Parallels® Workstation 4.0 Extreme Read Me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Parallels Workstation Extreme build 4.0.6740. This document contains the information you should know to successfully install Parallels Workstation Extreme and set up virtual machines. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. About Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme 2. What's New 3. System Requirements 4. Supported Guest Operating Systems 5. Installing Parallels Workstation 6. Setting Up a Virtual Machine 7. Assigning PCIe Devices to Virtual Machines 8. Troubleshooting 9. Known Issues 10. Copyright Notice 11. Contact Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. About Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme Parallels Workstation Extreme is a software product that enables you to create virtual machines on any PC with a 1.66 GHz (minimum) Intel® processor with the Intel VT-x hardware virtualization technology support. You can install a Windows®, Linux®, or another operating system in each of your virtual machines, and work with them and their applications side-by-side with the applications of your primary operating system. Built on Parallels' award-winning hypervisor-based virtualization technology and taking full advantage of Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d), Parallels Workstation Extreme enables you to: - Create powerful and easy to use virtual machines. - Directly connect PCI Express (PCIe) devices to your virtual machines using the Intel VT-d technology. - Use applications installed in your virtual machine side by side with the applications of your physical computer without need to restart it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. What's New This build includes the following new features and enhancements: - On Windows host computers, Coherence view mode is now available for Windows virtual machines that use emulated graphics. In Coherence, the virtual machine's desktop is hidden, leaving only application windows visible on the host computer's desktop. - Physical hard drives can now be used in virtual machines (supported experimentally). - Generic PCIe devices now can be directly assigned to virtual machines (supported experimentally). - Enhanced handling of USB devices: all connected USB devices now have unique names that help you easily identify them in multi-user scenarios. - Improved user interface performance and responsiveness. - General virtualization engine improvements. - Added support for the Intel Westmere CPUs. - Added support for the RHEL 5.5 host and guest operating systems. - Added support for the NVIDIA FX1800, Q4000 and Q5000 adapters. - Added support for the Teradici PCoIP cards. - Improved HDD speed. - Improved stability in various scenarios. - Improved general performance of Parallels Hypervisor. The following bugs were fixed: - Parallels Tools compatibility issues with the Debian 5.0, Ubuntu 9.10 and SLES 11 guest operating systems – fixed. - Compatibility problems with the Windows 2000 Server guest operating system – fixed. - Crashes on computers with EPT and Kaspersky Antivirus installed – fixed. - Possible virtual machine crashes on shutdown – fixed. - Wrongly reported support for RTC alarm in S4 by Parallels BIOS – fixed. - Accidental crashes of the Parallels Virtualization service on Windows computers – fixed. - Problems with the IsolatedDevice option in the xorg.conf file on Linux computers with multiple graphics adapters connected – fixed. - Parallels Shared Folders shortcut available for only one user in Linux guest OSs - fixed. - Wrong behavior of non-US keyboard layouts - fixed. - Problems with keyboard/mouse with HP RGS sender installed - fixed. - Accidental problems with mouse after assigning physical graphics cards to virtual machines - fixed. - Virtual machines may work not correctly after resuming the host computer from the S3 Sleep mode - fixed. - Attempts to suspend RHEL 4.7 virtual machines that don't have the pm-utils package installed may be unsuccessful - fixed. - Problems with creating split virtual disks greater than 1.8 TB - fixed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. System Requirements Parallels Workstation Extreme supports two operational modes: - Emulated Graphics & Networking Mode, and - Direct Assignment Graphics & Networking Mode. Emulated Graphics & Networking Mode Workstations which support Intel® Xeon Virtualization Technology (VT) can run Parallels Workstation Extreme to create large footprint virtual machines (with up to 12 vCPUs and 64GB RAM). Direct Assignment Graphics & Networking Mode Workstations based on the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series with the 5520 chipset are capable of running Parallels Workstation Extreme in Direct Assignment Graphics & Networking Mode, including in combination with the NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS technology. OEM workstation platforms with sufficient power two support like pairs of Quadro FX 3800, 4800, 5800 graphics cards for direct assignment include: - Dell Precision T5500 and T7500 - Fujitsu Celsius R650 and R670 - HP Z800 - Lenovo S20 & D20 Currently, fully validated platforms include the Dell Precision T7500 and HP Z800. Should a customer encounter an issue with other OEM platforms that cannot be replicated on a validated system, the OEM platform partner will need to be engaged to help drive the problem to resolution. Certified Applications In Direct Assignment Graphics & Networking Mode, Parallels Workstation Extreme supports the following NVIDIA Quadro® FX 1800, 3800, 4800, 5800, Q4000 and Q5000 Graphics Drivers and video BIOS releases: · 182.65 or later for Windows primary and guest operating systems · 180.51 or later for Linux primary and guest operating systems · 62.00.62.xx or higher Parallels Workstation Extreme does not have a separate application certification process. A partial list of products tested for the NVIDIA Quadro® Professional Solution Product line can be found at: http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_certified_drivers.html. Primary Operating System Requirements Parallels Workstation Extreme can be used on top of the following operating systems: - Windows XP SP2, x64 Edition - Windows Vista SP2, x64 Edition - Windows 7, x64 Edition - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 x64 Edition ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Supported Guest Operating Systems The following 64-bit guest operating systems can be installed in your virtual machines: Windows - Windows 7 - Windows Vista SP2 - Windows XP SP2 Linux - Fedora 10 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 The following 32-bit guest operating systems can be installed in your virtual machines: Windows - Windows XP SP3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Installing Parallels Workstation Extreme To install Parallels Workstation Extreme in a Windows or Linux operating system, locate the installation file and use the installation procedure typical for the operating system installed on your physical computer. For detailed information on installing Parallels Workstation Extreme, see Getting Started With Parallels Workstation Extreme. Warning: Before installing Parallels Workstation Extreme, make sure that there are no Parallels virtualization products installed on the physical computer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Setting Up a Virtual Machine The procedure of creating a new virtual machine is almost intuitive and doesn’t require much time. To create a virtual machine: 1. Open Parallels Workstation Extreme and choose New Virtual Machine from the File menu. 2. Follow the wizard’s instructions to create a virtual machine and install an operating system in it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Assigning PCIe Devices to Virtual Machines Using Intel VT-d First you need to reserve the PCI Express (PCIe) device for use by the virtual machines: 1. Choose Preferences from the File menu and click the Intel VT-d pane. 2. In the PCI Devices column, select the PCIe device you want to assign to one of your virtual machines. 