Parallels on Friday released a new beta version of Parallels Desktop for Mac, the software that lets Intel Mac owners run Windows without having to first reboot their machines. The new release, beta 2, is for users of the 3.0 version, is available for download from the Web site.
Coherence — the ability for Parallels to work seamlessly with Mac OS X using Mac OS X’s Dock — has been improved. The new beta lets users minimize any Windows window to be minimized in the Dock, the same way it works with Mac applications.
Parallels Desktop’s Shared Folders feature has also been improved — your “My Documents” folder and any subfolders display the same contents as your Mac’s home folder.
Other changes include Coherence support for Exposé and transparent windows, the ability to overlap several Mac and Windows windows in Coherence, ability to change your Virtual Machine’s disk format with the Parallels Image Tool, support for the iPhone in Windows iTunes, improvements to CPU usage, memory management and overall performance — including the ability to support more than 4GB of RAM for multiple virtual machines.
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac costs $79.99.
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