasing the resolution to 800x600 also helps. Also you could use a tool like pclite as Sandwer said. I also used a program called WinXP manager it optimizes the system by cleaning registry, processes, startup processes. The best feature is that you can easily turn off system services like Indexing and things that slow down boot and shut down time. The best thing is ofcourse upgrading to a dual core cpu... Also increasing RAM would be perfect and sufficient Iam wondering how it would run with 2gb of Ram

I have a dual core (D 805) and 1 GB of RAM. When I run Parallels, I can't even do anything else in hackintosh.
Well it seems it does take a lot of resources. Anyway, I will try pclite, does it increase performance inside Parallels or global performance with running parallels and other stuff in hackint0sh?

the performance depends alot on how much RAM you allocate to Parallels. In the beginning, I allocated around 600mb of RAM out of my 1GB to Parallels and everything slows to a crawl. When I dropped it down to 350mb, both Parallels and OS X become perfectly usable. I definitely wouldn't allocate too much RAM to Parallels. Just use as much as you need to have decent performance for what you need to do in Windows.

Damn right!

I allocated 360 MB of RAM to Parallels and now its all good! thanks infnite.
Now I need to get network workin'

http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp download this programm in parallels with parallels shared folders for example (hope you found it oout how it worked with VM tools) and then open it and set the MTU on 1400

I Have a PD805, and 2 gigs of ram, Windows Gets a Gig and everything still runs snappy in Mac OS.

thats because you have 2gb of RAM and OS X is still allocated 1GB....

Thanks for the PM, i really appreciate that.

I just installed the VM tools, created the shared folders, transfered the MTU changer prog'.
Set MTU to 1400, but still no internet...

The parallels network adapter is not assigned a good IP.
I get the 169.254.168.8 IP which means DHCP does not work.

I tried to repair it without success. Might be because I'm on a local LAN, and NAT is not implemented in parallels.

Maybe I need to specify the IP stuff on my own without DHCP...

If you got an idea, let me know

dont know if you have done that but have you rebooted windows I forgot to mention that... btw Iam also on a Lan network in my home with a router and it works so.. I will look at my Ip adress in parallels see if it differs

edit: it is the same IP adress so that must be your problem. Dont know how to repair it though maybe something in command CMD ipconfig renew things etc.. if you really cant figure it out try reinstalling windows

How can you tell if it's actually working?

O.K. I got a working internet connection in my guest OS in Parallels (Windows XP).



My main OS is OSX86 (hackint0sh) and I'm running Win XP under parallels (assigned 360 MB RAM).
My PC is connected to a router and has a local IP assigned (192.168.0....).

I had to choose 'Host-Only Network' under VM network options.
Then share the internet connection with the VM under os x.

How to turn on Internet Sharing:

1. Open “System Preferences” and click “Sharing” in “Internet & Network” section
2. Select “Ethernet Adaptor (en2)” from “To computers using” list. Note that System Preferences shows Parallels Host-Guest Adapter as “Ethernet Adaptor (en2)” in this case.
3. Select the adapter you want sharing from in “Share your connection from” dropdown
4. Click “Start” button and confirm staring the service

Enjoy!

Parallels ran so well on my MacBook I went ahead and bought it. It allows me to run all my Window programs
without having to reboot, it makes life on a Mac so much more enjoyable even with XP.

I've got a question...

I'm on a Hackintosh, with an Intel 2200 series wireless card. The card, as many of you may know, is not supported or hacked yet in OS X. So I have no wireless under my OS X, just ethernet internet. My plan was to install XP under Parallels to get wireless through XP for when I needed it... but I can't get XP under Parallels to pick up my wireless card. My assumption is that Parallels will only support hardware that has been detected in the already existing OS X installation, is that true? Or can I load Parallels, get into Windows XP, and somehow install my Intel 2200 wireless card? I tried installing the drivers but it did nothing as the card was not detected, the add new hardware wizard failed as well. Thanks for any help you can give!

No i dont think it'll work. In XP the hard ware is simulated so its always sees a Realtek NIC. It piggy-backs off of what every is your default driver in OSX. You know what i did on my HP laptop, just switched to a broadcom Wireless card. Had to do a little work in Terminal but it worked.

