It seems I am unable to perform at least one Mac OS X upgrade without finding some major faults. This morning, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion, and like its predecessors, there was at least one show-stopping problem following installation – namely, that Parallels Desktop 6 no longer works.
Following installation of OS X Mountain Lion, upon startup, Parallels Desktop 6 shows the following message:
The only known solution at this time is to upgrade to Parallels 7 for $50.
Official Response
Parallels has posted a response on their website
A Senior Member of the Parallels team, whose username is YanaYana, has replied in the Parallels forum that although Parallels Desktop 6 will be continued to be supported for years to come, this does not include making it work on OS X Mountain Lion. The Parallels representative also commented that select users were offered a free upgrade to Parallels Desktop 7 for a short period when OS X Lion came out, although many users have commented they were not notified of the offer.
Abandoning Parallels
One user hit the nail on the head when they wrote “Is it worth to pay $50 more for a $20 OS upgrade?”. In fact, I have decided that unless Parallels fixes this issue or offers me an upgrade, I will not be purchasing a Parallels product ever again as a form of protest. After all, there are plenty of alternatives, such as VMware and VirtualBox, which I would rather use.
Update [07/26/2012]: As one user on the forum noticed by reviewing the Google cache, Parallels, Inc recently changed it’s policy to exclude Parallels Desktop 6 from working in OS X Mountain Lion: Knowledgebase article. See if you can spot the difference between the previous and current version of the page:
Before:
After:
Looking at older versions of the article shows that it had been active for months with the Parallels Desktop 6 text. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest a user could have purchased Parallels Desktop 6 in the last year, believing it would work with OS X Mountain Lion. This smells of bait-and-switch tactics. Perhaps it is time for a class action suit?
unbelievable.. Never parallels again!
Bad Parallels policy: to force people to pay 70% of the full price to upgrade from one version to another. Specially when PD6 does not seem to be incompatible with Mountain Lion. I asked a knowledgeable tech support individual for a list of applications, from snow leopard, that would be incompatible with mountain lion, or some criteria that would help identify those applications before deciding to upgrade to Mountain Lion. They told me that if the App “kind” as shown in activity monitor is PowerPC, it would not work in Mountain Lion as Apple removed the “Rocetta” support.
The only one I found of that kind was some version of Java Embedding Framework .. All others, including Parallels 6 are Intel or Universal. So based on what I was told, PD6 should be compatible with Mountain Lion.
Either Parellels makes the small adjustment it needs to make to let PD6 run fully under MacOS10.8, or it allows for a free upgrade from PD6 to PD7 (since it is just one version jump), or it will lose a lot of clients, because, Virtualbox is becoming more and more appealing to more and more people (we do not have to pay anything for switching).
PD6 is perhaps the most mentioned application that is slowing or preventing people from either upgrading to Mountain Lion or motivating people to switch to another Virtualization tool for Mac.
If Parallels made the simple decision to extend its support of PD6 under Mount Lion, I think more people would consider using PD for longer time and it would be easier to consider spending the upgrade cost to the next version, perhaps after more than two years of using the product….but, after just a little more than one year? I don’t think so..
4 x PD6 –> VMware 🙂
I bought PD6 last year: I never received a proposition for free upgrades to PD7, as mentioned above; only paid upgrade. Now, after upgrading to MacOs 10.8, (for Euro 16…), no question to pay anything to follow PD:( So I switched to VirtualBox, free and many many quicker than PD!
Parallels 6, good-bye!
Welcome VirtualBox!
I spent $49 to upgrade from 5 to 6 not too long ago and I’m not going to spend another $49 to upgrade to 7. 8 is coming pretty soon and I certainly don’t want to keep spending more $49’s to make this greedy company richer. No way, man!
I’m going to migrate to VirtualBox. VirtualBox is completely free and it works just as well as Parallels.
F U Parallels. Crooked software trolls.
Good-bye Parallels!
you can always downgrade back to snow leopard, which I am considering. starting to get used to Mountain Lion though I’m not crazy about it. I only updated my laptop, my desktop is still running Snow Leopard. I don’t use any of the new features really. I prefer the click to the scrolling between web pages. I learned Moutain also will not let me use my Adobe CS3. So glad I didn’t upgrade my desktop.I sure as hell am not going spend 900 or more CS6. I’m going to try Corel Draw X6 which I just picked up for 60 bucks on ebay screw Adobe an their over inflated prices.
I bought PD6 about 6 months ago, with no knowledge that it would be defunct so soon. What a waste of time and money. You’d have gotten a bit more sympathy from me if this were the Snow Leopard to Lion change, but Lion to Mountain Lion? You just took the pussy cat lane. Shame on you Parallels. I’m searching for a new product. You won’t get any more of my money.
The computer says no…I won’t buy/pay for Parallels 7,8,9 etc. again. Hope you will learn a lesson soon! Goodbuy
Just submitted this support ticket to Parallels:
The fact that you discontinued PD6 in Mountain Lion is an outrageous move and I can’t understand why did you choose to treat your customer base so badly. You are basically forcing us – PD6 users – on a paid upgrade to PD7. Shame on you !!! I will boycott this upgrade and I’m already moving on to your competitors (VMWare or VirtualBox) . Bad publicity is what you’ll get from me and anyone whom you have tried to manipulate. There is no way I’m paying 50$ for Parallels 7 when the ML upgrade was 20$. For what I reckon, your company doesn’t care about its customers and is happy to relieve them of their hard-earned money…. That’s all you care about. You deserve to go bankrupt. Bye Bye suckers
Lets spam their help desk !
