Anybody else find parallels is just 'flaky'?

So I'm using Parallels build 3186, full copy. It is beginning to strike me that it's actually pretty useless.

I suspect I forgave it its instability for a few weeks - it's a clever piece of software, but having just had the 3rd bluescreen this week, I'm pretty much convinced it's not very good at all.

- So far, it has never recognised any USB devices. I can't print, use a joystick, nothing. I have had to kid myself that's OK. I have OSX for printing.
- It gives bluescreens, or sometimes parallels itself just disappears in a puff of smoke.

Everything works fine on OSX, and on bootcamp, so I have to say it's parallels that's the problem.

Is it just me? Should I bother trying to fix it? I think I'm going to stick with bootcamp for my infrequent windows adventures.

jonnyd said:

So I'm using Parallels build 3186, full copy. It is beginning to strike me that it's actually pretty useless.

I suspect I forgave it its instability for a few weeks - it's a clever piece of software, but having just had the 3rd bluescreen this week, I'm pretty much convinced it's not very good at all.

- So far, it has never recognised any USB devices. I can't print, use a joystick, nothing. I have had to kid myself that's OK. I have OSX for printing.
- It gives bluescreens, or sometimes parallels itself just disappears in a puff of smoke.

Everything works fine on OSX, and on bootcamp, so I have to say it's parallels that's the problem.

Is it just me? Should I bother trying to fix it? I think I'm going to stick with bootcamp for my infrequent windows adventures.

Click to expand...

In a word, no. Once Parallels Tools (and therefore all of the drivers) are installed properly, stability is on par with any Windows machine. I have had a bluescreen on one occasion with a USB device (Elmo knows your name "cell phone" kid's toy that is programmed via USB). But I attributed that to bad drivers. Other than that, everything has been quite stable.

You might try updating it to version 3212, which i think is the last version before the new version 3.0 which just came out, that could help some of your problems.

Up till now there have been some driver problems that cause some people problems, and others none. I for example am one that has had no problems doing what i wanted, of course i don't really do much under windows, but my experience has been very good so far with Parallels.

I understand the new version 3 is suposed to be even better with better drivers and even some 3d games are suposed to work, but that is a money upgrade so i haven't tried it yet. Am waiting till the new OS X comes out and see what that has in it.

As far as the "blue screens" are concerned, how many of them were caused by Parallels and how many of them were just plain old everyday winders blue screens that you get even on a "windows machine"?