Parallels Desktop for Mac, by Parallels. And has been developed to consume 15–30% less power than previous versions. Version 4.0 is the first version of Parallels Desktop that supports both 32-bit and 64-bit guest operating systems. Since the Version 4.0 release, Parallels Desktop for Mac has a new logo. Hi, I have a mac and a very old version of Parallels (version 4.0). My Parallels Desktop won't open after I tried to install a student version of Simply Accounting.

Parallels on Tuesday unveiled Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0, the next major version of the company’s virtualization platform for Intel-based Macs. The new version introduces over 50 features and enhancements, including the ability to run Leopard Server in a virtual machine.

Improvements in the new version include speed boosts that the company says are up to 50 percent faster than the previous version of Parallels. In fact, making the application faster was one of the most requested features from its users and something the company focused a significant amount of time doing.

New features like the Adaptive Hypervisor allow Parallels to intelligently load balance the processes between the Mac OS and Virtual Machine. Monitor for mac mini. The virtualization engine itself has also been reworked to consume 15-30 percent less resources than it did before.

Graphics performance has been improved with added support for support for DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0.

Further improving the speed of Parallels, users can now dedicate eight CPUs and 8GB RAM to each virtual machine. Of course, the amount of resources that you can give to each virtual machine depends on the amount of physical resources you have available.

A new viewing mode called Modality allows users to set the transparency of the guest operating system, so you can view the activity of a virtual machine while in the background. Coherence has been updated as well. Now when you switch to Coherence, the Windows taskbar items move to the Mac’s menubar, so you always have access to them.

Virtual machines can now be started in Safe Mode. Everything will run exactly the same as it would if you started the machine normally except the changes you make while running in Safe Mode are not saved. This is handy if you are running beta software and something goes wrong. If everything worked okay, you do have the option of saving the changes when you stop the virtual machine and exit Safe Mode.

Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac is available immediately and costs $79.99. Current Parallels Desktop users can upgrade their existing software for $39.99. Users that purchased version 3.0 on or after September 1, 2008, qualify for a free upgrade to version 4.0.

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Parallels Desktop for Mac
Stable release
Developer(s)	Parallels
Operating system	Mac OS X
Platform	Apple–Intel architecture
Available in	English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Polish, Czech
Type	Hypervisor
License	Proprietary
Website	www.parallels.com/desktop/

Parallels Desktop for Mac, by Parallels, is software providing hardware virtualization for Macintosh computers with Intel processors.

1Overview
2Version 2.5
3Version 3.0
4Version 4.0
5Version 5
- 5.1Feature update
15Supported operating systems

Overview[edit]

Parallels, Inc. is a developer of desktop and server virtualization software.

Historical[edit]

Released on June 15, 2006, it was the first software product to bring mainstream virtualization to Macintosh computers utilizing the Apple–Intel architecture (earlier software products ran PC software in an emulated environment).

Its name initially was 'Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X', which was consistent with the company's corresponding Linux and Windows products; this name was not well received within the Mac community, where some felt that the name, particularly the term “workstation,” evoked the aesthetics of a Windows product. Parallels agreed: “Since we've got a great Mac product, we should make it look and sound like a Mac product..”, it was therefore renamed ‘Parallels Desktop for Mac’.^[1]

On January 10, 2007, Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac was awarded “Best in Show” at MacWorld 2007.^[2]

Technical[edit]

Parallels Desktop for Mac is a hardware emulation virtualization software, using hypervisor technology that works by mapping the host computer's hardware resources directly to the virtual machine's resources; each virtual machine thus operates identically to a standalone computer, with virtually all the resources of a physical computer.^[3] Because all guest virtual machines use the same hardware drivers irrespective of the actual hardware on the host computer, virtual machine instances are highly portable between computers. For example, a running virtual machine can be stopped, copied to another physical computer, and restarted.

Parallels Desktop for Mac is able to virtualize a full set of standard PC hardware, including^[4]

A virtualized CPU of the same type as the host's physical processor,
ACPI compliance system,
A generic motherboard compatible with the Intel i965 chipset,
Up to 64 GB of RAM for guest virtual machines,
Up to 2 GB of video RAM (VRAM),
VGA and SVGAvideo adapter with VESA 3.0 support and OpenGL and DirectX 10.1 acceleration,
A 1.44 MB floppy drive, which can be mapped to a physical drive or to an image file,
Up to four IDE devices. This includes virtual hard drives ranging in size from 20 MB to 2 TB each and CD/DVD-ROM drives. Virtual CD/DVD-ROM drives can be mapped to either physical drives or ISO image files.
DVD/CD-ROM “pass-through” access,
Up to four serial ports that can be mapped to a pipe or to an output file,
Up to three bi-directional parallel ports, each of which can be mapped to a real port, to a real printer, or to an output file,
An Ethernet virtual network card compatible with Realtek RTL8029(AS), capable of up to 16 network interface connections,
Up to eight USB 2.0 devices and two USB 1.1 devices,
An AC'97-compatible sound card.
A 104-key Windows enhanced keyboard and a PS/2 wheel mouse.

Version 2.5[edit]

The first official release of version 2.5 was on February 27, 2007, as build 3186.

Version 2.5 brought support for USB 2.0 devices, which expanded the number of USB devices supported at native speed, including support for built-in iSight USB webcams. The amount of video RAM allocated to the guest OS was made adjustable, up to 32MB. Full featured CD/DVD drives arrived in this version, which allowed the user to burn disks directly in the virtual environment, and play any copy-protected CD or DVD as one would in Mac OS X. In addition, a shared clipboard and drag-drop support between Mac OS X and the guest OS was implemented; this version brought the ability for users with a Windows XP installation to upgrade to Windows Vista from within the VM environment.^[5] A new feature known as Coherence was added, which removed the Windows chrome, desktop, and the virtualization frames to create a more seamless desktop environment between Windows and Mac OS X applications. This version also allowed users to boot their existing Boot Camp Windows XP partitions, which eliminated the need to have multiple Windows installations on their Mac. A tool called Parallels Transporter was included to allow users to migrate their Windows PC, or existing VMware or Virtual PC VMs to Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Netsys lawsuit[edit]

In 2007, the German company Netsys GmbH sued Parallels' German distributo

Parallels Desktop 4.0 For Mac Old Version