Product Reviews

Parallels Desktop, the application that allows Windows to run alongside Mac OS X on Intel-based Macs, is about to reach version 3, the next milestone in its development. We tested a prerelease version of Parallels Desktop 3 on the kind of Mac this is likely to be used on: a late-2006 MacBook Pro with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processor and the regular 128MB Radeon X1600 graphics chipset. To help things along a bit, we also fitted the test Mac with the maximum 3GB of Ram, which is a relatively inexpensive upgrade these days.

Installing Parallels is simple, and it segued into our separate Windows Vista installation very smoothly. Configuring the virtual machine was also a no-brainer, although we weren't allowed to assign more than 924MB of our Mac's available Ram, despite having plenty in hand and a maximum of 1500MB shown in Parallel's configuration options.

One of the big steps forward with Parallels 3 is its support for 3D hardware. This is supposed to make it a much more attractive proposition for gaming, so this was one area we wanted to examine in detail. We weren't able to run the popular 3DMark 06 Windows benchmarking software, but CineBench ran without problems and allowed us to make direct comparisons with native Mac performance as well.

The results weren't actually anything to write home about. Despite Parallels itself being able to take advantage of the dual-core processor in the MacBook Pro, Windows only sees one CPU. CineBench itself didn't run terribly quickly despite its ability to work with the 3D hardware, turning in a CB rating of 352 for CineBench shading, and 702 and 389 for OpenGL software and hardware rendering. The Mac version of CineBench produced scores of 415, 1647 and 3040 respectively, on the same machine. Parallels does take advantage of 3D hardware, but it looks like it struggles to make the most of what's available.

Coherence

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is as magical as ever, allowing Windows applications to run as individual movable windows rather than locked into one container, placing them almost on a par with your normal Mac OS application windows. The Windows task bar can be automatically moved to just below the Mac OS menu bar, out of the way of the Dock, and the Coherence 'working area' can handle multiple displays.

The new Snapshot feature is a real boon. This enables you to store a copy of a virtual machine's state, ready to be restored if you happen to develop problems. A new snapshot can be made at any time and the Snapshot Manager helps manage multiple saved snapshots. You can use different snapshots; switching to an earlier one doesn't mean throwing away any other stored snapshots. This means that you can, in effect, maintain multiple versions of the same installation of Windows, the same 'virtual machine', and switch between them at will.

As far as Windows software is concerned, it's running on a regular PC. Viruses are in the same boat, so you don't need to worry about a Windows virus - of which there are countless thousands - taking over the Mac OS. However, they're still as dangerous as ever to your Windows installation, and as Parallels' Global Sharing option can allow full access to your entire Mac file system, it would be foolish to ignore the possibility of malicious code blindly trashing documents in your Mac.

The release candidate of Parallels Desktop 3 included Kapersky Internet Security software, a well-known toolkit that helps protect against the myriad threats that exist for Windows. In addition, if you use Windows Vista, it includes a number of security features, from Windows Defender to the generic (and often annoying) security checkpoints that can block the simplest of operations, 'just in case'.

This prerelease version of Parallels wasn't without its rough edges. For example, we found that it would sometimes shut itself down without warning, which was problematic when it happened in the middle of software installation or using a program. It occasionally threw a kernel panic, too, which was a little more serious. As it stands, although it's a stunning product, this isn't something we'd feel comfortable using for real work. We would normally expect these problems to be eliminated by this 'release candidate' stage. Of course, the company still has time to make those last-minute tweaks before launching the finished product. Our rating assumes that it does.