A new beta of Parallels Desktop with some major new features is now available for download. The major enhancements are the ability to use Boot Camp partitions and a Coherence mode, which lets Windows applications appear on your Mac desktop.
- New Look and Feel and Improved Usability. Completely redesigned windows and dialogues to make them even easier and smooth. Too many changes to describe – just check them out yourselves
- Virtual Machines Catalogue. A very useful feature for those having more than one VM – now all of them are available through centralized VM catalogue which appears on each Parallels Desktop for Mac instance start in case you have more than one VM
- One-click Virtual Machine Aliases:
- Automatically created by OS installation assistant or by drag-and-drop from title bar pressing Command-Option keys combination
- Clicking on Alias automatically starts the Virtual Machine
- Shutting down the VM automatically closes Parallels Desktop for Mac application
- Resizable Main Window. Resize Parallels Desktop for Mac main window as you do with any other Mac application
- Auto-Adjusting Screen Resolution. Your Windows auto-adjusts the screen resolution to the actual Main Window size.
- Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac. A long awaited feature that lets you seamlessly drag and drop files and folders from Windows to Mac OS X and vice versa.
- Read/Write BootCamp partition. Since this build, an Apple Boot Camp partition with Windows XP installed could be used as a virtual HDD for Parallels Desktop for Mac.
- Boot from BootCamp partition. Another long awaited feature that lets you boot your 32-bit Windows XP residing on Boot Camp partition directly in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
- Parallels Transporter Beta bundled. Migrate your Windows PC, VMware or Virtual PC VMs to Parallels virtual machines. Please visit Parallels Transporter forum for details.
- Coherency. Shows Windows applications as if they were Mac ones. Try it and enjoy best of both worlds truly at the same time. No more switching between Windows to Mac OS.
- Improved graphic performance. Up to 50% on different applications.
- Connect/disconnect USB devices schema improved. No more “wait 5-10 seconds” message on USB device connecting to Parallels Desktop for Mac.
- Up to 5 Virtual NICs. Now Virtual Machine can have up to five virtual network interfaces.
- Enhanced Shared Networking Mode. Run Cisco VPN and many other complicated networking applications in conjunction with Connection Sharing Mode.
- Switch between networking modes on-the-fly. Switch networking modes while the virtual machine is running.
- Transparent mapping of Command-AZXCV key combinations. Now you can also use Mac copy/paste key combinations in Windows.
- Power On/Power Off/Suspend/Resume/Pause animation. Just try and see.
We’re very interested in your feedback about the feature.
- Shared folders configuration on-the-fly. Add/remove/configure shared folders on-the-fly via menu or Status Bar icon without the need to stop your Virtual Machine.
- Drag and Drop CD/FDD images and folders to the Parallels Desktop statusbar. Just drag and drop CD or floppy image you want to connect or Mac folder you want to share onto a respective statusbar icon.
- And dozens of other not that evident enhancements.
More information is available here.