Maybe we need to call it Perpendicular...

Parallels is sort of running cross-ways with the new cat right now. Oh, you can use it, but it's taken a bit of a step back from the seamless technological wonder that it was and is under Tiger. First, I was having a problem in that my XP disk image won't mount on my Mac desktop. I scoured the forums at parallels.com and thought I found a fix (see #17) in the thread.) Installing the macfuse program and restarting did get me an icon for a mounted drive on my desktop, but when it doesn't show any contents when I click on it. So close, yet...well, you get the idea.

A seemingly related problem has to do with associated files to run with Mac programs from within the Windows XP image. I try to keep my XP disk image as small as possible, so why install two copies of Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Office? In Tiger, I could set Parallels so that if I clicked on a PDF file, for example, it would launch Acrobat Reader on my mac to view the file. Or, I could use Preview if I wanted. In Leopard, I can still designate file types to open with mac programs, but I kept getting an error that programs could only launch files on disks with assigned letters or shared folders. The files were in drives with assigned letters and shared folders. So, I guess for now, we need two copies of Acrobat Reader.



Don't get me wrong, Parallels is still a great program, and it is very usable under Leopard. Today, the Parallels team announced a new beta version that will improve Leopard compatibility. However, Dwight Silverman warns that people are having problems with this initial build, so you might be advised to wait a bit longer.