Centralized administration and management: Unified volume license key for mass deployment. To add Windows, Linux, or another operating system to your Mac, Parallels Desktop creates a virtual machine (VM) or a virtual copy of your current Windows PC inside your Mac. Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.x.
Parallels lets you run many different types of operating systems on your Mac. Because the developers knew that most Mac users will want to install at least a Windows OS, Parallels includes a Windows Express installation option that eliminates the need to babysit a Windows XP or Vista installation.
This guide will take you through the Windows Express installation, which creates a virtual machine on your Mac. We'll stop short of actually installing Windows, because the specific steps depend on whether you're installing Windows XP, Vista, Win 7, or Win 8.
What You Will Need
- Parallels Desktop for Mac v3.0 or later.
- The installation CDs for Windows XP or Vista.
- 20 GB free disk space. You can get by with less (I've performed an installation with as little as 8 GB of available disk space), but you'll appreciate the extra room if you later want to install more Windows applications or store larger Windows files than you originally intended.
- About an hour of free time, for the Windows Express setup and to actually install Windows.
The Parallels OS Installation Assistant
By default, Parallels uses the Windows Express installation option. This option creates a virtual machine with settings that will work just fine for most individuals. You can always customize the virtual machine parameters later if you need to.
The real advantage of Windows Express is that it's fast and easy; it does most of the work for you. It will collect most of the information that Windows needs by asking you some questions. Once you supply the answers, you can leave and then return to a fully installed version of Windows. This is a much more pleasant Windows installation than the standard. The downside is that the Windows Express method doesn't let you directly configure many settings, including type of network, memory, disk space, and other parameters, although you can always tweak these and other settings later.
Using the OS Installation Assistant
- Launch Parallels, usually located at /Applications/Parallels.
- Click the ‘New’ button in the Select a Virtual Machine window.
- Select the installation mode that you want Parallels to use.
- Windows Express (recommended)
- Typical
- Custom
- For this installation, select the Windows Express option and click the ‘Next’ button.
Configuring a Virtual Machine for Windows
Parallels needs to know which operating system you plan to install, so it can set the virtual machine parameters and collect the information necessary to automate the installation process.
Configure the Virtual Machine for Windows
- Select the OS type by clicking the dropdown menu and choosing Windows from the list.
- Select the OS version by clicking the dropdown menu and choosing Windows XP or Vista from the list.
- Click the ‘Next’ button.
Entering Your Windows Product Key and Other Configuration Information
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The Parallels Windows Express installation option is ready to collect some of the information it needs to automate the installation process.
Product Key, Name, and Organization
- Enter your Windows product key, which is usually located on the back of the Windows CD case or inside the Windows envelope. The dashes in the product key are entered automatically, so just enter the alphanumeric characters. Be careful not to lose the product key, because you may need it in the future if you need to reinstall Windows.
- Enter your name by using the alphanumeric keys and the space key. Do not use any special characters, including apostrophes.
- Enter your organization's name, if appropriate. This field is optional.
- Click the ‘Next’ button.
Name That Virtual Machine
It's time to specify a name for the virtual machine that Parallels is about to create. You can choose any name you like, but a descriptive name is usually best, particularly if you have multiple hard drives or partitions.
In addition to naming the virtual machine, you will also choose whether your Mac and the new Windows virtual machine should be able to share files.
Pick a Name and Make a Decision About Sharing Files
- Enter a name for Parallels to use for this virtual machine.
- Enable file sharing, if desired, by placing a check mark next to the 'Enable file sharing' option. This will let you share files in your Mac's home folder with your Windows virtual machine.
- Enable user profile sharing, if desired, by placing a check mark next to the ‘Enable user profile sharing’ option. Enabling this option allows the Windows virtual machine to access the files on your Mac desktop and in your Mac user folder. It's best to leave this file unchecked and manually create shared folders later on. This provides more protection for your files and lets you make file sharing decisions on a folder-by-folder basis.
- Click the ‘Next’ button.
Performance: Should Windows or OS X Get Top Billing?
At this point in the configuration process, you can decide whether to optimize the virtual machine you're about to create for speed and performance or allow applications to have dibs on your Mac's processor.
Decide How to Optimize Performance
- Select an optimization method.
