Parallels has announced Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac, touting the software as being the fastest, smartest and most powerful version yet, in a manner akin to that of Apple’s own announcements.
This is the most frequently used sharing function in Parallels Desktop 11. As you can see, the different types of data can be shared across the Mac and your VM (both ways). Parallels Desktop is an excellent way to run Windows apps on MacOS, especially for ordinary users. It's fast in testing, offers tight integration between Macs and guest systems, and supports many.
According to the makers of the popular virtualization solution, product benchmark testing showed that Parallels Desktop 6 that 3D graphics runs nearly 40 percent better than before, while boot times for Windows is some 41 percent faster.
Speed has also been improved for working with files on USB drives, networks and in shared folders, Parallels said.
The software is to begin shipping come September 14, its makers said.
“Whether it’s for school, home, work or play, Parallels Desktop for Mac is the #1 choice of customers worldwide” said Serguei Beloussov, Chairman and CEO, Parallels.
“Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac delivers again on our proven track record of innovation with over 80 new and enhanced features that provides the fastest, simplest and most immersive Windows on Mac experience ever,” Beloussov added.
In a rare move, an Apple rep is quoted in the official announcement from Parallels.
“The Mac is more popular than ever, with millions of people moving to the Mac from Windows,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations.
“Parallels does a great job of making it even easier for people to switch to the Mac and allowing them to run Windows applications if they need to, side-by-side with their Mac applications and without rebooting,' Okamoto added.
The software company also announced Parallels Desktop 6 Switch to Mac Edition, which includes features that have been tailored to facilitate the move from PC to Mac, as well as Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac.
The package includes a Parallels High-Speed USB data transfer cable, which users must employ to move all of their programs, files, user settings even browser favorites and bookmarks to a Mac.
Sharing Folders and Disks
A shared folder is a folder on your Mac that can be accessed from your virtual machine. Such folders can be used for exchanging files between the primary OS (Mac OS X) and the virtual machine or between several virtual machines. You can also share the virtual machine disk volumes with Mac OS X - they will be mounted on the Mac OS X Desktop.
In the operating system, where a shared folder resides, it appears as a usual folder, while in the virtual machine it is shared to, it appears as an object of the network neighborhood.
A shared folder or volume resides on the computer (host computer or a virtual machine) to which it initially belongs. It means, that it occupies space on the hard disk of the computer or virtual machine it originally belongs to.
Using shared folders is possible in the following guest operating systems:
- Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista
- Linux operating systems supported by Parallels Desktop as guest OSs. See the list of supported guest operating systems.
Setting up a shared folder requires two steps:
- Make sure that Parallels Tools are installed in your guest OS. See Installing Parallels Tools for detailed descriptions on how to do so in a particular guest OS.
- Add a shared folder(s) to your virtual machine configuration. For the instruction on how to do that, see Shared Folders Settings.
Adding a Shared Folder
- Start Parallels Desktop and open a virtual machine.
- Open the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog by:
- choosing Configure from the Virtual Machine menu, or
- clicking the Configure button on the toolbar of the virtual machine main window.
- In the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog, select the Shared Folders pane. Enable the User-defined folders option to be able to add shared folders to the list.
- Click the Add button . The Add Shared Folder dialog will appear.
- In the Add Shared Folder dialog:
- Specify a folder in the Mac OS X file system that will be shared in the Path field.
- Specify a name for the folder which will appear in your guest OS in the Name field.
- Provide a description for the shared folder if needed in the Description field.
- If you want to restrict writing to this folder from inside the guest OS, select the Read-Only option. You will be able to save files to this folder in Mac OS X only.
- Make sure the Enabled option is selected and click OK.
- Click OK in the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog to save the changes and quit the dialog.
- Now you can start your virtual machine and view the shared folders in the guest OS.
Viewing Shared Folders in Windows Guest OS
- After you have created a shared folder, start your Windows virtual machine and you will see the Parallels Shared Folders shortcut on the Windows desktop.
- Double-clicking this shortcut will lead you to the .psf directory where all your shared folders are stored.
To be able to save files to a shared folder from inside the virtual machine, make sure that the Read-Only option is disabled.
Viewing Shared Folders in Linux Guest OS
- After you have created a shared folder, start your Linux virtual machine.
- Shared folders will be automatically mounted to the /
media/psfor/mnt/psfdirectory upon the virtual machine start.Automatic mounting may be blocked by SELinux. For more information, refer to Setting Up Shared Folders in Linux Virtual Machines.
Sharing Windows Disks to Mac OS
If you want to access your virtual machine's volumes from Mac OS X, you can enable inverse sharing. To do so:
- Start Parallels Desktop and open a virtual machine.
- Open the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog by:
- choosing Configure from the Virtual Machine menu, or
- clicking the Configure button on the toolbar of the virtual machine main window.
- In the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog, select the Shared Folders pane and enable the Mount virtual disks to Mac OS X desktop option.
The virtual machine's volumes will be accessible from Mac OS X desktop where they will appear as connected volumes.
Connect To Mac Shared Folder
If the virtual machine's volumes are not mounted on Mac OS X desktop, go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure that the Connected servers option is selected.
For more information about accessing the virtual machine's disks from Mac OS, see Browsing Virtual Hard Disks In Finder.
Parallel Mac Pc
