JOELLEVIN  Please please please make a new application icon. The current one hurts my sanity.  
(Version 4.0.3846)

IGREG  I am not having any serious trouble with the application, but their support system stinks. It is impersonal and unusable for me. I even tried to post in their forums but their site seems to have a dual login process and it is only partially working for me. I login Parallels site, but then when I try to login to be able to post in their forums I get a weird message that my User Name already exists. Well no kidding, it is me. Why will their site let me login to their site and even see my account info but not let me post in their forums?

Because of poor support I can only give an overall Neutral rating and neither recommend or not recommend Parallels.  
(Version 4.0.3846)

JIMW  In regards to the 3848 update I plan to take a "wait and see" approach to it for at least a month. Right now my previous update is running just fine thank-you on 10.6.1 after many hours of frustration and anguish over its installation along with the well documented abysmal support that the company provides as indicated in other messages on this forum.Historlly the majority of Parallels updates have been problematic for me and others. My personal view is that it stems from a lack of effectiveness and professionalism in their QA procedures.

Judging from the description and lack of meaningful information as to precisely what was changed or fixed, I get the impression the the primary change was in the area of performance. For that I can wait a bit, rather than potentially wasting my entire weekend struggling with this update.

Hopefully I am wrong about my concerns for this update and that others, braver than I, will report back exclaiming how easy and free of problems this update was and how Parallels provided phenomenal support for any issues.

However if history is a good predictor of future results - I don't think so.

Please Parallels - Prove me wrong!  
(Version 4.0.3848)

CARLOS-SZ  I have an iMac 20”, 2.66 GHz, 4 GB RAM and an ATI video card. I purchased VMware 3 due Windows 7 Aero support (I need Aero due a software I develop). It works but a bit slow and with some screen flickering (e.g. when open Windows start menu or playing with iTunes 9). Now I’m trying Parallels 5 and I imported my Windows 7 VM from VMware. Everything works faster and without any screen flickering. I’m impressed how better Parallels is in my iMac and I’ll probably ended up purchasing it.  
(Version 5.0.9220.531002)

KENTR  Version 5 is the best version to date and still leaves the competition behind.

This is the smoothest, fastest most compatible version yet. Crystal mode is great, it's like you're not even using Windows. I like the new Mac Theme look, it reminds me of a theme from the old Kaleidoscope program. It changes all Windows screens and folders to be more Mac-like. Being able to switch views just by clicking the top left corner of the screen is brilliant. This version is more polished than previous versions.

Just to be fair I have tried the new demo of Fusion and it still cannot even run some of the simplest games and programs. The programs either crash or the graphics are slow and choppy. The thing that sets Parallels 5 from all others is compatibility. It has been able to run just about every program and game that I've thrown at it.

Parallels has this virtualization thing down.

I will be upgrading to version 5.  
(Version 5.0.9220.531002)

HAMMO  As usual for me, this Parallels upgrade has been very smooth and I'm already seeing a general improvement in the functionality and speed. Been using the product since first release without any of the incidents that seem to have plagued others.   
(Version 5.0.9220.531002)

DONPERREAULT  I commented earlier about how I thought Parallels upgrade price was high.

I just read for "Customers who purchased Parallels Desktop 4 for Mac on or after October 1st, 2009 are eligible for a free upgrade to the new version." That means if you spent $79.95 on Sept 31st, 2009 for Parallels, you would have to fork over another $50.00 to get the upgrade. That is sad!  
(Version 5.0.9220.531002)

US8  If you are looking for a dead simple yet high-performance way to run MS Windows on your Mac look no further than Parallels 4.0.

The installation experience could not have been easier or faster and the my Macbook Pro is simply the fastest Windows machine I have ever run.

As a web / software developer and MSDN subscriber, I need to use best of breed applications, regardless of the OS they were designed. I'm always running a mix of Mac and PC apps simultaneously. Right now here's what's open and running - Entourage, Photoshop CS3 (Mac), Expression 2, Transmit, Text Wrangler, Skype, Adium, MS Word, MS Excel, iPhoto, iTunes, Safari 4.0.2, IE8, Firefox Mac and PC (with loads of tabs open on all of them), MS RDC and Flash.

Before Parallels, I had to jump back and forth from Mac to PC all throughout the day. Now 95%, of everything I regularly need to do, I now do on one machine with Mac and PC application working seamlessly side by side.

I can't speak for others, but my 4.0 install is rock solid with none of the ill effects reported with coherence locking up or jagged dragging or any such thing. Just pure virtual OS goodness in every byte.

While I've got a Macbook Pro4,1 with 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM and OS X 10.5.7.

Of course, ymmv. But I wouldn't think by very much.

Good luck to you!

--kenn  
(Version 4.0.3844)

MARCO2600  Really happy with this program. I think it's a little better than VMWare IMO. I couldn't get COHERENCE mode working under VMware..

The price was right with the mupromo deal!  
(Version 4.0.3844)

MIKEDFUNK  I used Parallels at work to simply debug web apps in Internet Explorer. I have a Mac Pro 2 x 2.66 Ghz with 3 GB ram with the latest leopard install. I had MAJOR problems with Parallels 4. When I left it running beyond when my computer went to sleep I would get an unresponsive machine after a while and would restart. When I restarted my user account would not show up in the login options.

The first time this happened I did a time machine restore, losing some work in the process and taking valuable time out of my day. The second time I realized there was a problem with time machine and it hadn't backed up in ages. Turns out my user folder was still there but it had been "un-blessed" and was not showing up in the list of users. I couldn't even log in as a guest user, the option was missing from the login screen. I eventually found a way to create a new user with a command in single user mode I found on the web and transferred all my files to the new user account.

Before you attribute the problem to something else understand I am careful to keep up with maintenance and run a lean, minimal system. I run Onyx regularly, zap pram regularly. The only thing I run in my menubar is SoundSource. I update Leopard every time an update is released. I had Windows XP installed with all the updates available and ran that the same way.

I have since ditched Parallels in favor of Virtual Box. It runs well on my machine and has almost all of the features of Parallels but for FREE. Coherence, shared networking, saved machine state, file sharing between machines, even cmd-c and cmd-v work. Parallels not only jacked my machine twice but it was also slow and buggy. Sometimes the save state file would get corrupted. Early on in v3 I tried to use parallels with the boot camp partition - that was a nightmare too. It didn't save the machine state and often wouldn't even start up. The coherence mode always had choppy dragging of windows and still does. I gave Parallels a fair shot with versions 2, 3, and 4 and finally got sick and tired of the slow startup even with a saved state, spinning beach ball, and eventually it destabilizing my entire system. I would not use Parallels now even if it was free.  
(Version 4.0.3844)