- Virtual Machine. Choose this option for the best performance of the Windows virtual machine you're about to create.
- Mac OS X applications. Choose this option if you prefer your Mac applications to take precedence over Windows.
- Make your selection. I prefer the first option, to give the virtual machine the best performance possible, but the choice is yours. You can change your mind later if you decide that you made the wrong choice.
- Click the ‘Next’ button.
Start the Windows Installation
All of the options for the virtual machine have been configured, and you've supplied your Windows product key and your name, so you're ready to install Windows. I'll tell you how to start the Windows installation process below, and cover the rest of the process in another step-by-step guide.
Begin the Windows Installation
- Insert the Windows Install CD into your Mac's optical drive.
- Click the ‘Finish’ button.
Parallels will start the installation process by opening the new virtual machine you created, and booting it from the Windows Install CD. Follow the onscreen instructions to install Windows.
No 1U, two-socket rack server bests Apple Inc.'s Xserve in its price range. No two-socket Intel desktop can touch the MacBook Pro for its combination of durability, efficiency, expandability and quiet operation.
But while Apple's top-of-the-line server and desktop put the rest of the pack to shame, they have what some consider to be a showstopper shortcoming: They run Mac OS X. Now, to me, that's a major plus. The rest of the IT universe seems intent on running something else on its x86 servers, though, and as such, Apple's hardware is rarely on the table when it comes time to build a Windows or Linux server.
Thanks to Parallels, IT can put Apple hardware on its list with greater confidence. Parallels Server for Mac (which debuts as Version 3.0) opens Xserve and Mac Pro to 64-bit heterogeneous environments. This paves the way for server consolidation, security and testing isolation, and high availability, along with most other uses to which you'd normally put virtualization. Parallels Server for Mac uses the extremely efficient, hardware-accelerated virtualization engine proven in the Parallels Desktop product.
Unfortunately, Parallels Server for Mac both retains too much of its desktop heritage and pares off some desktop features that would have been welcome in Server. Its Management Console is only barely competent to manage multiple virtual machines, and it becomes unwieldy when those VMs are spread across multiple physical servers. Two Parallels Desktop features -- snapshot and direct disk partition access (implemented in Desktop for Apple's Boot Camp boot-to-Windows tool) -- looked ripe for adaptation to Server for Mac.
Parallels Server for Mac claims as its trump card the ability to run OS X Server as a guest of itself, but that turns out to be what Parallels Server for Mac does least well. OS X Server can't be installed from Parallels Management Console. Users who have been able to kludge their way into a running OS X guest report stability and performance problems that, so far, Parallels has not addressed with either a fix or concrete guidance in its knowledge base or forums.
I held this review for over a month to give Parallels a chance to work it out, but it didn't happen.
The lack of OS X guest support, stability and compatibility issues with Parallels Management Console, and the absence of storage and resource-allocation features that I expect from a server product lend Parallels Server for Mac a beta feel and make its $999 price tag seem too high by half.
Windows on Xserve
I tested Parallels Server for Mac on an eight-core Apple Xserve with 3TB of Serial ATA hard disk space, Apple's hardware RAID controller, and 8GB of RAM. In this configuration, I was able to run two instances of Windows Server 2008 and a virtual instance of OS X Leopard Server at the same time, allocating 1GB of RAM and 64GB of virtual drive space to each. I might have run one or two more VMs on this hardware, perhaps more if each instance had a fairly narrow workload assigned to it.
Performance is terrific. Running a single instance of Windows Server 2008 as a guest under OS X Leopard Server, Parallels Server for Mac delivers Windows server application performance that is functionally indistinguishable from native (nonvirtualized) operation. I've come to expect this from Parallels, whose Desktop product delivers similarly impressive performance.
I didn't get as much control over that performance as I require from server virtualization. By adjusting the number of virtual CPUs assigned to each guest operating system, I was able to crudely balance performance among guest VMs. A single opaque switch in Parallels Management Console claims to optimize overall performance to favor either the host or the guests. I prefer finer-grained resource allocation in the form of weighting, throttling or caps on CPU utilization.
A nice touch is the built-in console viewer, which displays Windows Server's Server Manager. However, it doesn't work with an OS X Server guest.
