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Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (Intel Mac)

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From: Nova Development
Category: Software

List Price: ~~$79.99~~
Buy New: $60.49
You Save: $19.50 (24%)

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

241 reviews
Sales Rank: 20

Format: Cd
Platform: Mac Os X Intel
Media: CD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Mac OS X Intel
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 1.5 x 7.5 x 5.2
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.

MPN: 100722
Model: 23707
UPC: 727298404005
EAN: 0727298404005
ASIN: B000GHIV2Q

Release Date: July 17, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Features:

•	Run Windows and Mac OS applications in a single integrated environment, or mount Your Windows File System and access its files and folders directly from Mac OS
•	Windows Start Menu Integration--Click the Parallels icon in the Dock to show the Windows Start Menu
•	Support for OS X Leopard--Full support for Apple's next generation operating system when it ships
•	Open documents in Mac OS or Windows using any available Mac OS or Windows application
•	OpenGL 1.5 / DirectX 8.1 Support--Run supported games and 3D applications at native speed in Windows

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
The first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as Mac OS X--without rebooting--on any Intel-powered iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro.

The killer app for Mac is now even better than ever!
Parallels Desktop for Mac enables you to run Windows, Linux, and more side-by-side with Mac OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, without rebooting. With Parallels' award-winning virtualization technology, you can run Mac OS X and your favorite Windows applications at the same time. You can even drag-and-drop files between desktops!

The latest release of Parallels Desktop for Mac comes packed with 50+ new features and enhancements, including SmartSelect, Snapshots, and 3D graphics. Learn more about the new capabilities in the latest release of our award-winning product.

Top 5 reasons to run Parallels:
	Run Windows-only applications on your Mac. Many of today's most popular applications are windows-only. Parallels enables you to run these applications on your Mac. Play computer games? Most PC games only run on Windows. With Parallels, you no longer have to sacrifice your favorite games!
	Run Selected 3D Games and Applications. OpenGL and DirectX support lets you explore a whole new world of 3D games and applications right on your Mac.
	Use any phone, MP3 player, and camera with your Mac. With Parallels, you can use your favorite devices, even if they're Windows-only. Connect your Blackberry, phone, camera, and MP3 player to your Mac!
	Run OS X, Windows, and Linux at the same time. With Parallels, you can run all of your favorite applications at the same time, regardless of the OS! No more rebooting to switch between OSes to use the applications you need.
	No-worry migrations! Parallels Transporter takes the hassle out of migration. No more losing valuable data, customizing your computer all over again, or reinstalling software. In just a few simple steps, you can move your entire existing Windows system to your new Mac.

With the latest version of Parallels, you can:

Use Windows and Mac OS X at the same time... without rebooting
Run Windows programs like native Mac applications with Parallels Coherence
New! Open Windows files with Mac programs and Mac files in Windows programs with Parallels SmartSelect
Share files and folders between Windows and Mac OS X
New! Browse through Windows folders and access files without launching Windows with Parallels Explorer
New! Run today's most popular PC games on a Mac with support for 3D graphics
Achieve maximum performance by leveraging Intel Virtualization Technology
New! Protect your Windows with Parallels Snapshots
Migrate your entire existing PC to your Mac with Parallels Transporter

Coherence
With Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac, you can run Windows applications like they were native to your Mac! Experience the new Coherence mode to enjoy the benefits of both operating systems, without managing two desktops. In Parallels Desktop 3.0, Coherence has been enhanced to make running both operating systems simultaneously even easier and more user-friendly.

Enjoy the benefits of both operating systems, without managing two desktops.

Using Parallels Desktop 3.0's Coherence, you can:

Navigate Windows using the Windows taskbar directly on your Mac desktop
Hide the Windows taskbar until you need it
Launch your favorite Windows applications and access the Windows Start menu straight from your Mac Dock
Use your Windows applications right on your Mac desktop, without resizing Windows itself
Manage your open documents and files on the Windows taskbar while enjoying your favorite Mac Dock applications at the same time
View Windows applications in Dock at your convenience! Choose your level of integration from Never, Always, and Only in Coherence.
Maintain seamless access to all of your Windows and Mac documents, files, applications, hardware, and devices, making your user environment truly hassle-free
Drag-and-drop files and folders instantly between Windows and Mac OS X
Choose the best application for your needs, without flipping from one operating system to another
Prefer Coherence over managing two desktops? Boot your virtual system to Coherence at startup, and truly avoid switching between operating systems.
Mount your Windows operating system directly on your Mac desktop and enjoy instant access to all of your files, regardless of their OS Enjoy two operating systems while managing only one desktop. Coherence eliminates your having to switch between operating systems to enjoy your favorite Windows and Mac applications. You can almost forget that you're running two OSes!

