Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac

Pros: It mostly works in VirtualizationCons: Windows activation nightmare, breaks boot camp drivers, doesn't live up to marketing claims, poor tech support that just tries to blame AppleI recently purchased a MacBook Pro, my first MacIntosh computer. Realizing that there are still some applications that are only available on Windows, and really disliking the Windows 8 UI (part of why I ended up buying a Mac), I thought running Windows running the actual Windows applications in virtualization within the Mac OS-X user interface, with the Mac OS acting as the window manager would be the perfect solution. If I needed more Windows performance I could run Windows natively in boot camp. I chose Parallels over the competing VM Ware Fusion product for 2 main reasons: 1. Parallels claimed Windows 8 support 2. Parallels claimed support for using the boot camp partition within the virtual environment.Neither of the marketing claims is completely true. I had thought that the ability to use the same physical disk partition and installation of Windows both natively and in virtualization was a great feature. I expected that I would only need one license and that it would work, pretty much as advertised. Wrong!!First I installed Windows 8 using the boot camp assistant. While Apple doesn't officially support Windows 8, the install was extremely easy. I installed Windows 8 which included activation as part of the install. I then installed the Apple boot camp support, which is primarily Windows drivers for the Apple hardware. That was easy and painless as well, and the special functions such as the 2 finger right mouse click and scroll, and keyboard control of display brightness, keyboard brightness, volume, etc. all worked fine. Windows install into boot camp was easy and painless. The only problem with Apple support was the boot camp tool to select which OS to boot into next time didn't work. That was rather trivial, just hold the option key during boot. So far so good, Windows 8 up and running.Then I installed Parallels desktop 8 in the Mac environment. I told it to use the existing boot camp install for Windows. It went ahead and installed and installed the Parallels tools into Windows. Windows now worked in Parallels - except IT WASN'T ACTIVATED!! Parallels leaves these details out of the marketing. I was able to use the phone activation procedure from Microsoft and activate from within Parallels. It then showed as activated in Parallels. Great! Windows app icons were integrated in the Mac OS, all seemed well.I then went back and booted natively into Windows. It was still activated, and things seemed good. Except now the trackpad worked like a standard HID device without Apple support. Without that support there is no right mouse button support and no scrolling. It's pretty tough to drive Windows without a right mouse button - not good. The special keyboard functions to control the Apple hardware also stopped working.I then received my free Windows 8 Pro Media center upgrade key from Microsoft. I followed the instructions from Microsoft while booted natively in Windows to upgrade to Media center. This broke activation in BOTH the native and Parallels environment. It seems that you don't just install media center, you actually change your version of Windows to Windows 8 Pro with Media Center. To make a long story short, this started a total of about 7 hours with Microsoft technical support over the course of multiple days using remote access from the tech. The first tech would get it activated in one environment only to break activation in the other. We spent hours activating in native boot camp to break virtualization, and vice versa. Finally I got another tech and he had me completely reinstall Windows 8 Pro, then upgrade to Windows 8 Pro with Media center, then he provided another key to activate in virtualization. I finally got Windows 8 with Media Center working and activated in both environments.I then installed the Apple boot camp support in Windows, and again the Mac trackpad and keyboard worked and all was well with native Windows. In virtualization though the Parallels support was gone and things like display resolution weren't correct. I then reinstalled the Parallels support in Windows. It then worked in virtualization properly. BUT - it again broke the Apple drivers.I called Parallels technical support to solve the problem. The first excuse was that they don't support Windows 8. When I said that wasn't and acceptable answer, and it shows Windows 8 support right on the product box, I was bumped to the next level of tech support. He then tried to claim it was an Apple problem, that the Apple drivers aren't Windows 8 drivers. I repeatedly explained that the Apple drivers worked just fine until the Parallels support was installed, and it was a Parallels problem. He then said they don't support Windows 8 boot camp. Again I said no, that the marketing claimed support for using a single partition, and that was explicitly why I bought the product. This went nowhere, and I requested a higher level tech. That eventually happened a few days later. However that tech again simply wanted to pass the buck that Apple doesn't officially support Windows 8, and that Parallels doesn't support it. Again I stated that if he has a problem he should take it up with their own marketing, but I bought the product based on claimed features (Windows 8 and a shared partition), and I expect them to work. That went nowhere and I just received a survey asking if I was satisfied!!So, the summary is that the product in virtualization does sort of work. Parallels doesn't mention the activation horror stories though (search the web and their own forums). They also don't support Windows 8 regardless of claims that they do. The Parallels support breaks perfectly working Apple drivers. I went through the process twice, and twice Parallels support broke Apple drivers in Windows. Rather than fess up to their own software problems though they instead attempt to pass blame onto Apple. I re-iterate, the Apple Windows 7 drivers (as do most Windows 7 drivers) worked just fine in Windows 8. It was the Parallels software that breaks it.I thought the single shared install of Windows would make things, including Windows activation easier. It absolutely didn't. If I had to do it all over again I would probably go with VM Ware fusion. Now that I have Windows installed and activated with that cost, and the cost of wonky Parallels I'm rather locked in unless I want to buy more Windows licenses.I haven't tried other operating systems in Parallels yet. The main reason for the purchase was Windows. I will try some flavor of Linux, and I expect it will likely work much better. With just a virtual image of the OS and no shared native install it will probably work just fine. At least there won't be any activation nonsense. Yes, that was part of why I went with a Mac too. However if you are planning on buying Parallels primarily for Windows as I did, and you are thinking of using Windows 8 (horrible user interface until 3rd party start button software is installed, but amazingly fast boot and shut down and other enhancements) think twice and at least consider VM ware.After hours of frustration with Parallels Indian tech support I still don't have it working properly in native Windows. The only was I can use Windows is with an external mouse or Magic trackpad, and really an external monitor. I can't adjust the Mac display brightness, keyboard brightness, or volume. Parallels really made native Windows unusable as a stand alone laptop. Parallels doesn't take ownership of their software doing this either. They only provide 30 days of "tech support" and the clock starts ticking when you install the software. By the time I got the activation problems sorted out I only had about 10 days remaining, and most of them are now gone, not that their tech support was of any help what so ever. Actually they were totally and completely useless and a total waste of time.I probably should have only given a single star rating. However since it does sort of work in virtualization, and I expect other operating systems will work better I gave a rating of 2. Expect to be on your own though with the product if you have problems.

