Brief Hands-On Report--Parallels released Desktop for Mac 3.0 Build 4128

Parallels released Desktop for Mac 3.0 Build 4128 to take care of an incompatibility with Apple's Boot Camp 1.3. It is available for download within the application or as a stand-alone file from this Parallels Web page.

We tried to install Build 4128 from within Build 4124 but nothing happened, i.e. we ended up with Build 4124. So we downloaded the stand-alone updater, uninstalled Build 4124 and installed Build 4128. We used the uninstaller because we have had problems in the past installing one build over another.

After starting up our Windows XP SP2 virtual machine, the Parallels Tools Install Wizard opened automatically to update Parallels Tools. After the update, Windows XP was restarted and we downloaded a few Microsoft updates. We also downloaded and installed Safari 3 Public Beta. Our Windows applications seemed to work fine in brief use.

Then we launched our Windows Vista Ultra virtual machine. Following the same steps with Vista took considerably longer. Windows Live Care initially interfered with the automatic Parallels Tools update but it came up after dismissing Live Care so we did not have to update Parallels Tools manually. In addition, we had to put up with approving the installation of each new Parallels driver. Again, our Windows applications worked fine in brief use. [Bill Fox & Dana Baggett]

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