Customer Reviews

Parallels Desktop 5.0 for Mac

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

I used this and used VMWare Fusion 3. Both have issues. But Parallels has fewer deal breaking issues. So I chose Parallels. I use a 13" MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard. I run Windows 7 in the VM. Here are my findings:

Parallels 5

Pros: Fast, rock solid

Cons: Windows Manager (which manages the Aero interface) keeps crashing under 2 CPU configuration. So Aero is really usable under 1 CPU configuration. Windows 7 cannot even run all the tests to calculate the Windows Experience Index with 2 CPU configuration due to video issue.

VMWare Fusion 3

Pros: It runs

Cons:
Aero exhibits random missing tile effect. That is, random patches of square of the user interface would "lag" and appear missing for a fraction of a second. DirectX implementation apparently isn't that good.

The share OS X folders with VM implementation is retarded. All shared folders appear under one virtual drive in the VM. What it means is the root of the virtual drive is not writable.

It is not fast. I ran a time consuming task in Parallels, it took about 10 minutes to finish. I ran the same task in VMWare, I lost patience after maybe 15-20 minutes. I went and took a shower just to give it enough time to finish.

I highly recommend getting the trial versions of both software and see which one works for you. For me the speed of VMWare and that dumb shared folder implementation are the deal breakers for me and so I went with Parallels.

Parallels gets 4 stars out of 5 because of the Aero problem under 2 CPU configuration.

---------- Update 1/5/2010 ----------

Parallels has released the first update to Desktop 5.0 for Mac, which has fixed the Aero problem under 2 CPU configuration. Aero is rock solid now. While I did not try to find every supposed improvement in this update, I did notice one big improvement in the area of shared folder access. Access of Mac files from within the VM is very much faster than before. I can actually use file access intensive program on a Mac folder mounted in the VM as a network shared drive whereas before doing so would impose a speed penalty. Considering the fix to Aero, I have updated my previous four stars rating to five stars.

---------- Update 2/23/2010 ----------

I have installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp on a separate partition of my MacBook Pro. This gives me the option of running Windows 7 natively on the hardware in addition to running under a virtual environment provided by Parallels. I did a Windows Experience Index comparison between the two. Now note that Windows 7 has full access to my MacBook Pro's 4GB of RAM under Boot Camp but only 2GB under Parallels. Here are the results:

Boot Camp
Processor: 5.9
Memory: 5.9
Graphics: 5.3
Gaming graphics: 5.5
Primary hard disk: 5.9

Parallels
Processor: 5.8
Memory: 5.5
Graphics: 4.8
Gaming graphics: 3.9
Primary hard disk: 6.5

The results are very competitive, especially if you don't play games on your Mac. It validates my previous impression that Parallels indeed provides a very fast virtual environment.

Meaning...it's 4 stars IF you know what you're doing. If you're a newbie to VMs in generals, go with VMWare.

Why do I say that? Well, there are a few reasons. In a nutshell though, if you're not resourceful and self-sufficient, Parallels is likely to get on your nerves. You should not expect to be coddled, nor should you expect flawless support, or even support anywhere near the caliber of other end user applications. That's fine...IF you know what you're doing. Now, I understand that Parallels really tries to pitch this to people telling them that a caveman could set this up and that nobody should have a problem continuing to use Windows in their daily lives. Unfortunately, newbies need to understand that virtual machines aren't nearly that easy to work with. They can be, but by default they are not. There are a lot of factors that go into setting up, managing and supporting a virtual machine. So much so that there are certification courses about it, which should tell you something.


IF YOU DO NOT HAVE VM EXPERIENCE:

A virtual machine, or VM, is essentially a file or group of files made up of part of your hard drive, and run in an emulation-type environment. What this then does is feed pseudo-hardware specs to the operating system, which then installs the proper drivers. This has the benefit of disconnecting you from the hardware you own and allowing you to work with operating systems that may not necessarily work well on your base hardware, but it also allows you to run almost any OS within your MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro's operating system without the need to reboot your computer. If you work with Windows at your job, you'll be able to see the immediate benefits of such an arrangement. If you're comfortable with Mac OS you can keep that same level of comfort while maintaining compatibility in the workplace.

