Windows 7 on the Mac Under Parallels
I love Parallels. Parallels is virtualization software: it allows you to create a pretend (virtual) machine on your Mac, on which you can install Windows or Ubuntu or Slackware or whatever. It’s a powerful concept: you can create a dedicated Linux machine for Web browsing, or a Windows computer that never connects to anything except your bank.
Generally Parallels is easy to use and set up. The hardest thing about it is spelling the word “Parallels.” I find this to be difficult: there are three separate places where you have to decide on double- or single-consonants.
So I’m eager to try the new Windows 7 public beta on Parallels. After some adventures (mostly stupid), I got Windows 7 to install OK under Parallels, and I find it to be quite zippy (totally unlike Vista).
But I can’t get networking to go. I can’t get Windows 7 to recognize my imaginary network card. It recognizes all the other imaginary hardware… so what’s the deal?
Running ipconfig provides this:
Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:
Media State: . . . . . . . . . . Media disconnected
…which pretty much looks like there’s no network adapter.
When you’re setting up the virtual machine, Parallels offers two kinds of networking: Shared and Bridged. According to Leto from Parallels,
The difference is that Shared takes your existing Mac OS X network connection, and Bridged Ethernet sets Windows as a separate machine on the network.
I’ve tried them both, with the same results when Windows starts: the little networky-symbol in the lower right corner of the screen makes a blue spinny thing for a little while, which then turns into a big red X. [I would take a picture, instead of describing it, but I haven’t figure out shared folders yet.
I will continue to work on this. Any assistance would be welcome.
Resolution: I managed to install Parallels Tools, and networking started right up after a restart.
Installing Parallels Tools was a little tricky: Repeated attempts were rebuffed by a rather nyah-nyah message saying something like
You can install Parallels tools on Windows 98, XP, 2000, heck, we could even probably do Server 2003, but we are NOT installing Parallels Tools on whatever nightmare machine you've got there, pal. You'll have to install the Tools manually.
Well, OK.
I found that my Windows machine had a CD in the drive, called Parallels tools. I found an application called PTStart (was it ptstart.exe? I dunno: I haven’t fugured out how t make Windows 7 show file extensions). I right-clicked on it, and after a lot of interrogation from Windows, was able to start the program in XP compatibility mode. It ran (with a lot of warnings from Windows about maybe you shouldn’t install this driver).
After a restart, Windows was able to see the network (via shared networking; it might work with bridged as well).
I got the sound to work by starting the device manager and clicking on the apparently driver-less sound card. Windows suggested that I allow it to go out searching for a driver.
Sure! This is all just for laughs. So I let Windows go out and find a driver. I don’t know where. Maybe from some back-alley in a former Soviet Republic. I don’t know. I hope to $CREATOR$ that there’s some sort of heavy-duty driver signing going in the background.
But the sound started up, too. And then the Windows drive C: appeared on my Mac desktop. So file sharing (between the OS X host and the Windows guest) is apparently working, too.
I dunno about all this. I’ve mostly hated Windows (though been forced to use it professionally) since Windows 1.0. But I kind of like this Windows 7 so far.
I will attempt to do some real work with it (VPN; SQL Server administration; file sharing) and document the results.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Manage to solved the problem by creating another new network from the vm settings.
So I have 2 network adapters. After that everything seems to be running smoothly.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Ivan: Thanks, I’ll try that.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Same networking issue here (no device driver after install).
Once I installed the Parallels Tools, the network connected itself with no further intervention.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Jeremy’s solution worked for me. See above.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I’m having the same networking issue and tried to install Parallels Tools, but I couldn’t find it under my CD drive. It’s empty.
Do I need to do some settings on the parallels or mount any image to show it under my CD drive?
January 18th, 2009 at 12:10 am
I managed to install Parallels Tools under Virtual Machine menu.
and everything works great now! Thanks guys~
January 18th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Awesome post! The only thing you did not mention (that Aleph caught) is that you must attempt to install Parallels (from the Virtual Machine menu) before it appears in your CD Drive. Thanks Again!
January 19th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Hi All.