Transporter
Transporter is a powerful tool that enables you to migrate your entire PC system to a Parallels virtual machine. Migrate your entire PC system, including operating system, applications, files, and personal settings--without losing data or reinstalling any software.

NEW! Now you can convert VMware Workstation/Server and Virtual PC virtual hard disks to a Parallels virtual machine AND migrate directly to your Mac using FireWire!

Transporter enables you to migrate your entire PC system to a Parallels virtual machine. View the demo.

Supported OSes
Transporter--the application that creates Parallels virtual machines:

* Windows 2000
* Windows XP
* Windows 2003
* Windows Vista
* Mac OS X
* Linux

Transporter Agent--the provider which enables online migration of Windows PC:

* Windows 2000
* Windows XP
* Windows 2003

Installation Assistant built-in tool
Thanks to Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac's Installation Assistant, installing Windows on your Mac is now even easier than installing it on a PC! This new built-in tool is already included in Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac.

How does it work?
With a powerful, easy to use "Express Windows OS Installation Mode" for Windows Vista and Windows XP, the Installation Assistant completely automates the virtual machine setup and installation of Windows--with almost no user interaction.

Start taking advantage of running Windows on your Mac in just three easy steps:

Select which Windows operating system you want to install,
Enter your name, company and Windows activation key,
Click finish--and let the Installation Assistant do the rest!

You do not need to enter any additional information, select settings, or answer any potentially confusing technical questions. This built-in tool automatically completes the full installation in a pre-designed virtual machine.

After Windows is installed, the Installation Assistant automatically installs Parallels Tools, a free set of useful add-ons that improve networking, video, and sound support, syncs mouse activity and OS system clocks, and enables you to cut, copy, and paste of data, as well as file sharing, between Windows and OS X.

Need to run other operation systems on your Mac?
The Installation Assistant provides improved and user-friendly setup for other versions of Windows, plus any Linux distribution, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, and MS-DOS.

NOTE! If you are already using Parallels Desktop for Mac, updating Parallels Desktop 3.0 does not require a reinstall of any guest operating systems or applications. After updating, you should only reinstall Parallels Tools.

SmartSelect enables Mac users to open any Windows or Mac file with whichever software they choose.

View the SmartSelect demo!

SmartSelect
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac's new SmartSelect enables Mac users to open any Windows or Mac file with whichever software they choose--regardless of its original OS! Now you can open Windows files with any Mac software and Mac files with any Windows software.

With support in both Windows and Mac OS X and deep document, email, and web-browser integration between the two operating systems, Parallels Desktop 3.0's SmartSelect frees you to choose the best software for the job, without interrupting your workflow.

Previously, Parallels Desktop users had to copy a file into either Windows or Mac OS X to open the file with the application they wanted. Now, in Parallels Desktop 3.0, you can open any file from either OS and view it with the software of your choice.

With SmartSelect, you can:

View and edit a file with any compatible PC or Mac software available on your Intel Mac
Set file-associations to open a file-type with specific Mac or PC software
Set SmartSelect software settings "on the fly" or as the default

Imagine being able to double-click on a text document in Mac Finder and immediately launch Microsoft Word in Windows. Or synchronizing your digital life by playing all the MP3s in your music library with Mac iTunes--even if the files are located in Windows.

Parallels Desktop 3.0's SmartSelect goes beyond document integration. It also supports email and web browsing. Immediately view a PPT file a colleague sent you in Apple Mail using Windows PowerPoint. Click on any hyperlink in an email or document and have your default web-browser--such as Apple's Safari or Microsoft's Internet Explorer--launch. With SmartSelect, the possibilities are endless.

