OnQ : Leopard

On Downgrading

eriq — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:04:00 GMT

Well, my experiment with Leopard and Parallels has come to a close. As of this morning, I'm back running Tiger and Parallels build 4128. I was able to get Build 5582 running on Leopard and mostly had everything the way it should be, but performance was HORRIBLE! Now, I had made a number of changes all at the same time, so it could have been any one of them. I was running Leopard on an external firewire drive, so that could have caused performance issues (however, my XP hard disk image has been running on another external firewire drive for months, and that posed no problems). I also updated to OFfice 2007 SP1 because of the lingering performance issues I've seen with Office 2007 in general, and overall that seems to have done nothing. Plus, I did upgrade Parallels from 4128 to 5582, and who know.

So I retracted in several steps. First, I went back to my default Tiger system, keeping Office 2007 SP1 installed and Parallels build 5582. Same performance issues. So it's not Leopard itself or running the main OS from an external firewire disk that caused the problems. Then I went back and installed Parallels build 4128, and bingo, all my performance issues went away., even leaving Office 2007 SP1 on (I won't say that Office 2007 performance has improved over what I was seeing, it just went back to what it had been before the Leopard/Parallels test.

So, to keep my sanity and performance intact, I'm sticking with this for the time being. Next step will be to give that Fusion a real run for it's money and see how insane that makes me before I go back to this configuration. I must say, though, that I am getting more and more disappointed with the steps, or lack thereof, that Parallels is making with their recent builds. And I've been unable to get anyone at Parallels to follow up on the requests I've made for assistance, even after following their guidelines for requesting support. We'll see what Fusion has to say about all of this.

On Leopard, Parallels, and Fusion

eriq — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:51:00 GMT

This is a long post. You have been warned.

Today is my day to try and get caught up on Leopard. I haven't been able to fully move over to Leopard on my main work machine for several reasons, which will become clearer shortly. I have Leopard up and running on my PowerBook, and I'm really, really liking the interface, so I'm really wanting to get it going on my main work machine. Which means I have to tackle either Parallels or Fusion to get my Windows stuff working properly. Let me explain.

I've been running Parallels version 3.0 build 4128 for quite a while, mostly because I had display problems in the latest public build 5510. I'd gone back and forth with the Parallels support team, but they had not been able to replicate my display issues (Coherence mode just flat broke in 5510, making Parallels practically useless for me in a production sense), so I stuck with running 4128 until the next update was released.

When Leopard released, I cloned my disk to an external drive, ran the upgrade on that, and promptly broke Parallels. I again went round and round with the Parallels support folks, and they released a couple of beta builds that I tried, but still had problems with Coherence, making Parallels again all but useless, and since I could not get build 4128 to run AT ALL on Leopard, I went back to Tiger, where I've been since.

All that changed today, or at least that was the plan. I had received a note from VMWare that Fusion had finally gone production (and I could get $20 off by ordering now), so I decided to give Fusion a try under Leopard and see how that worked. I've previously documented my experiences with Parallels versus Fusion when it comes to their desktop integration (Coherence for Parallels, Unity for Fusion), and how I believed that Parallels was the more useful (for me) and mature product. Well, today I purchased, downloaded, and installed Fusion. While downloading Fusion, I checked back on the Parallels forum and lo and behold saw the note that they've released build 5582 to address Leopard issues, so I downloaded the latest Parallels build and got ready to start the Leopard update.

I booted from my external drive loaded with Leopard (after making sure I had installed the 10.5.1 update from Apple which addresses some of the security issues noted in the initial release) and installed Fusion. Fusion launched right away, and I opted to use the "Easy Install" method and install Vista Ultimate (I"ve been running XP under Parallels, and I really need to see if Vista is "all that and a bag of chips" or not for me) and within about 30 minutes, I had a basic Vista install running under Fusion under Leopard. I joined the Vista machine to my SBS server using the Connect Computer wizard, and then installed Office 2007. I kicked the VM into Unity mode, and other than the Windows taskbar showing underneath the Dock, it seemed to work OK. %^@&# annoying to have to either move the Dock or move the taskbar to get access to both, tho. Maybe there's a setting for that, but I didn't take the time to look.

Seeing that Fusion/Vista was behaving as expected, I started to take a look at Parallels. I uninstalled the previous build of Parallels and installed the latest update, per recommendations on the site. I was able to launch my existing Windows XP VM without problem, but I did get a report about the trial version key expiring. It took me a bit of work to track down my licensed keys, but I was able to get Parallels back running with my original keys.