To achieve this feat, you'll need the install medium for the operating system you want to set up. Alternately, you can download a pre-packed virtual machine from the Parallels website which saves you time at the tradeoff of having to deal with someone else's handywork. If you're just trying to evaluate an OS though, this is the most time and cost effective way to do it. If you need to use another OS in your Mac for whatever reason on a more permanent basis, you'll want to build your own to make sure you have all of the tools you need. Plus, it's a good learning experience...provided you do it right. From there it should be fairly simple to get up and running; just let the wizard guide you through it, or follow the included instructions. What's important to note: your VM should have 1 CPU max and no more than 25% of your total RAM. In other words, if you have a Apple MacBook Pro MB990LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop or similar model, or iMac with 4GB RAM, you should give the VM 1GB and no more. Parallels itself should be allocated no more than 2GB and told to balance the RAM usage. Why do I recommend these settings? Because any more and your Mac will suddenly not be so fast.

There is a reason for this. When you're dealing with Windows, there are a lot of background writes and drive accesses and paging that takes place. If you give Windows a lot of RAM, it will thrash the drive paging an equal amount of disk space. That thrash, combined with the RAM usage (which is now not available for the Mac OS), will cause your computer to slow to a crawl. It's not nearly as noticeable if you've got 8GB RAM and a 7200 RPM drive, so if you do decide to upgrade your computer, then you can bump up the specs...but I still stand by the 25% of RAM rule (meaning 2GB max) and 1CPU for the best results.

IF you're migrating from a PC, you can use the Parallels Transporter Agent to assist you. The cleanest way to do this, and your local computer hardware store (not Best Buy. Frys or something else please!) can assist you, is to connect a crossover cable between the old and new computer, use Mac OS to set up a local network between the two via Ethernet, and load the Transporter Agent onto the old computer and let it run. In my experience it doesn't work well when connected over a router, or when trying to use local attached storage to get it done. One thing you should keep in mind when doing this: if you have multiple drives or partitions and don't want to grab everything, don't use Transporter Agent. It will try to grab everything. So on your 250GB MacBook you might find yourself running out of drive space when all said and done. Instead, get a product like Symantec Norton Ghost 15.0 (1 PC), load that onto Windows, let it image specifically what you want to grab, and then import that image into Parallels to create the VM. Parallels will then model the new VM appropriately; you will have to do some Disk Management to correct certain things like mappings and whatnot, but generally this is the best way to approach it.

Also, if you have a multi boot scenario on the PC, know that you will likely need to do some boot record fixing when the VM is up and running. If you go to Windows Vista or Windows 7, and likely XP, Microsoft is going to compel you to re-activate because to Windows the hardware is now different. Just deal with it; there's no way to avoid this.

Once you're up and running, you can fine tune the experience even further. Parallels offers a variety of options to assist you with your new VM. You can optimize the VM such that its performance is enhanced, or if it's just a background one-off requirement, that priority be given to Mac OS. You can share folders to the VM from Mac and vice versa (though, keep in mind that Mac OS cannot write to NTFS drives). You can also create snapshots which are used to roll back to a previous instance of the VM. This is valuable if your VM is used for critical business and you need to be able to reverse changes or issues. You could use System Restore in Windows, but that won't get rid of a rootkit; also, if for whatever reason Windows will not boot, it's difficult to get to System Restore. The snapshot can be rolled back at any time without fault, and you can even schedule automated periodic snapshots to make sure you can always reverse damage. Just be aware that these will take up hard drive space, so if you don't plan on upgrading your hard drive, you'll need to keep an eye on your available space.

There are a lot of other features to Parallels, but those are the big ones. It's a solid application IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. If you don't, it can get frustrating and in some cases feel like an unfinished application just because it's quite picky on certain things with VMs. I will tell you that stories about poor XP performance are either user driven or poor hardware; I've got the MacBook Pro unibody 2009 edition I linked to earlier, and I've got three VMs - two on Parallels. One is a Windows 7 VM which was migrated from my old PC. The other is an XP VM that I use to sync with my Microsoft Zune. The XP VM is screaming fast - faster than a physical computer, in fact. But that's because I set it up properly. XP Pro Service Pack 3, fresh installed, 1CPU, 1GB RAM, 50GB hard drive. It runs circles around everything, even Snow Leopard.

The truth is, Parallels does a good enough job running many applications that you may just think this program is great. If your programs DO work under Parallels, you should consider yourself as lucky as a lottery winner.

