As soon as it became available, I downloaded and installed Parallels Desktop 3.0 for the Mac. So far, pretty damned impressive...

The new release of Parallels Desktop, version 3.0, is now officially available for download from the Parallels web site.

If you own an Intel Mac, you're probably already aware of the options available to you to run Windows (or other operating systems) as virtualized emulations on your machine. Apple offers Boot Camp, which allows you to boot up your Intel Mac in either Windows or Mac OS X, but it's one or the other: separate partitions on the hard disk, no sharing of files between them, no live switching between Mac and Windows.

Parallels Desktop runs Windows (or a variety of other operating systems including flavors of Linux) as virtual machines that are active concurrently with Mac OS X. This means that you can run Mac OS X and Windows at the same time. It means that (at least theoretically) you can share files between your Mac OS X environment and your Windows environment.

I say "at least theoretically" because prior versions of Parallels Desktop provided file sharing and transfer only in a limited way, through pre-defined sets of shared folders. And the notion of real transparency between the Mac "side" and the Windows "side" of the computer was pie in the sky.

Version 3.0 brings us closer to the ideal.

  • The "Coherence" feature that made Windows apps equal citizens to Mac OS X has been enhanced in 3.0. The interoperability has reached a point where you can open Windows applications directly from Mac OS X, place those applications in the dock for easy access, and cut & paste easily between Mac and Windows applications. Windows apps are defined to Mac OS X using the standard application format (a ".app" folder with appropriate scripts and resources inside). Starting up a Windows app from Mac OS X will start the Windows virtual machine if it's not already running, prompting for logon if necessary. That may take some time, but if Windows is already running, starting a Windows app is pretty darned quick.
  • A new feature called "SmartSelect" complements Coherence, letting you open any file using applications from either operating system. The C: drive, for example, is mounted as a standard disk visible in the Finder sidebar. If you prefer a particular application that happens to run only in Windows or only in Mac OS X, you can select that program to open files on either "side" of your Mac.
  • More extensive support for USB and external devices, 3D graphics support for both OpenGL and DirectX, and the ability to take periodic "snapshots" of your Windows virtual machine state, round out the new features.

My experience with the software so far has been great. The upgrade went smoothly without incident. (I did need to update the old version to the highest patch level available before attempting the 3.0 upgrade.) One thing that was a bit confusing at first was the fact that Parallels Desktop can excecute in one of three modes: windowed, full-screen, or Coherence. Windowed mode runs Parallels inside a Mac OS X window, while full-screen (obviously) takes up the entire screen (with the ability to define hot keys to switch back to the Mac OS X "side" of your machine). Coherence mode doesn't bother to show you the Windows desktop at all: it just lets Windows apps that you've started run as equal citizens among the other running Macintosh applications. They even show up in the dock as running apps, and ALT-TAB will cycle through them along with Macintosh apps. I like being able to run FreeCell or UltraEdit at will from Mac OS X. It's quite cool.

One thing I am disappointed with is Parallels' support for the product. Though my problems have been minor, it would be nice if their support mechanisms actually worked. A few months back, it wasn't even clear that filling in a support request on the Parallels web site resulted in anything happening--not even a confirmation to the person submitting the form that it was received. Now they seem to have at least gotten that much right: the form works, and produces a confirmation message, and if you're lucky you see a confirmation e-mail as well. I just haven't gotten a response from them since. (My one serious problem has been that the Windows VM can see other machines in my local network via Windows file sharing (Samba), but not via TCP/IP; for instance, I can't ssh from the Windows VM to another Mac in the LAN. This used to work in the previous version of Parallels.)