3. In the Assignment column, specify the PCIe device assignment. To this effect, double-click the corresponding field and choose the Virtual Machines option to reserve the specified PCIe device for use by virtual machines. In this case, the device will be reserved for use by virtual machines only and will not be available to the host computer. Note: If you choose the Host Computer option, the device will be available to the host computer only. 4. Click OK to save the settings. 5. Once you click OK, Parallels Workstation Extreme will install an appropriate pass-through driver for the device on the host computer. This driver will make the PCIe device invisible to the host computer. Then you need to add the PCIe device to the virtual machine configuration: 1. Choose Configure from the Virtual Machine menu to open Virtual Machine Configuration. 2. Click the plus button in the bottom part of the window to open Add Hardware Wizard. 3. In the Add Hardware wizard, choose Video Adapter to add a PCIe video adapter or Network Adapter to add a PCIe network adapter and follow the wizard’s instructions. If you choose Network Adapter, in the next step, select the Direct Assignment (using VT-d) option. Warning: If the PCIe device is reserved for the host computer in Preferences, it will be added to the virtual machine configuration but will appear as disabled. 4. After adding the PCIe device, start the virtual machine and install the manufacturer's driver for this device inside the virtual machine. Note: Parallels Workstation Extreme officially supports the NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3800, 4800, and 5800 video cards for virtual machines. For these video cards, use the latest drivers (starting from 182.65 for Windows and 180.51 for Linux) available on the manufacturer's website. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Troubleshooting If the pass-through driver cannot be installed automatically after a PCIe device has been assigned to virtual machines in Preferences, install it manually by doing the following: i) Go to Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware and open the Device Manager. ii) In the Device Manager, locate the appropriate PCIe device, right-click it and choose Update Driver from the context menu. iii) In the Hardware Update wizard, choose to install the driver from the specific location. iv) Choose to specify the driver yourself. v) In the next window, select the Have Disk option and specify the following path to the driver’s location: C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Workstation\Drivers\prl_vtdvideo.inf or C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Workstation\Drivers\prl_vtdnet.inf and click Open. vi) Follow the wizard’s instructions to complete the installation of the driver. vii) Restart the host computer. In rare cases you cannot boot the primary Linux operating system after a PCIe device is added to the configuration of a virtual machine. To work around the issue, do the following: i) In the grub loader splash screen, with your primary operating system selected in the list, press 'e' on the keyboard to display the boot parameters. ii) Select the line starting with "kernel" by pressing the down arrow on the keyboard. iii) Press 'e' to launch an editor for the selected line. iv) Add ' init=/bin/sh' (without quotes) at the end of the line. v) Press ENTER to return to the boot parameters screen. vi) Press 'b' to boot the kernel. vii) In the command line window, mount the root partition in read-write mode by typing 'mount /dev/root / -oremount,rw' (without quotes) and pressing ENTER. Note: If you want your root partition to be mounted to a different location, replace 'root' with this location in the command above. viii) Type 'echo -n "" > /etc/parallels/vtd.hook' (without quotes) and press ENTER. ix) Type 'mount /dev/root / -oremount,ro' (without quotes) and press ENTER. x) Type 'reboot' and press ENTER. This procedure will make your primary Linux operating system boot normally. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Known Issues - Putting the host computer into the Sleep, Standby, or Hibernate modes may cause virtual machines to stop running. - Reverting to a snapshot and resuming from suspended state may not work properly in virtual machines with directly assigned graphics cards. - Network boot via PXE is not yet available for virtual machines with directly assigned network cards. - USB keyboard and mouse devices will be automatically connected to the physical computer after you select the "Don't show again" option in the message appearing when they are first plugged in, regardless of your choice. To work around the problem, go to File > Preferences and choose to reset hidden messages. - Sometimes the virtual machine may not find its hard disk drive and, as a result, cannot boot. To work around the problem, restart the virtual machine. - The 'Shut Down' button may fail to shut down Fedora virtual machines properly. To work around this problem, shut down the virtual machine by the means of the guest OS installed in it. - Linux Guest OS users umask is not applied to the files created in shared folders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Copyright Notice Copyright© 1999-2010 by Parallels Holdings, Ltd. All rights reserved. Parallels, Coherence, Parallels Transporter, Parallels Compressor, Parallels Desktop, and Parallels Explorer are registered trademarks of Parallels Software International, Inc. Virtuozzo, Plesk, HSPcomplete, and corresponding logos are trademarks of Parallels Holdings, Ltd. The Parallels logo is a trademark of Parallels Holdings, Ltd. This product is based on a technology that is the subject matter of a number of patent pending applications. Distribution of this work or derivative of this work in any form is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained from the copyright holder. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Server, Windows NT, Windows Vista, and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Contact Information Product Website: http://www.parallels.com/ Support: http://www.parallels.com/support/