If anything DOESN'T work in Parallels Desktop, you just bought a ticket to trouble. The first step in the "support dance" is to contact them with your problem. They provide email support, so you'll get a reply asking for more detail. You will send the detail and nothing further will come back.

Then, in a few days, they'll send an email asking if it's OK to close the support request. Close it? You just opened it and nothing has been done! You will convey this in a pithy email. Another day goes by, then a response with some boilerplate like "how to install the software" or some other useless FAQ. You will reply with the original problem, in as much detail as you can manange.

Anther day or two, then a response asking for more clarification. You clarify. Another day then EUREKA! They have duplicated the problem and now they're handing it off to the technical team! But don't uncork the champagne yet....

A few weeks go by. You send a message inquiring about the issue. A polite reply saying their technical team is working on it and they have no idea when a fix will be ready. A few more weeks go by. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Then, a new fixpack is ready! You try to still your heart as you download the 85M install file and apply it to your defective system. Breathlessly you fire up the virtual machine and try to run the broken program. Disappointment creeps back when you realize the fix was not implemented in the new fixpack.

Back to the emails. Loop again. And again. And again. It seems like this will go on endlessly -- more fixpacks to try, more disappointment. But just when it seems there is no end in sight -- a new VERSION of Parallels.

Do you know what a new VERSION means? YOU GET TO BUY IT AGAIN! That's right, you've waited patiently so long that your version 4 has been replaced by version 5, and you are no longer able to obtain any more fixpacks because your product is now DEAD.

Thanks for playing Parallels roulette.

Oh, and don't bother asking Parallels for a free version upgrade just because they never fixed your problem. That falls on deaf ears.

But then you google "virtualbox" and the world looks a little brighter...

Being a loyal user of Apple computers since early 1990, it is a dream come true to be able to harness the power of both operating systems and seamlessly integrate work obligations with personal computer preferences. I have used Parallels Desktop since version two and have consistently been pleased with the level of integration between Windows and OS X. Without Parallels Desktop, I would be forced to use a Windows based computer to perform daily work obligations in my job.

I have tried VM Ware virtual applications, but quickly found that for me personally the application was not a match; due to what I perceived to be quirkiness and overall efficiency of the application. While I would like to state that I have had great success in a windows environment with VM Ware and running virtual operating systems, this success was not translated over to the OS X operating system. My personal preference having used both applications has therefore been to choose Parallels Desktop as my virtual machine choice.

In Parallels Desktop 5.0 there have been some new integration points between OS X and Windows. These include view characteristics like Crystal views and Apple look and feel. In addition to the different views that have been improved on from Version 4, Memory bandwidth has been improved which allows the user to have greater control over memory utilization of both RAM and Video RAM. Another new feature of Parallels Desktop 5.0, is the introduction of an improved Adaptive Hyperviser and improved dual INTEL core support. Finally, I have noticed that the size footprint of my virtual machine has been significantly reduced between version 4 and 5; primarily due to the new compression feature found in version 5.

With these new features, I have found that it was necessary to tweak and play around with different settings before finding the virtual machine sweet spot. These changes included the following: 1) Video: dedicate 128 MB and disable 3D acceleration since I do not use my VM for gaming. 2) Out of the available 4 Gigs of memory available on my MacBook Pro, I dedicated 1 GB to my Windows XP VM. 3). Disable sharing of applications between Apple and VM due to personal preference; instead I allow only my Windows VM to view files stored in my HOME directory on the Apple side. 4) In the Parallels preferences pane, I have allowed the application to control memory allocation for the additional overhead of Parallels tools application.

** This is an important setting to manually control for those of you who have only 2 Gigs of memory. The ideal setting I found was to allow an additional 512 Megs of memory on top of the existing 1 Gig of memory allocation; this way your Windows VM will not run away with memory that OS X needs to operate efficiently. **

5). Finally, I have allowed the VM to utilize only one core; this was primarily due to the VM over-utilizing the processor when two cores were selected and the check box to "Tune Windows for Speed" Was checked.

I would like to share a potential issue that I have found when trying to install Windows 7. After successfully installing the application and running all the updates, I did find that overall application performance with Aero graphics was degraded and did not run as smoothly as my Windows XP installation. When installing Windows 7 on a separate Apple Bootcamp partition, Windows 7 worked much as I expected and I did notice the dedication of full RAM memory and dual cores significantly improved performance. I am digressing however from the original topic.