I’m having troubles with Windows 7 on my machine. I get it to load ok, but am having a doodle of a time getting parallel tools to work. I get a message saying that it is for operating systems built on Windows2000 system…. or something like that.
I added the new virtual machine as windows experimental.
Can someone supply a step by step of how they installed windows 7? I am using a mac with dual core intel processors, 2 gigs memory, 2.4 Gig processor.
Regards
January 20th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Just a quickie I learnt at school many years ago…to spell parallel all you need to remember are the parallel ls in the middle.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:15 am
Thanks Mate!
I mucked around for hours trying to get the networking up and running and then I googled and found your article…you are a legend!!!
January 24th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Michael:
I feel your pain. That’s exactly what happened to me, I think.
Here’s what I did to get the Parallels (thanks, Mitch, now I can spell parallel!) Tools to install:
From the Parallels Desktop menu: choose Actions > Install Parallels Tools. This has the effect of putting the pretend Parallels Tools CD into your pretend Windows 7 CD-ROM drive, and running AutoPlay. Instead of telling it to run PTStart, tell it to open the folder.
In the folder, right-click on the PTStart application, and choose “Troubleshoot compatibility.” This will start the Program Compatibility wizard. You want to tell it that the program worked in eaarlier versions of Windows, but won’t run now.
The Wizard will offer you a list of Windows versions, and will ask which version the program works on. I chose XP, and the tools installed!
I believe that this is a sort of roundabout way of asking you which compatibility mode you want to run the program in.
Hope this helps.
January 25th, 2009 at 3:14 am
AWESOME!!! bravo guys!!!
January 26th, 2009 at 3:53 am
I’va had the same problem but didn’t know about the function of “running in Xp compatibility mode”. Now my Windows 7 works flawlessly.
Thank you!
January 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I am using an older version of parrallels 3.0 on a mac running 10.4 and had to manually install the ethernet driver via the ISO image as the paralles tool installer didn’t want put parallel tools on. During install, it through up a dialog box saying it didn’t want to install on a non XP/NT etc. machine. go into the S7 network area select network connection, pick the selection for manually installing the ethernet driver from browse to the ISO image on the D drive select the first Ethernnet driver option. then things should work.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
*Pure* genius! Once I read this the install went without a hitch!
Many thanks.
February 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am
This was terrific–I was going to pack it in on checking out Windows 7 on my Mac in Parallels (I’m a 99% XP user, but have to have access to the Mac interface for some IT admin tools)–I was curious to see it, but quickly realized about the inability to see the network interface. Installing the Tools worked, and the instructions about compatibility settings were invaluable. Thanks very much.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Awesome! Checking for updates now!
March 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Hey spooge butt,
You need to update this more often to keep me interested. Lets shoot GUNS sometime.Wana?
July 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Yeah, this one got me too – it said something about autorun.ini and I’d forgot they disabled a lot of that stuff for Windows 7
Went straight to CD drive and there it was
NB you have to ask it to install Parallels first!
July 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
tools*
October 27th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Tried all night to access the net, reinstalled Parallel tools and that’s all it took.
Thanks everyone
November 9th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Before buying the upgrade (from Vista) to Windows 7, I ran Microsoft’s “Upgrade Advisor.” It reported two compatibility problems: drivers for both the Parallels Network Adapter and the PCI Tool Device are not compatible.
So that’s the story! So far I haven’t located an update for these two drivers.
March 7th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Blogs RSS feed is not work in my browser (google chrome) how can I fix it?
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:45 am
Installing the Parallel Tools was all it took to make my wireless work on the Windows 7 side of my MAC.
June 30th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I am trying to connect 3 new iMacs using Parallels 5. I have reinstalled Parallel Tools several times with no luck. When I try to change network settings to “turn on network discovery” and save it, when I reopen the change sharing options again it is back to “turn off network discovery” . It has been hours, any thoughts?
August 5th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
A VPN is a secure network connection over the internet. This is usually used to connect two remote business sites to the same network. This is not used to connect individual computers, although I suppose it could. VPN’s are bought and licensed from your ISP. I think what you’re trying to do is create a LAN. Here are some step by step instructions. http://www.ehow.com/how_2121867_setup-internal-lan.html