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Currently using Parallels v4 currently to provide a VM for VS2008 ASP.NET development on Windows 7 for my Snow Leopard MBP.

I got the sales gumph today about going to v5 for massive performance gains (claimed 300%) increment, but this seems to be around graphics making me think the upgrade is more targetted at gaming etc which I'm not so fussed over.

Current performance gripes are the time to switch between OSX and the VM in full screen , and occassional appearance of coherence when it is most definitely off in my environment (which causes crawling performance for a few minutes occassionally). The VM is pretty pacy when it is running for me, it is pretty much impossible to tell it is running as a VM.

Any other Parallels users with a similar setup/requirements got any experience of v5 over v4 consider it a worthwhile upgrade given price c.£35/$50? Presumably the VMs created in 4 wouldn't have to be rebuilt for 5?

Thanks

[EDIT] I don't apply for the free grace period upgrade or discount on offer (purchases after 1 September 09), but some of you might... http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/popup/graceperiod/

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I have been a v1 Parallels user. I used v2 (and all the problems that came with it). I also tried VMware Fusion 1 (didn’t like it much, it was slower and I already had Parallels). Then VMware 2.x was out and Parallels 3 (and a mess with licenses appeared). I grew tired of Parallels and switched to VMware. It felt slower but was stable and people liked it.

I Ignored Parallels 4 (mainly because I was a happy VMware user and didn’t have time to switch back).

Now we have VMware 3.0 and Parallels 5. VMware 3.0 is nice, has nice features but also a boat of bugs and it doesn’t deliver what I expected. Unity is still slow as hell. I brought the upgrade from 2 to 3 mainly because I didn’t know Parallels had a 5.0 ready.

So I downloaded Parallels 5.0 to see if it was “as slow as Fusion”. I got shocked. It’s way faster. It has bugs. I’ve found a lot of small things. It’s a “.0” release. There are things that could be polished. But I’m seriously considering switching back to Parallels.

And I’m using converted VMs from VMware. When I get my W7 copy I’ll simply install the VM with Win7 + VS2008 + all the stuff I need to work. Given the mixed reviews I’ve seen, Parallels seems to be faster than VMware.

Now, Parallels 4 vs 5 seems to show (According to the forums) also an increase in performance.

There’s marketing. I mean, the engine is faster, surely, but there are also more controls for dynamic allocation of resources and idle when the machine is not doing anything, etc.

I personally can say that GDI+ (I work with .NET/C#/Winforms) and compilation of my project (about 22 big C# projects) is noticeable faster under Parallels. I run my SQL 2008 on a WinXP VM and running both VMs with parallels makes the APP react way faster. This is a perception as I didn’t conduct “tests” but I immediately saw the performance increase when I opened my VStudio inside Parallels, did a svn update and rebuilt.

Some people in twitter are reporting the same and some the opposite. I guess that you might want to check #parallels on twitter to see more “real time” info about either. It’s a mixed bag.

Coherence is > Unity in terms of how the windows move and feel. Also VMware 3 + Unity + Exposé = FAIL. The windows don’t show the content… in Parallels that works.

All in all, I’m happy with the Parallels trial (still a few days to go) and might go back to it.

I don’t know much about “gaming” in the VM as that’s now that I use it for. But Vista with AERO, feels snappier under Parallels.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

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