In getting back to Parallels Desktop 5, I would finally like to mention that with the exception of Windows 7, I have personally noticed no performance issues. In version 4 I frequently had issues with VM slowness that centered around Microsoft Outlook and connecting to Windows Remote Servers via VPN connections. Additionally in version 4 of Parallels Desktop, there were frequent issues with my Bluetooth wireless Apple keyboard becoming out of sync when using the Caps Lock and switching key state between OS X and Windows VM. In the new version 5, I have experienced none of these issues and am now able to efficiently use Microsoft Outlook, Windows Remote Server, as well as other database development tools.

In closing I would like to say that it is my personal opinion that Parallels Desktop has significantly improved on the previous version and I am happy that I purchased the upgrade. While there are some that are going to disagree and make false accusations about those of us who enjoy and rely on Parallels Desktop, I can honestly say that I am sold on this product and will continue to use it for many years to come.


PROS:
Increased Performance
Decreased Size footprint of VM
Increased utilization of resources on both the Apple and Windows VM side
Ease of upgrade and delivery of regular updates by Parallels.
Continued loyal support of Parallels Forum support

CONS:
Does not play well with Windows 7 and Aero graphics.
Upgrading Parallels VM image from previous versions can take a little bit of time.
If you utilize snapshot backups, you can't use the compression feature

About the Author:
I work at Arizona State University as a PeopleSoft Programmer Analyst and rely heavily on both my Apple and Parallels Desktop application to be able to program PeopleSoft applications and Database SQL applications.

Hardware:
15" Apple Macbook Pro | 4 Gigs Memory | 2.33 Ghz Dual Core 2 Duo | OS X 10.6.2

Parallels Desktop VM:
Windows XP SP3 | 1 Gig of Memory | 128 Megs of Video Memory | 40 Gigs Dedicated Hard drive space | Shared "My Documents" Folder to Apple Documents folder for disaster recovery

Finally, I think it is worth sharing that other users in my IT Department have also made the switch to Parallels Desktop 5 and have experienced similar experiences with it on their Apple MacBook's , iMac's, MacBook Pro's, and MacBook Air's.-

I HAVE A REAL ANSWER FOR THOSE HAVING PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS WITH VERSION 5.

My symptoms, I've used version 3 with no problems. I upgraded to 5 and EVERYTHING got slower.
Outlook literally took hours to update exchange folders. The MS download screen for outlook
updates took HOURS to open. Certain programs worked alright, others were terribly slow.

The following fix completely fixed performance problems for me on my machine (iMac, 3G mem,
running XP sp3).

UNINSTALL KAPERSKI SECURITY.

I can't believe this had such an adverse effect, but it did. Everything is back to normal speed again.

I also can't believe how poorly Parallels, inc. has responded to this performance problem. I've
been searching the internet for two weeks and found numerous reports of exceedingly slow performance
of this release. All I've seen is marketing attacks replying how fantastic the product is. Are there NO
support people at Parallels that actually care about their users problems? I finally figured this
out myself and am posting it here at amazon because I have no confidence that the Parallels support
sites won't consider it negative press and ignore it. Great product, F- customer support on this one.

Sincerely,
A-USER-ADVOCATE

Beware this product if you want clean and fast virtual machines. The entire reason I switched my company to Macs was to have compartmentalized computing environments to keep our various corporate apps from corrupting each other. This has worked well with VMWare Fusion for the last 18 months. Thought I'd try parallels to see what the competition was like.

Parallels tried to take over my system! VM installs took far too long, gave me hardly any useful options, then tried "integrating" my windows VM into my Mac environment, changed system defaults, dropped Parallels menus everywhere, impregnated my VM with Mac links... Thought my nice clean Mac had come down with a rash! And the useless memory hogging animations and "hot corners" and such totally screwed with work.

Sure I could roll this stuff back AFTER setup, but to never even be asked if wanted it? This completely defeated the purpose of using VM's in the first place. I don't want to "integrate" my windows and mac systems, I want them segregated so I can use them for work and avoid conflicts. This instead treated me like a dolt and hogged my system.

Bottom line: If you need a virtualization platform that's clean and easy to use, use VMWare. If you want a virtualization platform that treats you like a moron and dazzles you with eye candy, then you're going to want this.