Based on the reviews I thought I have just found what I needed - having switched from a windows platform to Apple's Mac OS, I quickly realized that the productivity apps available for Mac are dismal, and no match to Office and finance management products such as Quicken. In Parallel I saw the solution to enjoy both worlds. Unfortunately my experience was very different from the multiple positive ones described above, so I thought I would share it to save some others from following the painful path I took.If you don't want to read the long version here is my short recomendation: I just bought Office 365 license (1 year, 5 installations MAC AND/OR PC !). I kept Parallel (because it is there) to run Quicken and TaxAct, nothing more. I now run all my office stuff smoothly, on dual monitors set up, home network, and when needed I use parallel for the financial apps, and close Parallel as soon as I'm done.Here is the long version of my experience:I was pretty excited to learn about the virtual machine that will allow me to run Windows on my Mac, however having installed it (with Windows 8 and office on it) I was very disappointed. My machine is a MArch 2012 MacBook Pro, 2.2 GHz intel Core i7 processor, with 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory , OS X 10.8.2 (12C60) operating system, and a 500 GB HD.I also use an additional monitor in dual monitor settings. It insalled smoothly, and I initially tried loading my win system with the supplied interface on my network drive. Since there is no option to select the desired files and programs from the source machine, I was forced to transfer the whole disk, 130 GB. This was a very messy process, that took more than a day, with numerous freezes and errors, and when it finished the programs never ran smooth and caused my machine to hang often, with no recourse.Calling Parallel support provided no real help - uninstall and repeat the installation. Clearly the online help person had no techinical qualification, could not analyze my case and (try to) diagnose the issue. Rather they just read from a script.With no other option I did uninstall, but this time I did not transfer any files from Windows. Instead I installed win 8 directly, and an office 2007 licensed copy I had. The installation was smoother, but the office update process took a very long time, numerous restarts, and endless repeats of already installed updates (might be an MS office issue).Finally I copied a few worksheets and documents to the Parallel windows vm and started running them. I also installed and ran Quicken. While at first I was glad to see it worked smoothly in a very nice interface, it soon became apparent that if left running (or idle) it will cause the Mac to become unstable, and eventually casue the machine to hang. I tried both coherence and windows mode - had the same issues regardless.I tried to configure the VM it based on the knowledge base on Parallel's website, but it is not updated with the current verion, and many of the article were not applicable to my system (number of processors, virtual memory size etc. - were not open for changes in my system).Luckily, MS just came out with the new Office 365, which I purchased and installed on my Mac, and now I can finally run office in a reasonable manner as I do any other app on the Mac. I kept Parallel but use it only to run Quicken, TaxAct, and make certain to close it when not running.In summation: this was a major disappointment that cost me greatly in time and frustration, much more than the nominal fee I paid for this product. Don't doubt that many people got it to work properly but it shouldn't be so complicated and full of dead end bugs for a shelve product of this type.

I don't really like this that much. Think I will replace it sooner or later. I seem to get strange lockups while running windows. Some of thet is probably due to splitting the hard drive between the two systems.

Every once a while, I was forced to pay 49.99 to update the the new version to use my window. There are many free VM out there...

Very difficult to install...created problems with my Mac OS...ended up uninstalling it. Would only try it if I was a computer wizars!

It's damn bad! It's ONLY parallels, windows is extra!