I expected storage performance to be an issue, but it turned out to be no issue at all. Windows Server 2008 x64 guests take off like sprinters, and even though Parallels Server for Mac has no mechanism for migrating running processes from one machine to another --you wouldn't expect it for $999 -- suspending and resuming a virtual machine takes only a few seconds.
That said, if you suspend a VM in the middle of a task that uses the real-time clock as a timer, you might not be able to resume cleanly. You also have the option of pausing a VM, which happens instantly, but unlike suspend, pause won't maintain the system's state if the host reboots.
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Parallels Server for Mac proved highly reliable. Except for VMs that wouldn't come out of suspend mode cleanly, I experienced no freezes or crashes of either a virtual machine or the host server.
Virtues of virtual storage
Virtual volumes have advantages that Parallels Server for Mac plays to a unique extent. Because virtual volumes can be located anywhere, Parallels Server for Mac can make your client's optical drive operate exactly like a drive attached directly to the server. You can create a new and completely uninitialized virtual machine, slide an operating system boot disc into the client machine you're using to manage the remote server, and the server will boot from it. This is similar to a feature inherent in OS X Leopard, but Parallels Management Console makes it much easier to use for remote server installs.
Using an included utility called Parallels Explorer, you can read or alter Parallels Server's virtual volumes while the virtual machine associated with that volume is offline. NTFS, FAT and Ext2/Ext3 file systems are supported. As a bonus, you can read and change Microsoft and VMware virtual volume images using the same tool. Parallels Explorer for Mac also lets you mount a Parallels virtual volume image as a local drive so that you can apply patches, add applications using install by copy and relocate system files without destabilizing a running VM.
Similarly, Parallels Server for Mac has cloning and templating features that allow you to create and tune one ideal operating system image and replicate it in full or create a template that applies that VM's configuration to a new install. Cloning a Windows Server operating system will trigger Microsoft's licensing tripwire, requiring a unique product key and activation. Microsoft Corp.'s permissive terms with regard to covering several Windows VMs with one license don't seem to apply when OS X Server is a host.
Parallels Desktop has the ability to mount and run using a bootable physical disk partition, as long as that partition was created by Apple's Boot Camp. Boot Camp is not an OS X Server feature, but Desktop's ability to use a natively bootable volume as virtual machine storage would have opened up some intriguing possibilities.
Virtually beta
Parallels Server for Mac's management front end will be familiar to Parallels Desktop users. In the Server version, you can manage guest virtual machine instances on remote systems. A detachable console window is built into the management interface, replacing Parallels Desktop's viewer, which required a user to be logged in. Parallels Server for Mac will launch one or more VMs at host startup and suspend them or shut them down when you shut down your Mac.
Parallels Management Console, which runs the same locally or remotely, presents a live view of the virtual guest's display. Unlike Remote Desktop or VNC (virtual network computing), Parallels Server has the advantage of bringing up the console the instant the VM 'powers up,' so the BIOS and kernel-loader text messages you'd see on a physical machine and monitor are sent over the wire. Parallels Server uses VNC for remote access to a VM, but according to Parallels, it isn't compatible with standard VNC implementations. If it were, the OS X guest problem would have an easier solution.
Parallels Server for Mac presents a mix of strengths and shortcomings that make it difficult for me to issue a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I definitely like the direction that Parallels is taking, especially with regard to Parallels Explorer and Parallels Server for Mac's handling of VMs at boot and shutdown. Parallels also offers a free software developer's kit for its Server product, providing IT with a chance to make up for some of what the core product lacks or to at least automate tasks that typically call for menus and wizards.
But OS X Server as a guest of OS X Server is a nonstarter, and that was unquestionably the most anticipated feature of Parallels Server for Mac. I was able to get a guest OS X Leopard Server VM to function by using a work-around posted by users in Parallels forums -- a work-around that a Parallels employee proved unaware of -- but the machinations required to make it go left me with a lack of confidence in the product. Parallels needs to take another swing at this and, in the meantime, drop the price on its current effort to offset the product's unfinished pieces.
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This story, 'Review: Parallels Server for Mac underwhelms' was originally published by InfoWorld.
Copyright © 2008 IDG Communications, Inc.