I installed 5.0 as an upgrade from 4.0 on my MacBook running OS X version 10.5.8 with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM. I was hopefull for the claim of increased speed while running XP and it's PC based programs.
For me the product has been a large dissapointment. My speed has slowed to the point of being practically unusable.
4.0 was much faster on my computer and that's not saying much.
I regret the purchase and the "upgrade."

I realize my year old Mac Book is not exactly a rocket ship of performance and my experience may not match that of faster Macs. I am mad at myself for not getting a MacPro on which this software seems to work well.

UPDATE:
The only reason I am following this review thread is my interest was peaked when I saw the injustice of Parallels marketing arm using Amazon reviews to mislead consumers. The posts were attributed by name to the marketing company. Amazon removed the glowing reviews but I suspect the reviewers are still following, posting and voting on the comments in a pathetic effort to discredit people with negative comments.

Please read the comments in the review of David A. Markley "PlusDavid" in the one star review of Parallels Desktop 5.0 for more information on the scam reviews.

If you don't think my post ads to the topic please tell me why? If you have a question, I'll be happy to answer it.

It is a real experience with the product written by a long time Amazon shopper who has written more reviews than all of the people who have given Parallels 5 stars combined. I'd take a 5 star review from someone who only has rated Parallels products with a grain of salt.

At present 11 of the 16 five star reviews are written by people who have only reviewed Parallels Products. This is a very strange coincidence.

Update 1-5-10 I installed the update today. I can say that I can notice a minor improvement with my system. One thing that I didn't give Parallels credit for earlier is that their software is VERY stable. I was trying to overload it today and it never locked up. It is still pretty slow.

I've got a basic level macbook (2 gHz Intel dual-core). The machine originally had 1 gig ram and originally used Tiger. Soon after buying the macbook I bought Parallels 3 and Windows XP. I installed XP under Boot Camp and was very happy with the results. I installed Parallels, but it was so slow that it was unusable.

So last year I fell for the advertising hype over Parallels 4 and upgraded. Again, the result was that it was so slow it was unusable. So I forgot all about it until I got emails from them about upgrading to Parallels 5. In the meantime, I have upgraded my macbook to 2 gb ram, Snow Leopard, and a 7200 rpm drive. I figured with the additional power and faster OSX, the claims of even greater speed out of Parallels 5 would be true.

I installed Parallels 5 with the latest version and got it running with my Boot Camp partition. However, it is still slow. The claims of 3 times faster than version 4 may be true, technically. A frame rate of 12 fps is 3 times faster than 4 fps, but still too slow to be useful. I figure it takes less time to reboot into Boot Camp than it does to open Parallels and get anything started in the software.

The biggest drawback is that Paralles doesn't recognize any of the USB external drives I have attached to my macbook. They are recognized under OSX and under Windows XP in Boot Camp, but Parallels doesn't see them at all.

Part of the advertising for the upgrade from version 4 to 5 is that it would include bonus software from Acronis (disk management and backup utilities). I figured that even if Parallels 5 wasn't useful that at least I could use the bonus software. However, the bonus software was not delivered, nor have I received an email with information about how to download it or the license codes needed to make downloads from Acronis' site legal.

I went to the Parallels website, which I found plastered with information about how to pay for support. After much digging around I found their only form of free support, or post-sale customer service, was their forums. I left a couple messages on the forum asking about the USB disk issue and the missing bonus software. The one about the bonus software was as a reply to a previous question from another user about the software, from about 2 weeks ago. After a week of waiting there has been no reply to my postings on their forum. Several days ago, after more diffing around, I found an email form and I emailed their customer service department. I have only received an automated "we'll respond soon" email in return.

I am fed up with this software and this company. I want my money back under their money-back guarantee, but I won't be holding my breath about getting a response on that point or on anything else from them. They appear only interested in conning even more money from customers in the form of "support plans", but even then there is probably no guarantee they will honor those support plans any more than they honor the promises in their advertising notices.

Don't fall for this gimmick software and don't waste your money with this fraudulent company, which only takes your money and won't give you what they promised and won't respond to valid inquiries. If you need to run Windows on a mac, just run it under Boot Camp, which works very well. This company and this product have swung and missed three times with me. They won't be getting any more chances and won't be getting any more of my money. BUYER BEWARE!!