Snapshots enables you to erase mistakes and recover your virtual machine from system crashes and viruses with the click of a button.

View the Snapshot demo.

Snapshots
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac's new Snapshots enables you to erase mistakes and recover your virtual machine from system crashes and viruses with the click of a button. Enjoy peace of mind with Parallels Desktop 3.0's Snapshots.

A complete record of your virtual machine at the state it was created--OS, data, software, and settings--Parallels Desktop 3.0's Snapshots enables you to quickly and easily create and save multiple snapshots, even while your virtual machine is running.

In the event a virus or a Windows system crash, you can conveniently rollback your virtual machine to any previously saved state with all of your data and software intact. (As opposed to losing all of your data and reinstalling Windows and all your PC software.) Additionally, periodically creating a set of backups facilitates faster recovery time to get back on your feet, if disaster strikes.

With Parallels Desktop 3.0's Snapshot Manager, you can manage and view all of your snapshots in a tree pane that includes screen shots for each snapshot. Snapshot Manager enables you to revert back to previous snapshots, delete snapshots, and edit description information for each snapshot.

Snapshots are excellent for:

Bulletproofing your Windows virtual machine from viruses and spyware
Creating a regularly scheduled backup to revert your virtual machine to any previous stable state
Rolling back your virtual machine after a software update, system crash, or software testing

In an unpredictable world, Parallels Desktop 3.0's Snapshots safeguards your data and creates a more reliable virtual machine so you can focus on more important things.

Access your Windows files and folders directly from your Mac desktop without even launching Windows using Parallels Explorer.

View the Explorer demo.

Parallels Explorer
Just need that one document? Where did that pdf go? Thanks to Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac's new Parallels Explorer, now you can access your Windows files and folders directly from your Mac desktop, without even launching Windows. With a deeper integration between Mac OS X and Windows, Parallels Desktop 3.0 makes it even easier to run Windows on your Mac.

Using Parallels Desktop 3.0's Explorer, you can:

Access your Windows files and documents directly from your Mac Desktop
Browse your Windows system directly on your Mac Dock
Maintain access to your important Windows documents, even if the virtual machine crashes
Drag-and-drop files and folders between Windows and OS X
Save time with direct access to all of your critical files, without having to wait for your virtual machine to start and Windows to boot
Create and delete files in your Windows system "on the fly"
Troubleshoot your Windows system for tricky file errors and deleted folders
...all without even launching Windows.

Enjoy two operating systems while managing only one desktop. Parallels Explorer eliminates your having to wait for your virtual machine to start and Windows to boot just to access your key Windows files, folders, and documents. Running Windows and Mac has never been easier!

3D Graphics
NEW! Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac now supports DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.5! No need to dedicate a separate Windows machine to running favorite 3D games and key graphics applications. Parallels Desktop 3.0 now brings the world of Windows 3D straight to your Mac like never before!

With Parallels Desktop 3.0, you can:

Play Windows-only 3D games, such as Half-Life, World of Warcraft, and Unreal Tournament
Render in complex 3D CAD programs such as AutoCAD 2008
Work with CPU-intensive video and sound editing software such as Sony Vegas
Run mission-critical 3D applications on your Mac
Enjoy your favorite Windows-only games and graphics applications directly in your Windows virtual machine at full native speed--without rebooting

By including deep support for both DirectX and OpenGL, Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac brings a world of Windows-only key productivity and entertainment software to Mac users for the first time. Now you can truly experience the best of both worlds on one machine!

Customer Reviews: Read 236 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Idea; Abysmal Performance July 4, 2008
David Feinstein (Ashland, OR United States)
Do not be fooled by the professional reviewers. Parallels 3 is a disaster for the average user. While they've got a lot right, the glitches are killers. My experience has been to put dozens of hours into attempting to get it to work correctly and finally having to abandon it due to regular crashes, difficulties using standard peripherals, and networking problems.

The promise of Parallels is compelling -- to be able to run Mac and Windows programs seamlessly on a Mac. It was this assurance, backed by positive magazine reviews, that I made the ultimately disastrous mistake when my wife and I recently needed new laptops of switching from PC to Mac.