The performance with Coherence is definitely improved in this build, but it's still not 100% where it had been (or where it should be). I have had to enable the "Group All Windows" setting for Coherence (which can only be modified when the VM is stopped, by the way) and even with that, I'm still not seeing exactly what I'm expecting to see with Parallels.

Bottom line, I'm back in production again with Parallels on top of Leopard. Next step will be to move the Leopard install from the external drive back to the internal drive and hopefully regain a bit of system performace. Leopard is definitely running faster on my PowerBook than Tiger was, and I'm hopeful that I'll see that same performance improvement once I get the system set up the way I want.

On Leopard, Part 4

eriq — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:48:00 GMT

OK, the first of the Leopard How-To's is now posted: Connecting a Macintosh running Mac OS 10.5 to an SBS 2003 Server is now online. There are some key differences between this version of the Mac OS and previous versions, but nothing really earth-shattering. In fact, it's quite a bit easier to get the Mac connected. In fact, if it weren't for SMB signing, it would really be a piece of cake. Oh well.

I've run into a couple of other interesting hiccups related to Leopard installation, and I'll be posting about those as well when I get more concrete information about the issues.

In the meantime, as I did when Vista came out, I'm recommending that people hold off from installing Leopard on their exsting systems, especially on a business-critical machine. Give the bleeding edge folks a little time to ferret out some of the issues that didn't come up in beta testing and get fixes or workarounds before trying to install. I'm probably going to stick with my recommendation that a clean install is a good install for Leopard as well. More on that as information becomes available.

On Leopard, Part 3

eriq — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:02:00 GMT

A Saturday morning trip to the area Apple Store finally got me my very own copy of Leopard. I would rather have had the media in my hands on Friday as indicated with the initial order, but I need to get outside sometimes, or so people keep telling me.

At any rate, I've now done two Leopard installs as tests, and so far, so good. One clean install on my non-Intel Powerbook took about an hour. I had a couple of issues with kernel panics on startup, but I'm not certain that it wasn't because of an issue with the external hard drive I was using for the install. The other was an upgrade to a clean build of Tiger on an external drive, and that went well.

I'm working today to get several Mac connectivity docs updated with Leopard info. Those docs will be posted at my Lessons Learned blog, and I'll be putting together a version with screen shots that will be available over at smallbizserver.net.

From a feature set point of view, I'm very pleased with what I've seen thus far with Leopard. Screens is a practical virtual desktop tool that I've been missing for a long, long time. Time Machine looks like a very capable backup tool, which can hopefully be used to back up to a network device in addition to local disk. Safari launches and runs much faster than before. I really think that Mac users have a lot to be happy about with this version of the OS. I'll be interested to see how it fares with Parallels and Fusion and some of the other tools that I use in my business daily, but initially I'm on board with the new OS, now that I finally have my hands on it.

On Leopard, Part 2

eriq — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:05:00 GMT

Strike one for Apple. Late Friday afternoon I knew that my copy of Leopard wasn't going to arrive on the 26th as stated on the sales order, so I decided it was time to try and get as much detail as I could. When I had spoken with a sales rep fromt eh Apple Store online earlier in the day, they didn't know what the status on the order was, just that it hadn't been prepared for processing yet. Since the order page still had not been updated, I decided to call in again. The Agent I spoke with this time was clearly a little more flustered than the Agent I spoke with in the morning, and after talking with her for a few minutes, it became clear why.

I was definitely NOT the only person calling about the status of the order.

Unfortunatly, this second Agent had no better information to give other than "it hasn't shipped and I cannot tell you why, but we're working as fast as we can to rectify the problem and get the product shipped." Not being satisfied with this response, I asked who I could speak with to try to get more information. The Agent transferred me to Corporate Customer Relations and gave me the number. After about 10 minutes on hold, I finally spoke with the CR Agent and took a little different tactic with my concern. Honestly, I wasn't terribly put out that I wouldn't get my copy of Leopard on the 26th as advertised, but I was a little more than frustrated that the party line was "we don't know what's going on." I explained to the CR Agent that if I had been able to get some concrete information about the order the first time I called, I could have A) altered my schedule so I wasn't sitting at the office all day waiting on a package that was not coming, and B) made arrangements to head down to an Apple Store locally to be ready for the Launch Party that started at 6pm and get my copy of Leopard there. But knowing at 4pm that the product wasn't going to even ship by the 26th didn't help at all. All in all, I waited aout 30 minutes on hold with the CR Agent as he dug around trying to get any information that he could. That's when I knew for sure that it wasn't a party line I was being fed. No one had any clue what was going on. Finally, the CR Agent came back and said that he was able to find someone who would be able to get me some additional information, and ironically it was someone within the Apple Busines Agent program. So I hung up with the CR Agent and called my ABA contact who, I was told, would be able to provide additional information.