They disabled tickets for this issue, instead they’re forwarding us to this page: http://kb.parallels.com/114410
So…
1) Go to https://www.parallels.com/support/request/
2) Category: Technical issue, Product: Parallels desktop, OS: Mac, Version: 5 or 6, Issue: Parallels 5 / 6 ML compatibility.
3) fill out your existing activation number and send
Purchased PD6 just over a year ago, uninstalled today. Will NEVER buy a product from them again…
I was lucky enough to join the party in time for Parallels 7 although I’m also disturbed by their treatment of their 6 customers, especially with the talk of a new PD8, presumably to go with the upcoming Windows 8…that’s another concern. The planned obsolescence business model continues, and everyone’s in on it. Haven’t they screwed us enough already?
I’ve been unimpressed with the complexity of Parallels anyway. I like being able to easily access my discs and drives, and thus far Parallels (and Apple) have done a great job denying me the simple task of opening and saving files.
I also switched from vers. 6 to VirtualBox yesterday, because of the ML problem. Shame on you Parallels. Version was bought one year ago. They should offer a free update to the lowest running version of parallels with ML.
Never ever again.
Wow what a scam. Can’t believe i’ve hung around with Parallels since version 4 which i paid handsomely for. Biggest scam ever. Had to pay to get to version 6 and now I gotta shell out more money cause it aint compatible with Mountain Lion.
HELLLLLL NOooooooooooooo!!!
I bought parallel desktop; will never by parallel product again.
Disgusted! As I work in IT and am asked about which software often I will no longer be able to recommend Parallels.
Aloha Parallels! Uninstalling now,
keeping Mountain Lion on instead of downgrading back to Snow Leopard
I did not pay $50 to upgrade to v7 when the offer came out. Now Parallels is offering me $39.99 to upgrade to v8.
Sounds pretty desperate to me.
This has really annoyed me! not only is ML rubbish! my parallels has stopped working, honestly they wonder why people pirate software! if parallels read this comment just give us a update to install, stop being tight!
This is absolutely daylight robbery…we pay $79 for a full version then it does not work because OS upgrade and we asked to pay $50 more for version 8. This doesn’t make sense at all I paid $25 for upgrade to a major OS upgrade and this software wants twice as much for a version upgrade. I have second thoughts now to buy Parallel products…you should a very minimal amount and not $50!
You could TRY to edit the info.plist file to say the version number of the latest P7. (PS: I haven’t tried it myself, I don’t have V6).
Parallels is on its way down. How quickly you forget how you became successful. Can’t say i will feel sorry for you when you fail. You have let all you customers down and your employees. Listen up, if you work for Parallels, you should jump ship soon before you go down with them.
sucks, i will have to fork out the $50. Can’t afford not to since i need it for work. when i upgraded to mountain lion, every one of my apps that worked on lion works just fine on mountain lion….except the one that happens to have a $50 upgrade option.
I HAD to (pay $50 to )upgrade to 8 from 7 (which ran fine before Mtn Lion) same as virtually everyone else on this blog…only to discover that Windows XP after slow starting for a week or so now DOESN’T EVEN BOOT UP!!! and even after reverting to a snapshot, a week later the same thing happens!! Parallels is a piece of SHIT. I’m going to VMWare and telling every person till I die what a total piece of crap Parallels is as a company and as software… run by a bunch of greedy crooks. If you know what’s good for you: DO NOT BUY PARALLELS OR UPGRADE!!! and then they expect you to PAY to talk to tech support to find out why their piece of shit isn’t even working!
A while ago I grabbed the opportunity to buy P6 at a reasonably discounted price but didn’t even install it until I did upgrade to Mountain Lion (I was planning to reinstall some older Win-only software later). Now I installed and it won’t work. Money gone for nothing unless I spent the same amount again? Fu*# you, Parallels! Your business model is crap: IF your software really is so sensitive to OS changes, you should not offer it at the current price if that means you will have to charge customers over and over again for “updates” (in fact: new versions). It is like selling a car and then telling people they have to buy a new engine every year because the “old” one has become incompatible with a new type of road! Shame on Apple, too, (once more) but in the end it is Parallels’ respnsibility to keep up with developments AND incorporate that into their business model and customer service.
I had Parallels 7 working on my 17 inch Macbook Pro and I just bought the 15 inch for portability and It gives me the same message You cant use this version of Parallels Desktop with this version of OS. I paid the upgrades over the years and now Parallels is holding a gun to my head to upgrade to Parallels Desktop 8. I am getting tired of this nonsense.
just got round to upgrading to Mountain Lion. Appalled and disgusted that Parallels is the only “incompatible software” on my iMac and am asked to pay YET ANOTHER $50 Parallels upgrade (done that twice already!). AND to add insult to injury, the ‘incompatible software” is squatting on over 250 Megs of my hard drive! Its going to be zapped – and I WONT be buying parallels again (and again, and again) …
I’m outraged at PD. I will never use parallel and will discourage anyone that I know from using it.