For starters, Parallels is hardly easy or intuitive to set up. Phone tech support is $30 a pop (or by e-mail, where the answers are pat and do not adequately address your specific situation, and the lag time has averaged more than a week, not the promised 3 days, totally hanging me up several times). I am a relatively sophisticated user, but after exhausting every resource available to me (including paid tech support) and squandering many dozens of hours, the program still crashes my MacBook Pro or my wife's Airbook or turns the screen to gibberish (the only way out is to reboot, often losing the most recent data). We cannot get peripherals such as printers or external drives or external monitors to run reliably on both the Mac and Windows sides; same with networking, rendering the program worse than useless.

I sent an earlier draft of this review to Mr. John Rhoades, Director of Operations, hoping to get a rebuttal and to be shown how to overcome the glitches. He informed me that "threatening Parallels with 'bad mouthing' and poor reviews is a poor way to get our attention." Fair enough. However, as I wrote to him, I was not writing in the spirit of threatening, but simply "trying to determine if the program can run standard Windows programs and peripherals without undue problems, and if it can't (even though the company leads the customer to believe that it can), to responsibly warn fellow users to not expect that it can."

I offered to have their tech support team show me how to work out the problems, demonstrating that the program works as advertised. They did not respond again, which I assume means that they were not confident that they could work out the problems since the mention of a negative review did get their attention. My uses are fairly standard. No 3-D games, no video editing; just Office for Windows (I like it a lot more than Office for Mac), a windows e-mail program that has no equivalent in Mac, web surfing, and a few add-ons like a good thesaurus.

The current version is 3.0. My advice: wait for Ver 5, and only if they institute free tech support for the first month while you are setting it all up. Meanwhile, I am resorting to Boot Camp and the inconvenience of reboots to move between OS X and XP. Unexpected crashes and the inability to use peripherals are far more inconvenient.

1 out of 5 stars

Parallels 3.0 not so hot June 25, 2008
Robert Cohen (Southeast PA)
Parallels installed without difficulty on my iMac Leopard, but after that, the trouble began. Peripherals and downloads proved difficult, if not impossible. I was so turned off, I uninstalled it and went back to Boot Camp. My Windows xp works fine now, and so does my Leopard.

4 out of 5 stars

Great when it works June 18, 2008
J. Ball (Chicago, IL)
Easy installation and it runs better than my old Windows machine. However, I have a brand new Mac and it is quriky about opening, sometimes refusing for several tries. Overall, it makes the Windows on Mac experience just great.

5 out of 5 stars

I don't need my old PC anymore! June 16, 2008
David J. Metzger
I was little concerned about the performance and stability of this product with reviews I've read online. I agree that for most games it simply will not work yet, but if you are just looking for a business applications solution, this works fantastic. I set it up to work with my Boot Camp partition so that way I can reboot into Windows when necessary to play games (such as Gametap). Otherwise, I can use my regular business applications while in MAC OS. So far I've used Microsoft Office 2007 and Money 2007 without issue. It's very responsive and I love the coherence mode.

3 out of 5 stars

A lot of work June 16, 2008
Jamey Key (Dallas, TX USA)
This is not an extensive review, so by all means read the others. I rarely have a need to run a Windows application. I don't even like seeing the desktop and on a Mac it's just plain wrong. Parallels 3 is a pretty good add-on if you do need an occasional Windows app. I use a first gen MacBook Pro 1.83 Core Duo and it had 1 GB of memory at the time. It ran slow but thats not a big deal. It kept getting errors to the point that it wouldnt open and I have reinstalled a couple of times. I'm tired of doing that. Also, I got in a bind and purchased a tech support call. You go thru a third party type process to pay for it and at the end it dumps you out in the street. IT DOESNT TELL YOU HOW TO CONTACT SUPPORT AND USE THE CALL YOU JUST PAID FOR. Of course no one called me back and I had to send several emails just to ask them how to use the paid tech support call. This is bad bad business and is downright immoral. They finally called me back and acted like it was no big deal. The call solved my problem - for a while. Currently its not working.

All in all, when it does work, it does it's job. I just wish I could keep it working. Maybe the next version will be better. The support alone should give it a one star, but I'm feeling generous and want the product to succeed. It's kind of like a bathroom plunger. It's disgusting to use but sometimes you have to. The handle on this one is too short.