I purchased my copy of Parallels Desktop 5.0 as an upgrade to my previous version 4.0, I chose to get my upgrade as an online download, the download took 25 minutes to complete and the instal took less than 5 minutes to finish. The upgrade process was painless and finished without any problems, I was up and running with my new 5.0 upgrade in 30 minutes. The only reason I am not giving this product a five star review is because when I was asked to enter the "Activation number" for the product I could not find it on my digital receipt, It was mislabeled as the "Serial code" It was not a big problem and I figured it out quickly, but others might stumble over this resulting in problems with activation there new software.

This is GREAT software. I love the fact that the software installed easily and works flawlessly. I switched to a Mac after 17 years as a Windows user. Unfortunately, not all Windows counterpart software is available or is quite the same for Mac. That's where Parallels picks up the slack. OS X's Bootcamp...A program that allows you to install Windows on a Mac, is free and is included in Leopard and Snow Leopard. However, utilizing Bootcamp does not always afford you the best alternative. You have to shut down OS X and reboot into Windows in order to run the Windows programs. Then when done, you have to shut down Windows and reboot into OS X. Hopefully you didn't forget to do something while you were running the other OS.

Parallels is a program that runs like an application inside of OS X. You simply just click on the Parallel's icon. The program opens up, and allows Windows to start up and run while you are still running OS X. Not only that, but they become interactive with each other. You can run Windows inside an OS X window or full screen on it's own. You can transfer, copy & paste, or even drag and drop files from Windows to Mac or from Mac to Windows. You can be running a program in Windows and switch to an app you have running in Mac. The best of both worlds. And it does this FLAWLESSLY. This is an incredibly awesome software program and a must have for Windows to Mac switchers like me.

Now, for the bad part: It's a damn good thing that the program installs and runs without a glitch. If you are unfortunate enough to need help from this company, you will get it...But not without having your blood pressure elevated to incredible numbers. They are horrible to deal with. HORRIBLE.

I downloaded the Trial version of Parallel's to see if it did what they said it would do and if it would run the two odd (job related) Windows programs that I wanted to run on my Mac. It did. Amazing! So I decided that I did want to buy the program. Parallels provides you with a link that takes you to their website where you can purchase and convert the already installed program to a registered copy...for $79. Amazon.com has the program for $39 after rebate. That's a no-brainer. I bought the program from Amazon and saved myself $40. Both versions are Parallels 5.0 so there shouldn't have been a problem.

First I just tried to input the programs product key. Parallels would not accept it. So I uninstalled Parallels using their own uninstaller app and reinstalled it from the disk I just bought off of Amazon. I got an error message saying that there was a newer version of the program already installed. That tells me that the uninstaller program from Parallels leaves dated residue behind. Both are the same version (5.0) but apparently the downloaded Trial version must have all recent updates included or I wouldn't have gotten that error message. No big deal. So I just used Time Machine and went back to a date before the day I installed the trail version. I then tried to install Parallels at that point. Same error message. Short of clearing out and reinstalling my entire OS, I sent Parallels an Email requesting tech support.

They responded but were very nasty about it. They apparently were pissed off that I bought their product from a source other than them and had not paid full retail for it. I was told that I should have just "Upgraded" from their link. I was asked to send them a copy of the invoice, and the proof of purchase seal from the retail box. I downloaded the invoice from Amazon and scanned the box. I sent them both items in a .pdf file. They said that the Amazon invoice was not acceptable. EXCUSE ME???? What's not acceptable here? I sent back another Email asking what wasn't acceptable. I had to send them the original sales order, the original invoice, and the packing slip. Are you kidding me? First off, the invoice is directly from Amazon.com. The scanned proof of purchase is directly from the box I have in my possession. What else can I give you to prove that I actually did buy the program? Are you sure you don't need a blood sample to prove it's really me? How about a personal letter from the president of American Express on their stationary swearing that I did in fact, purchase the retail boxed version of Parallels 5.0 and charged it to my AMEX card.

It took (I have saved them in a folder) six more (yes 6) Emails, escalated to the Customer Service Manager to get them to agree to the fact that I did not steal the box from my local BestBuy and was trying to install it over the Trial version legally.

LOVE the Program...Hate, HATE, HATE the company. HATE them.