Parallels starts selling Windows 7 upgrade tool

Parallels said it is ready to start selling a program that uses virtualization to help ease the migration to Windows 7  from older versions of the operating system.

The company's $50 software uses virtualization to help consumers migrate from an older version of Windows to Windows 7.
(Credit: Parallels)

The company, which is best known for software that lets Windows run on a Mac, has been working on a tool to ease the move to Windows 7 from earlier versions of the operating system--a move first reported by CNET.

The new software, dubbed Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows 7, will be available from Amazon and Parallels almost immediately and will hit store shelves on May 31, Parallels announced on Wednesday. It will sell for a suggested price of $49.99, including a high-speed USB transfer cable, or $39.99 without the cable.

Kim Johnston, Parallels' vice president of consumer and small business marketing, said that the software is an ideal tool to safely move to Windows 7.

"Ninety percent of customers haven't upgraded yet," Johnston said. "This is a perfect solution for them."

The product would appear to remove several key hassles. Moving to Windows 7 from XP or even some versions of Vista requires a complicated clean installation, ordinarily requiring users to back up and restore their data and then reinstall all of their programs. Also, some programs designed to run in Windows XP won't run in Windows 7, a problem that Parallels elegantly solves by running a virtualized copy of the older operating system. However, this latter technique may raise legal issues for those who use it.

The Parallels product is designed to move any version of Windows XP or Vista to any version of Windows 7 and run the older operating system inside a virtual machine that is largely invisible to the person using the software. However, in many cases the user is not properly licensed to be running both copies of Windows.

The license terms that accompany the typical upgrade version of Windows 7 don't allow a user to keep using their old copy of XP in a virtual machine. Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate do include a virtualized copy of XP, but only for use with Microsoft's own XP mode. Users who buy a full, rather than upgrade copy of the OS would appear to be properly licensed, though those copies can cost several hundred dollars.

For its part, Parallels said the burden is on the user to make sure they are properly licensed.

"We remind the customer to check the status of all of their third-party licenses," Johnston said. "We just have no way of knowing what their software and hardware licensing is."

So far, Microsoft hasn't commented on the licensing issues surrounding Parallels product, although Johnston points out that the software was formally announced at a Microsoft event in Paris, in which the company was specifically invited to speak.

"We collaborate with Microsoft a lot and they are a great strategic partner," she said.

Google I/O: Seeking results

Google will kick off two days of announcements, educational sessions, and geek mayhem on Wednesday with the first keynote at Google I/O 2010, and this is the place to be for live coverage.

The event is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. PDT Wednesday morning at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. Google hasn't released a specific agenda, but I believe that Wednesday's event will focus heavily on Web development and Google applications, while Thursday will focus on mobile technologies. We'll cover both events, but stay tuned here for Day 1 coverage.

USB 3.0 Gets a Speed

USB 3.0 is fast, very fast, and that is exciting. It is exciting more for what can be accomplished using USB than the speeds that it achieves. At 4.8Gbit/s (maximum theoretical) or 600 MB/S (maximum achieved) it would seem plenty fast enough to handle just about any task that you can throw at it (including video?). At ten times the speed of USB 2.0, this is one step closer to universal cable utopia.

Toyota Fortuner

Toyota has launched the Fortuner SUV in India. The single variant vehicle will be retailed at Rs 18.45 lakh ex-showroom, Delhi. In competition with other city SUVs like the Honda CR-V, Mitsubishi Outlander, Ford Endeavour and Chevrolet Captiva, the Fortuner's pricing beats that of all these vehicles and comes as a proper surprise, given Toyota's brand standing in the country which could have had them price the vehicle a little higher too. With such competitive pricing however, it is clear that Toyota is here to weed the rest of the competition out.



With genuine 4x4 capabilities, the Fortuner is just not another city slicker and has fairly good off-road capabilities when it comes to getting out of sticky situations, making it a proper Sports Utility Vehicle as opposed to being just a large car. Its torquey engine is supported by a very smart all-time 4WD system, but what also makes the Fortuner a genuine city vehicle are its great interiors, space and ride comfort. With airbags for the driver and passengers and Toyota's acclaimed Global Outstanding Assessment design for crash impact, the Fortuner also comes across as a very safe vehicle.


It will be interesting to see how the market warms up to the Fortuner, and how the competition reacts to it. We will be here covering the developments as they happen, so stay logged in to ZigWheels.com.