Here are a couple of screen dumps of the upcoming Parallels 5 beta.

That looks bloody fantastic!

What are these screenshots supposed to show? As far as I can tell, it runs Windows and they changed the layout of the window used to show which VMs you have installed.

Sorry, was just posting the layout of the new beta because it looked nice. If you really want I can paste more screen dumps and I humbly apologise if it didn't meet everyone's expectations

What's new in this version (according to the web):

This beta version of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac (build 5.0.8688) includes the following new features and enhancements.
Virtual devices improvements
- Improved sound
- DNS support for Shared networking

Integration improvements
- Auto HDD compacting - automatically reduce the virtual hard disk size as the unused space on it grows.
- Lockdown - Lock virtual machine settings to prevent changes.
- Drag and Drop in VM list - Add an existing virtual machine by dragging its file to the virtual machines list.
- New Parallels Compressor - Reduce your virtual hard disk size by optimizing the data organization.

New user interface
- Improved Virtual Machine Configuration dialog ? Better organized virtual machine settings.
- Simplified Parallels Desktop menu structure ? More intuitive menus.
- Coloring virtual machines ? Highlight your virtual machines in the virtual machine list and in Finder by setting different colors for them.

2.2 New features and improvements in previous versions of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac
Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Beta (build 5.0.8538) included the following new features and enhancements.
Performance improvements
- General performance improvement - Parallels improved the performance of its virtualization engine.
- 8-way vCPU - Up to 8 CPUs can be assigned to a virtual machine, which results in a better performance of virtual machines.
- SMP scalability and performance improvements.
- EPT support (experimental) - Extended Page Table technology support provides a better performance of virtual machines on new Nehalem-based Mac Pro and Xserve.
- KVM paravirtualization - Improved performance of paravirtualized Linux guest OSs on SMP systems.
Virtual devices improvements
- Multi-monitor support (Full screen, Coherence) ? enables you to use all displays of your Mac in your virtual machine.
- Improved USB - improved performance of USB mass storage devices.
- Bridging VLAN on Mac - allows your virtual machines to access the Mac OS X VLAN.
- Parallels network adapters were removed from Mac OS System Preferences.
Graphics improvements
- Windows Vista/Windows 7 AERO (WDDM DX9) - Support for Windows Aero in Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines.
- DirectX Shader Model 3 - DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 3 support for Windows virtual machines.
Integration improvements
- Copy and paste formatted text between Windows and Mac OS - Copy and paste formatted text between Windows virtual machines and your Mac.
- Copy and paste pictures between Windows and Linux virtual machines - Copy and paste pictures between Windows virtual machines, Linux virtual machines, and your Mac.
- Guest OS Linux shared clipboard - Clipboard synchronization between Linux virtual machines and Mac OS.
- Improved Drag and Drop ? Drag and drop e-mail attachments between Windows virtual machines and Mac OS.
- Improved Shared folders - Windows Movies and Downloads folders were added to Shared profile.
- Smart Mount improvement - Select the types of devices to be mounted as volumes.
- Contextual menu items - "Show in Finder" and "Run on Mac" can be selected when you right-click an item in a shared folder in a Windows virtual machine.
- Graceful shutdown for Linux guest OSs.
New user interface
- Improved Virtual Machines List - Sort virtual machines, add or remove virtual machines by dragging them into the list or out of it. Set different colors for your virtual machines to easily distinguish them from each other.
- Improved Virtual Machine window ? New look. New controls. New devices bar. Old toolbar is hidden.
- Improved Parallels Desktop preferences ? New look. More preferences.
- Changes in menu structure - Simplified menu structure.

Guest OS installation
- Windows 7 express installation - Windows 7 can be installed in unattended mode.
- Linux express installation ? Linux OSs can be installed in unattended mode.

Some of the config screens







Does anyone want a screendump of anything in specific?

How do you get a copy of the Beta ? I've got v4 right now.

Aero is the big one for me.

Originally Posted by bigmouth

How do you get a copy of the Beta ? I've got v4 right now.

Beta is issued to beta testers only unfortunately.

Originally Posted by markh

Have they done a better job of not screwing with your system like before? Just my humble opinion, but Parallels has always been ho-hum compared to VMWare fusion

I started with Parallels and haven't had an issue with them to date. I had one problem with a corrupt VM where my machine did a beach ball (related to Missing Sync) and the VM wouldn't start and I was able to recover it but to date, thats my one and only problem.

My upgrade from 3 to 4 was hassle free and I've honestly not had a reason to complain so I've never bothered to look at VMware much.

I don't use it for gaming so that may be why I have less issues or maybe I'm just lucky.