Parallels releases beta 3 of Desktop for Mac

Parallels has released a beta 3 of Parallels Desktop. There are a lot of features and enhancements introduced in this Beta, such as:

• NEW! USB 2.0 support - “Plug and play” popular USB devices like external hard drives, printers, and scanners, and use them at full native speed.
  • NOTE! Current Build 3106 doesn’t support isochronous devices such as web cameras, microphones, etc.
• NEW! Full-feature virtual CD/DVD drive - Burn CDs and DVDs directly in virtual machines, and play any copy-protected CD or DVD just like you would on a real PC
• NEW! Improved Coherence mode - The groundbreaking feature that lets you run Windows applications without seeing Windows just got better! Learn more about Coherence >>
• NEW! Better Boot Camp support - Using your Boot Camp partition in Parallels Desktop is now easier than ever. Beta3’s Boot Camp support includes:
  • Full support for FAT32 and NTFS partitions

  • Easy offline configuration. Simply tell Parallels Desktop that you want to create a virtual machine from a Boot Camp Partition and click start. No complicated set up required!
  • No need to re-activate Windows each time you switch between Boot Camp and Parallels. Activate Windows only once inside Parallels and work in both environments
  • IMPORTANT! It is not possible to suspend a Virtual Machine that is connected to Boot Camp as it could result in an unstable system.
  • VERY IMPORTANT! Beta1 (build 3036) users must boot natively into Boot Camp and uninstall Parallels Tools for Boot Camp prior to running it in Beta3 (build 3106).
• NEW! Transporter Beta3 bundled - migrate your real Windows PC, or existing VMware or Virtual PC VMs to Parallels virtual machines! Learn more about Transporter Beta3 >>
  • IMPORTANT! Beta1 users MUST upgrade their Transporter package on their Windows source machine before using Transporter in Beta3. Failing to do so may result in a system crash and loss of data
• NEW! Added keyboard remapping configuration
• New Look and Feel - completely redesigned windows and easier to follow dialogues to make Desktop for Mac more user-friendly than ever
• True “Drag and Drop” functionality - 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 Boot Camp partition - use your Apple Boot Camp Partition as a virtual HDD for Parallels Desktop for Mac
• Virtual Machine Catalogue - now all of your virtual machines are available through a centralized VM catalogue which appears on each Parallels Desktop for Mac instance
• One-click Virtual Machine Aliases - automatically create a desktop shortcut for your virtual machine with the OS Installation Assistant, by dragging-and-dropping from title bar, or by pressing Command-Option keys combination. Clicking on Alias automatically starts the Virtual Machine
• Resizable Main Window - resize the Parallels Desktop for Mac main window as you do with any other Mac application
• Auto-Adjusting Screen Resolution - Windows auto-adjusts its screen resolution to the actual main window size
• Improved graphic performance - up to 50% faster!
• Connect/disconnect USB devices schema improved - no more annoying “wait 5-10 seconds” message on USB device connecting to Parallels Desktop for Mac!
• Up to 5 Virtual NICs - now each Virtual Machine can have up to five virtual network interfaces
• Enhanced Shared Networking Mode - run Cisco VPN and many other complex networking applications in conjunction with Connection Sharing Mode
• NEW! Lots of various fixes