Beware of Parallels 3 build 5634

Grrr! I’m in the middle of reinstalling Parallels Desktop 3 on my MacBook Pro, and I’m not happy about it.

I use Parallel 3 on my Mac so that I can run Internet Explorer under Windows. Every so often — such as when doing remote admin to a few Windows servers under my control — IE is the only game in town.

Also, Outlook Web Access has more features on IE than under any other browser. I don’t like that Microsoft stacked the deck that way, but since I sometimes must use OWA, that’s how it goes.

On those rare occasions when I need IE, I’ve been satisfied with Parallels 3. Since November or so, I’ve been using build 5626, without a care in the world.

Yesterday, the auto-update feature of Parallels 3 said that a new build was available, 5634. Being a good boy, I downloaded the new build and launched the installer.

And it deleted my Parallels installation. Poof. Gone.

Turns out that I’m not the only one, see this thread on the company’s support forum. So far, no official response. This sucks, people!!!

Thus, I’m wasting time downloading the previous build, 5626, so that I can reinstall it. (You can find it here.) Grrrr!