Oh and i forget to mention i am running Parallels on my HP X86 laptop and bought parallels because it worked so well. 1Gig in it and 512mb dedicated to XP. Runs good as hell. Worth every penny especially after installing pd tweakr

Parallels uses dummy devices that have a context in the host operating system... Windows XP in Parallels cannot see any of your system devices.

Sup all i have a quick question, everything is fine so far, i was wondering if any of you have problems with the sharing part, i followed the guide that came with parallels but it is not working, when im in parallels i go to my network places, Entire network all i see is Microsoft windows network, nothing about the parallels Shared folder.. if somone could help it would be apprecialted


macjason

Edit the options for the particular VM, open the part for Shared folders, then click the tiny + sign lower left just to the right of center (sounds weird). It took me a while to figure out that aspect of Parallels. Once I did that, then I was able to pick a folder (I chose Documents) and it shared just fine with no issues, but you've got to choose one to share obviously.

Hope this helps...
bb

well I tried Parallesl Desktop 1844 error after install then tried the beta 1848 the same...

has anyone running parallels on AMD Athlon 64 (x2) ?

if so - pls. help !

I've installed Vista using parallels twice and both times I've been able to work with Vista (and it works quite nicely). However with both installs after a couple of boots Vista freezes at startup. I am able to boot to safe mode, but I can't figure out how to repair the install.
My thinking is that I should be able to repair the vista install with the DVD, but how do I boot using the DVD to give me this option?
OR...
Am I way off track...is there a better way to do this?

Protege,
On your VM check boot options and change from HD first to CD/DVD first.
Im not sure repairing with the DVD will actually work, but it is surely worth the try.
All the best!

Parallels has a strange behaviour with my Windows 2003 virtual machine: I deactivated "Show applications in Dock" in Parallels -> Preferences -> Appearance.
Afterwards closing application windows inside the virtual machine took a lot of time and consumed a lot of CPU resources (having the CPU monitor running alongside to fetch the impact).
Finally, I decided to activate the feature again. Windows close now with normal speed.

Hi all!I'm a recent Mac convert, but I believe that I still need Windows. I have surfed through the web much searching for solutions to run Windows.I think that Parallels is more preferrable for me. I don't like the idea of dual-booting, but will certainly get Boot Camp. Actually, I also wonder how Boot Camp support works and what particular things for me does it provide?Well, and my question is, whether I can trust Parallels Desktop. It seems that the app is very reliable, due to some comments on the net, but still I would prefer to get some feedback from users before handing out my 80$.

Hello and welcome! I run Parallels Desktop for about month (not much but I already do have experience). I really enjoy it and have no problems with it. It has perfect interface, excellent usability. It doesn't drag my system. Moreover, it fully satisfies my needs and make my Mac 2 in 1 machine! I even run some PC-games thru Parallels. I use BootCamp also to run some games with high system requirements. BootCamp copes with it much better than Parallels but I'm sure they will adopt it for gaming soon.
If you decide to get Parallels Desktop don't miss the opportunity to get another apps in one package with Parallels Desktop! (but you will have to spend a little bit more on it, about $100) Check Parallels Desktop Premium Edition offer on their web-site.
Keep us informed about your decisions and actions! Will help you if there any questions on further steps!

Wow!! THANK YOU for the info!! VERY useful. One question. Kaspeskiy, Disk Director Suite - I understand why i need them. And True Image ble-bla... what is it???

I haven't investigated Acronis True Image Home yet but that is what they say on Parallels' official web-site...

ATIH is a good app. I like it.
This has been one of the best backing up pieces of software for me.
I got it with Parallels Premium a few months ago

Well, In addition to the original thread topic, Id like to share my experiences. I was having some issues on my Dual Xeon Homebrew, as it was freezing every five seconds or so ( this is due to the mishandling of threads from one processor to the other apparently), but after a ton of researching it seems that the issue was resolved in build 5600. Just did a FRESH install of XP SP3 and All of the issues are resolved. For anyone that was getting the "Parallels IPI stat: rescheduled x cpus out of y" error, this should definitely fix you up.


Hope this helps some!!!

-FYI for the Homebrew-
Kalyway 10.5.2 with kabyl kernel ( So far the most amazing build tested )
Dual Xeon 3.2 HT Enabled ( Irwindale )
Nvidia 8600GTS running dual displays @ 1600x1200 / 75Hz
4GB ECC ram
250GB sata HDD
Broadcom Netextreme Gigabit Ethernet
Sony DL 16x