I'm virtually exhausted. After last week's review of VMWare Fusion 3 and this week's review of Parallels Desktop 5, it's been a weird couple of weeks. I'm having this recurring virtualization nightmare where a penguin wants to share something with me but can't. Then Windows Aero calls to me in a fuzzy voice like that teacher from Charlie Brown. But you're not here to read about my dreams. On to the task at hand: the fifth release of well-known Mac virtualization package, Parallels Desktop.

With version 4 of Parallels Desktop having come out less than a year ago, a lot of existing users are wondering what, other than official Windows 7 support, makes version 5 worth the $49.99 upgrade. Excluding the token interface tweaks, the main features in 5 break down like this:

Windows Aero WDDM driver support for Vista and Windows 7

Multi-monitor support for Full Screen and Coherence/Crystal modes

DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 3 support

OpenGL 2.1 support for Linux client VMs

Gesture support for laptop trackpads

Crystal window mode and MacLook interface option

That's really not a long list, and the documentation's "What's New" section does feel more padded than most. The bigger concern, given the short development time for these features, is whether the new stuff has been put through the necessary testing with OS X 10.6. It was no secret that version 4 had many problems on release, and Parallels Desktop 5 did seem to drop out of the sky and onto our desks. There wasn't an open public beta, so no one really knew what to expect. Has Parallels learned from its past mistakes, or is this another potentially great release buried under a mound of bugs? Read on to find out.

Test Systems

Mac Pro 2009 Xeon 5500 dual quad 2.66 GHz

24GB RAM



Mac OS X 10.6.1/10.6.2 (64-bit kernel)

MacBook Pro Santa Rosa 2.4GHz

4GB RAM



Mac OS X 10.6.1/10.6.2 (32-bit kernel)

System Requirements

Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 or later

Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.2 or later

Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.11 or later

Pricing

New license: $79.99

Upgrade from 4.0: $49.99

The Upgrade Process

All existing users will need to update their virtual machines and reinstall Parallels Desktop tools to get access to the new features in 5. I didn't have any VMs on the 2009 Mac Pro machine, but my MacBook Pro's Windows XP VM updated with what seemed to be no issues... until I tried using the Internet. My shared networking wasn't working even though the host machine's Airport connection was fine. After changing Parallels to bridged networking mode, it worked fine and I could make Interwebs. A lot of people are reporting that they are getting BSODs (blue screens of death) with their Windows VMs after upgrading the Parallels application. If that's you, the fix is as follows:

Shut down your virtual machine. Set the virtual machine CPU number to 1 in VM configuration. To do this, open Virtual Machine menu->Configure... and set "1" in "Processors" drop-down. Start the virtual machine. This time it will boot normally. Login and wait until Parallels Tools are installed. After Parallels Tools are installed, it is safe to return the previous CPU amount.

After that, you should be good to go.

Interface changes

I think the secret is out that Mac users like their interface doohickies. Parallels Desktop, always the big player in the Mac interface integration game, has introduced two more interface features to sate the Mac-heads who feel guilty for running Windows. Version 5 now has a total of five window modes: Windowed, Modality, Full Screen, Coherence, Crystal, and an added MacLook option. Any more than that and I think Parallels Desktop will be the first software program diagnosed with A.D.D. But seriously folks, let's take a look at these new options.

Crystal Mode:

As a sort of extension of Coherence mode, which remains, Crystal takes seamlessness to another level by completely doing away with the Parallels application menu and putting everything you need in the Dock and Mac OS menu bar. For those confused hip-hop producers out there, Crystal mode is not to be confused with Cristal mode, which means “both drunk and jiggy”:

This one's for my dead coat.

Since the application-less approach of Crystal mode could leave many users lost if they turned it on by accident, Parallels Desktop gives you clear instructions when you enable it:

Note to Mac developers: Alt-click should read Option-click.

Once you close that guide, you are free to use Parallels Desktop in its most stealth scheme yet.

A very windows-less Windows experience. Notice the tiny Parallels icon at the left in the menu bar—that is where everything outside of launching applications is done in Crystal mode.

A close up view of the very tastefully-integrated Windows Dock folder: