Help! My GF bought a Mac + Parallels and has a zillion questions!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m very Mac-centric so I don’t know much about Parallels or about Windows settings. Somehow it’s all my fault :slight_smile:

(Well, OK, she isn’t saying that but she’s very discernably not happy and I feel responsible somehow)

a) The Parallels environment seems to zip along just fine except for the networking. While Mac browsers and email programs are working fine, the Windows equivs are too slow to use. By “slow” I strictly mean the networking speed. Pages don’t load in Win Firefox or IE; connections to the SMTP and POP servers time out and email can’t be downloaded or sent. Anyone with Parallels experience give me some tips on what might be causing the problem here?

b) Icons on the Windows Desktop: As Parallels modifies the window size (full screen, windowed mode, etc), the Desktop icons keep repositioning themselves willy-nilly. Is there perhaps a PC freeware or shareware app that remembers the positions of icons and returns them there after there’s been an unintended repositioning?

c) When she had a PC, we both printed to an HP inkjet printer, she being connected via parallel cable and me on my Mac via USB. I bought a USB-to-Parallel converter, and her Mac sees the printer when connected in that fashion, but will not print to it. When I hook her up via regular USB, she can print fine. “Printer sharing” does not work. Or at least I can’t get it to work. (Our network connections are to a hub which is hooked to a DSL modem).

2

Computers can have problems with a USB to parallel converter used on a printer.

I don’t work with MACs so I have a general suggestion. Look at the printer interface, and see what the port configuration is.

3

:confused:

It has one USB port and one parallel port.

Is that what you mean?

4

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
I’m very Mac-centric so I don’t know much about Parallels or about Windows settings. Somehow it’s all my fault :slight_smile:

(Well, OK, she isn’t saying that but she’s very discernably not happy and I feel responsible somehow)
[/QUOTE]

I use Parallels to run Windows XP on a Mac. I’ll offer what advice I can based on the configuration that works for me. Start Parallels on the Mac, open the Windows virtual machine (VM) that she created, but DON’T start the VM yet.

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
a) The Parallels environment seems to zip along just fine except for the networking. While Mac browsers and email programs are working fine, the Windows equivs are too slow to use. By “slow” I strictly mean the networking speed. Pages don’t load in Win Firefox or IE; connections to the SMTP and POP servers time out and email can’t be downloaded or sent. Anyone with Parallels experience give me some tips on what might be causing the problem here?
[/QUOTE]

I’ve found the networking speed to be pretty good. Are you saying she can’t connect to the Internet from Parallels at all? Check the network settings for the VM (Assuming she’s only got one network adapter configured, click on the **Edit ** menu, then select Network adapter 1 from the list on the left). What network emulation is selected? If **Shared networking ** is not selected, select it now. This will allow Parallels to use the Mac’s network connection in the VM.

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
b) Icons on the Windows Desktop: As Parallels modifies the window size (full screen, windowed mode, etc), the Desktop icons keep repositioning themselves willy-nilly. Is there perhaps a PC freeware or shareware app that remembers the positions of icons and returns them there after there’s been an unintended repositioning?
[/QUOTE]

I’m not aware of a way to keep this from happening entirely, but you can change the Windows settings to minimize it. Start the VM. On the Windows desktop, right-click, select Arrange Icons By, and make sure that **Auto Arrange ** is un-checked. When you resize the Parallels desktop the icons will stay put (the exception is icons that would have been off the desktop after resizing - they will be moved so they remain on the desktop).

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
c) When she had a PC, we both printed to an HP inkjet printer, she being connected via parallel cable and me on my Mac via USB. I bought a USB-to-Parallel converter, and her Mac sees the printer when connected in that fashion, but will not print to it. When I hook her up via regular USB, she can print fine. “Printer sharing” does not work. Or at least I can’t get it to work. (Our network connections are to a hub which is hooked to a DSL modem).
[/QUOTE]

I use a network printer, so I don’t have much advice here. If she can print from Parallels with the USB cable, just give her her own USB cable and go with that (I may be able to test this from my own system later; if so, I’ll be back with advice).

5

[QUOTE=cwthree]
I’ve found the networking speed to be pretty good. Are you saying she can’t connect to the Internet from Parallels at all?
[/quote]

No, she CAN connect, it’s just sluggish as all get-out. It reconciles the DNS of the SMTP; it goes to Google and loads the page; but it just isn’t usably fast.