She did.

She was able to tell me definitively that my order, along with a number of others, was not going to ship in time to arrive on the 26th or even ship on the 26th. But that was it. Nothing like "we didn't have enough product to cover the number of orders that came in through the online store" or "we put all the media in the retail outlets and online orders will get shipped when additional stock arrives." In fact, other than confirming that my order wasn't going to ship on the 26th, she was as in the dark as anyone else. I reiterated my main concern, which was that the lack of information kept me from being able to make necessary business decisions (like passing on a couple of local support jobs because I couldn't leave the office in case the package had actually been shipped), and that if Apple is going to make claims about product being delivered on the day of the launch to users who placed orders on the site, that they really better be able to stand behind those claims. She got the message.

Now I have to say that ay no point in any of these calls did I ever lose my temper or even raise my voice. I've worked on the other end of support lines for too long to "lose it" with any phone agent. My years in support management have taught me that receiving negative feedback in a constructive manner is just as important as receiving positive feedback, and since most of the time people who are unhappy with a service provider will tell everyone they know EXCEPT the service provider, when I have an opportunity to share negative feedback, I not only do so, but I try to get to someone at the management level and deliver the info in the same way I wanted to receive it myself.

When I did finally get home last night (I did work a few remote calls before leaving the office), I checked my order status at the Apple Store again. Still says "Delivers on October 26th." This morning I got up and, out of curiosity, checked the order status again. And it's been updated! Now instead of a status of "Not Shipped" and "Delivers on October 26th" I have a status of "Prepared for shipment" and "Ships by October 29 - October 30." Now that's useful information. That tells me that if I wait for the online order to process, I won't get Leopard until at least mid-week. So now I have the opportunity to try to find a copy at the local Fry's or the Apple Store that's closest to the house. CompUSA is already sold out of their stock, and they were offering a $30 mail-in rebate. Fry's is closer, and opens earlier, so I'll try there first, and head to the Apple Store as the last resort. So there might be updated Mac Connectivity docs this weekend after all. then again, this might be a sign that I need to take the weekend off. We'll see...

On Leopard, Part 1

eriq — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:16:00 GMT

Today is a big day for the Mac community - Apple is releasing Leopard, otherwise known as Mac OS X 10.5, at 6pm local time around the globe. Apple Stores around the world are putting on large showcases and thousands and thousands, if not millions, will be flocking in to pick up their very own copy of the OS. Unless you pre-ordered, that is.

Those who went to the Apple Store on-line on October 16, 2007, could pre-order Leopard (in the single-serving or family pack packages) to be delivered on October 26. So if you didn't want to wait in line with the mobs who will be converging on the Apple Stores (and other places that sell Mac stuff, let's not forget them) to get their copies, you could order on-line and get it shipped to your very own address, wherever that is.

So yours truly placed his order on October 16 and arranged his work days for October 26 and 27 to focus on Leopard. The plan is to have an updated "Connecting your Macintosh to SBS 2003 via SMB" document ready for publication by Monday so those who find themselves in that situation can get the Leopard Mac connected with minimal effort and hair pulling.

Only there's one small flaw with that plan: the Store shows that my order has not shipped yet. Kind of hard to received something today that hasn't been shipped yet.

Well, I've worked with a number of other vendors who have had issues getting shipping information updated in their on-line order systems. I can recall a number of times when tracking information was not available on the vendor web site until after the package arrived at its destination. So, I'm thinking (hoping) that's the case with Apple. Still, it warrants a phone call.

Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have called. Not only does Apple's tracking system show that the product hasn't shipped yet, it shows that it hasn't even been prepped for shipment. So unless there's a large quantity of Leopard boxes in a warehouse in the DFWD area (which wouldn't surprise me, honestly) and they're arranging for a same-day shipping process, I'm not hopeful that I'll actually be removing the shrink wrap on Leopard today.

Still, this could be all of Apple's plan for keeping control of when Leopard actually gets in the hands of the public. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the shipping information hasn't been updated deliberately to keep the information under wraps. I think that's giving Apple a little too much credit, though. I think I'm set up for a bit of a disappointment today and will have to wait until Monday (Lord, I hope it's not later than that) to crack the case and start working on the docs.

In the meantime, I updated the "Connecting a Macintosh to SBS 2003 via SMB" document to address some of the user interface changes that both Apple and Microsoft have introduced into the various software pieces since the original posts were made almost three years ago. Hopefully that will be useful for someone...