4 Sep 2009
Parallels 3.0 on Snow Leopard
I upgraded to Snow Leopard on my Mac and as described on Apple’s website Parallels 3.0 won’t start on Snow Leopard. At least not by default. However it is possible to start Parallels 3.0 under Snow Leopard without updating anything. As there are some good reasons given, that lead to this result, use the following steps at your own risk. I haven’t experienced any problems with these steps, but who knows?
So here is what you need to do.
- Open Parallels in Applications folder.
- Choose “Show Package Contents” from the context menu
- Go to “Contents”->”MacOS”
- Open the located binary “Parallels”
A Terminal will open and start Parallels Desktop as in Leopard. I also put a photo set on flickr, showing all steps.
Appendix
If you want to have a shortcut in your Dock, you can simply drag the binary into it.
Wow, lifesaver, wife would have killed me if I could not have retrieved her Microsoft Money data file. Phew.
Aitch
September 8th, 2009 at 8:26 pmpermalink
Clever guy – thanks for the tip!!
Piero
September 9th, 2009 at 9:21 pmpermalink
Fantastic!
It works, Parallels launches and works almost 100%. Drag and drop from the Mac desktop to Parallels doesn’t seem to work, but for me it is not a deal breaker.
Thank you, thank you Toni. You have saved me spending €30+ just to get the app working again.
Anil K Solanki
September 10th, 2009 at 12:20 ampermalink
[...] a workaround to get Parallel’s 3.0 to work in Snow Leopard: Toni Uebernickel havvgs life Blog Archive Parallels 3.0 on Snow Leopard It works great! (except for the weird glitches in the [...]
The Official Mac Chat Thread - Page 45 - 8th Generation Honda Civic Forum
September 11th, 2009 at 3:41 ampermalink
Doesn’t work for me :-( MacOS crashes!
Lars
September 12th, 2009 at 1:07 ampermalink
Does not work for me ! The terminal opens and then Parallels 3 just Crashes. I am not impressed with parallels, I was thinking about buying the upgrade before installing SL .. no way now.
Paul Crocker
September 25th, 2009 at 12:39 ampermalink
Thank you!!! You saved my exams!!!
Davor Zagorac
October 6th, 2009 at 8:43 ampermalink
TONI THANK YOU!!! GREAT, that roks and works!!!!!!!!!
Felix
October 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pmpermalink
I cant find the “show package contents” its not listed in the menu????
Jeff
October 30th, 2009 at 10:19 pmpermalink
My System also crash always.
Incentive
October 31st, 2009 at 4:15 pmpermalink
Hey Jeff, I can’t figure out, why it should not be there. Here is the Screenshot of the menu (English version). http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni-uebernickel/3887106283/in/set-72157622242099218/
havvg
November 1st, 2009 at 1:45 pmpermalink
it worked for me for some time and suddenly stoped. now every time i start parallels this way whole macos crashes.
quaint
November 8th, 2009 at 10:25 pmpermalink
Try starting Parallels before you start heavy applications. In my situation it’s eclipse which causes the same problem.
havvg
November 9th, 2009 at 10:42 ampermalink
i’ve turned on home folder sharing and that caused the problem. when every sharing option is off everything is good back again.
quaint
November 10th, 2009 at 12:43 ampermalink
[...] ja was von digitaler Erpressung! – habe ich weiter gesucht und bin über den Apfeltalk auf den exzellenten Tipp von Toni gestoßen: das Parallels-Paket aufschnüren und das Executable einfach direkt starten, als Terminal-Programm. [...]
untergeek
November 14th, 2009 at 2:43 pmpermalink
Thanks a lot from a German Paralells User to you.
Works fine on my imac 20′ under SL.
Klaus
January 9th, 2010 at 12:51 pmpermalink
Hi, could you deliver the exact build of Parallels 3?
On my MBP15″ with broken CD/DVD, I need it to install Windows 7 on my Boot Camp partition through Parallels :-(
Explanation:
By default Bootcamp prepares only Fat-Filesystem. But Windows needs a NTFS-Filesystem. When I do format to NTFS before, Parallels 4 an 5 asume that it has no write access and wont start the install at all.
With Parallels 3 it was easy to do a reformat from Fat to NTFS during the windows installing process (windows7 is suggesting this) choosing BootCamp as the target drive for the installation (no virtual drive).. and done!
But with Parallels V4 an V5 it wont work anylonger, as they prevent also manipulations to the mbr of the original hardrive and store this info into a virtual hardrive. You simply cant reformat the bootcamp partition. Also Windows Bootloader wont be able to write any information to that area anylonger.
So… windows wont boot…
With Paralels 3 it worked like a charm.
BTW: all the hassle because Apple Hardware wont boot from legacy USB-drives with non Apple GUI or HFS+ filesystem… also rEFIT wont work… tried it all, like a thousand other MBP or MacBook Air users :-(
dennis
April 24th, 2010 at 9:14 ampermalink
I’m using Parallels 3.0 Build 5638 (from 4th July 2009) – hope that helps :)
havvg
April 24th, 2010 at 8:27 pmpermalink
hey can you upload your 3.0 Build 5638 dmg plz? i cant find it..
Shane
May 22nd, 2010 at 3:24 pmpermalink
Sorry, but this would be illegal. I’m not uploading it anywhere.
havvg
May 22nd, 2010 at 3:45 pmpermalink