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On the heels of Apple's launch of the Intel Mac, a company called Parallels captured the spotlight with an eponymous product that does for Mac OS X what VMware Workstation did for the Windows and Linux world -- full-blown hardware virtualization in a workstation package running natively on the Mac OS. Parallels allowed less-than-satisfied Windows users to jump to the Mac and to take their Windows applications with them. Windows-only applications and games were no longer a sticking point.
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[ Video: Windows on Mac with Parallels 3.0 ]
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Snapshot support is almost a given in any virtualization platform now because the ability to freeze a virtual system at any given point in time and reset to that known-good point has become one of the major drivers of virtualization adoption. For instance, taking a snapshot right before installing a service pack or significant update permits nearly instant recovery when things go south. As a time-saving mechanism, this is nearly second to none.
The new Parallels Explorer in Parallels Desktop 3.0 is also handy. Rather than booting a guest OS to retrieve a few files stored on the virtual disk, this utility opens the virtual disk's file system and allows drag and drop copying from OS X to the guest file system and vice versa. The security manager is also a nice new feature, permitting more granular control over which devices are visible to the guest OS and what level of file sharing is permitted.
For many users, the best new feature in Parallels Desktop 3.0 will be the hardware-accelerated 3D graphics support. This is the Holy Grail for Mac-longing gaming users held hostage by Windows boxes because the focus of their gaming addiction runs only on Windows. Dual-booting with Boot Camp is an option, but it's far more convenient to run a virtual system. Prior to this release, direct access to the graphics card within the host Mac wasn't possible, so frame rates on games and other graphics-intensive applications suffered greatly. Parallels Desktop 3.0 provides direct access to the GPU, meaning that OpenGL and DirectX software not only runs in a Windows VM, they run fast.
VMs of no return
I installed Parallels Desktop 3.0 on my trusty 17-inch MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and the 5400 RPM 160GB disk. Because I had a previous version of Parallels installed, I was warned that updating would require updating my VMs too and that the VMs would no longer be compatible with older versions of Parallels Desktop. Otherwise, the installation was extremely fast.
Following the required reboot, I launched the new version and opened an existing Windows XP VM. The conversion process took only a few seconds, and then the VM booted. Immediately after logging in, the Parallels Tools installation wizard launched and installed all the necessary drivers in the VM. After that, the VM rebooted, and all was well. The new driver set is undoubtedly due to the new direct access graphics features of Parallels Desktop 3.0 as well as updates to the other drivers for the mouse, file sharing, and so on. From an end-user's standpoint, I noticed no difference in the way the Windows XP VM functioned, other than it seemed a bit speedier, and the boot time was reduced by roughly 20 percent. I do have to note that the simple drag-and-resize feature is extremely handy. Rather than mess around with screen resolution settings within the VM, simply dragging the edge of the VM window resizes the VM desktop on the fly -- very cool.
Paul Venezia is senior contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center.