We’ve got her on “shared networking”. I will check the settings for network adapter.

Is there such a thing as a “Y” adapter that would let both of us be hooked to the one USB port on the backside of the printer? Or would that cook the circuits or something?

6

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Is there such a thing as a “Y” adapter that would let both of us be hooked to the one USB port on the backside of the printer? Or would that cook the circuits or something?
[/QUOTE]

If you can’t get printer sharing to work, I would suggest just getting a print server and be done with it. No fancy cables or weird work-arounds.

7

Never used one. You mean it makes a non-network printer such as a USB inkjet into a network printer?

8

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Never used one. You mean it makes a non-network printer such as a USB inkjet into a network printer?
[/QUOTE]

That’s exactly what it does. Depending on the make/model of your printer, you may be able to install a network card in the printer. If not, you can plug your printer into an external print server, and then add the print server to your home network.

9

I run Parallels with Win XP and have no issues with Internet speed.

I do know I had to register the mac address from my VM as if it were another computer, though. Makes no sense, but… Most people probably don’t need to register these addresses anyway though.

10

I am currently porting a Connectix VirtualPC installation of XP to Parallels to see if the problem is Parallels vs her computer or if it is Parallels vs the ported copy of XP from her old Sony Vaio.

My parents have essentially the exact same computer; the PC OS we put on their copy of Parallels is Windows 2000 instead of XP but it didn’t have any networking problems that I can recall. (Admittedly we didn’t use it much though).
OK, Stupid Windows Question: What happens to the PC environment if I reinstall XP over what’s on there now? It has all her settings, 3rd-party add-ons, browser favorites, cookies, etc etc — does reinstalling XP hose some of that? All of that? Will applications themselves need to be reinstalled in order to work? etc.

11

OK, I am now in a different XP environment, this one brought via Parallels Transporter from Connectix Virtual PC.

The two main board sites that my GF uses load very very very sluggishly if at all in Windows Firefox.

For comparison’s sake, the Straight Dope board loads with no more than the usual hamsterish sluggishness.

Using the Mac browsers, her boards load fine (but she is intimidated by the unknown/foreign MacOS and switching contexts back and forth between Win and Mac confuses her even more).

12

[joke]
Get mac style girlfriend.
[/joke]

13

For benefit of any future Parallellers —

The problem we experienced may be somewhat rare. Certainly it took the 2nd tier tech support folks to get us on-track. Here’s what they had us do (and it worked):

a) Shut down the Parallels virtual machine

b) Open the MacOS X Sharing PrefsPane. Pick the Internet sharing tab. On my GF’s Mini there were two sharable ports in the list I’d never seen in an Internet sharing tab before (so I assume Parallels added them), something like Ethernet 1 and Ethernet 2 (or perhaps it was Ethernet A and Ethernet B), distinct from Built-in Ethernet. Click those two. At the top, pick “Built-in Ethernet”. End result reads "Share your connection from Built-in Ethernet, To computers using Ethernet A <and also> Ethernet B. (Or Ethernet 1 and 2, whatever). Then click the Start button to actually implement Internet Sharing.

c) Back to Parallels, while the VM is not started, switch from “Shared Networking” to “Host-Only Networking”.

d) Start the virtual machine and let Windows boot. It should ding-dong and blab something about new hardware.
To reiterate, under the default settings (using “Shared Networking”, not doing anything in the Sharing tab of OSX) we were not without internet connectivity, but it was very unreliable. Google would load. CNN would eventually load. My GF’s two main message boards would hardly ever load. Email would not fetch (time out trying to connect to POP Server).

Our net specs: Verizon DSL, Westell Wirespeed modem, hooked to a plain old hub, her new Mini and my PowerBook hooked to the hub, ethernet, connection via built-in OSX PPPoE.

14

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Is there such a thing as a “Y” adapter that would let both of us be hooked to the one USB port on the backside of the printer? Or would that cook the circuits or something?
[/QUOTE]
Nope. USB doesn’t play that way. You can have a bunch of devices per host, but only one host per device.
Can you try running a ping/traceroute from the Mac, and then from the Windows running parallels to a website that loads slowly? That might give an idea of where the slowdown is. Here’s a decent tutorial on those two commands, if you’re not familiar with them.