[markw10]

I have a C2D MBP and have been using Parallels for my virtualization software. I was very happy with it for a long time. A newer version offered an option to run boot camp partitions within Parallels so I switched to that. When I did my system became very slow and I read comments form others saying they had the same experience so I switched back to basic Parallels. When I did this my performance went much higher.
About a month ago for no reason I know of the system became so slow. When I boot up the Parallels Windows partition my computer slows to a crawl and almost locks up but not just that. While I"m running Parallels my entire system is slow. Almost everything runs slow on the Windows side and same on the Mac side. It's not unusable but it requires a lot of patience when switching between programs may freeze my system for around 10-20 seconds. I never had this issue before. I'm convinced something got corrupted or a setting got changed that could be causing this. I have the maximum 2GB in my MBP.
I'd rather find what it is that's slowing this down but if not will just simply wipe out Parallels and start over and hope for a better experience this time. While I'm looking at this though I'm wondering if there are now better alternatives. One thing I don't like is you can't change teh partition size of the virtual drive. I had originally made a 32GB partition but have 20GB free on it so have a lot of wasted drive space. I heard mostly of VMWare. Is this maybe a better option for me to switch to? I'm a ex-windows user and have switched almost everything over to Parallels. I use two programs 95% of the time in Windows and these are Quickbooks Pro and Ebay's Turbo Lister since I'm a Ebay seller. I know there's a version of Quickbooks for the Mac. Unfortunately EBay doesn't offer a mac version but with time I'll have my own web site up and not use Turbo Lister much if any. There are a few other programs such as a coin database I use but rarely and I could even run them if necessary on my Windows desktop.
I like the idea of running Windows and Mac side by side but if I don't find a better solution may just consider Boot Camp since that won't slow down either OS.

[ibook_steve]

What build of Parallels are you having the problems with? I use 3188 with a BC partition and have zero problems and fantastic speed. One bug I did find and report (and actually got acknowledged by Parallels) was switching network locations. This action would frequently bring Parallels to its knees, hard freezing my entire machine. They said it would be fixed in the next release. Other than that, no problems at all. Try reinstalling the latest build of Parallels and reinstall the Parallels tools on the Windows side of things.

Steve

[The Godfather]

It has been reported in Macwindows.com that Virtualbox doesn't have slowdowns when multitasking the VM and the OSX environment, like in Parallels.

[tavin64]

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

It has been reported in Macwindows.com that Virtualbox doesn't have slowdowns when multitasking the VM and the OSX environment, like in Parallels.

Virtualbox is very fast in linux but the mac version is still very beta. No usb support is one of the main things. I would stick with vmware until they add more support.

[cgc]

Fusion can use two cores, Parallels uses one, and Bootcamp can use all (2, 4, or 8).

[vlads]

markw10,

From my experience of using Parallels Desktop and bugging Parallels Support with questions I can advise the following:
There isn't really a way to troubleshoot your slowdowns, it can be caused by some Mac OS bug. But you can try the following to solve the problem: run "Applications" - "Utilities" - "Disk Utility", select your Mac boot volume and run "Repair Disk Permissions", then uninstall Parallels Desktop using its uninstaller from the package (it won't remove your VMs or registration info), restart the Mac (quite important!) and re-install PD again.
And don't worry about the disk size - by default it's set to Expandable and it won't take more free space on the Mac side than is actually used in VM, so that free 20GB are not using any space at all. You can convert VM hdd to expandable or to plain (uses its full size) using ImageTool that comes with PD.

[Berylload]

Originally Posted by cgc 

Fusion can use two cores, Parallels uses one, and Bootcamp can use all (2, 4, or 8).

I only use virtual Windows tools ocassionally to run a few Windows only utilities. But this VMware review seems to think that there is little difference using VMware with one or two cores. At least with the tests they carried out.

I'm currently testing out the demo versions of both Parallels and VMware and I'm leaning towards vmware. It seems to be much smoother to use somehow. Much faster with the applications that I use also. But I'm going to give it until the full 30 days for each program have expired before I make my decision.