Parallels Desktop 5 doesn't play well with Kaspersky Anti-Virus on some Macs

While Microsoft Windows users are certainly the most targeted population of Internet users, people using other operating systems and software are not immune to software flaws and fraud attacks. For example, the Firefox web browser had more confirmed vulnerabilities (25) than Internet Explorer (13) for the first half of 2005. This demonstrates that computer users cannot expect to eliminate their risk of attack online simply by choosing different software. Many of today's attacks such as phishing work independent of whatever software package you happen to be using...

I've got a late 2009 Macbook Pro and definite screen flicker problems running Parallels 5 (Build 5.0.9310) and Windows 7. I originally noticed the problem running Quicken 2009, but I believe that's a separate well-documented problem. Very little I've found about this screen flicker problem and Parallels support is so awful I've been reluctant to contact them. I'm going to try uninstalling Kaspery. I hope it works!

Hey Everyone,

Parallels now plays nice with Kaspersky. Check out the new Parallels Desktop build 9310 here: http://bit.ly/6G0Nfz.

Cheers.

I have an iMac i7 - brand new. I am running parallels with Windows 7 so I can support Quicken 2010 - which is MUCH better than Quicken for Mac. I had repeated failures of applications...all of them, IE8, Word, Excel, Quicken, Adobe, TurboTax, etc... when I had Kapersky installed. Failures every five to ten minutes requiring rebooting of the VM.

I found a thread on the Parallels site indicating that this might be a problem...in general for all third party apps. So, I uninstalled Kapersky, and I have had no trouble now for over two days.

It is a real problem and it has nothing to do with faulty Windows deployment.

I have had the same problem since I installed the PD 5.0 starting on 11/16. Thus far I have had 31 e-mail exchange with Kaspersky. I can tell you the following: Parallels Internet Security (PIS) does NOT have to be enabled for the system to fail usually on a wuauclt.exe error. All that it needed is a scan of the files. (Just institute a Quick Scan with PIS disabled).

They asked me to send a .zip'd copy of my VM, but AT&T ULs are only 220 kbps and it would have taken days. When I pointed that out they responded: "I see. Thank you, we already have several virtual machines uploaded. Will let you know about any news."

So, I've put MSE on, I stay off the Web, and I use my PC-only application (lens design) to get my work done.

Best wishes to all for the holidays

@Sam: Yes I realize Panda is beta, but it was working JUST FINE ( and was even SUGGESTED by some folks FROM VMWare as an alternative to even their own supplied AV ) with VMF 3.0. Hint, all this behavior WAS reported to VMWare ( were you even reading my post ? ), and the situation is just getting more untenable.

My old pc died a few months back ( all symptoms pointing to the MB).. so having been won over by the Iphone, I bough an IMac 27" i7. Since I wasn't going to pay the apple price for memory, I kept it at 4GB.

I installed Parallels 5 and installed win 7 64 bit. I think I hit one problem.. but I put that down to my total lack of Mac basics..

I've not run into any of the problems mentioned..

I've not done much on it admittedly, apart from reconciling my itunes library from a virtual drive to a non virtual drive, and exporting out my outlook libraries etc.. all of which would have been a much slower process on dual boot.

Not having the history of Mac, my choice between Fusion and Parallels was down to a few reviews I read. I think there was mention of an issue with the 64 bit version of Windows 7 under Fusion.. but that might have been pre current release.

And yes, I do have the antivirus tools that Parallels provide.. so I've not idea why I've (thankfully !) escaped the problems..

I must admit that while I absolutely love my Imac.. (still getting used to the interface .. .and the lack of # key is annoying when RDP'ing.. ). It's not been without some moments of concern about problems that everyone else has had.. the fear of a cracked screen of dead machine kept me up most of the night before delivery.

And I found that VMWare Fusion 3.0.1 doesn't work with just about ANY Anti-Virus. WIth VMF 3.0 I had to switch to Panda CloudAntivirus ( it was recognized via my efforts, and those of a few others, that AVG Free 9 has issues with VMF 3.x ), but since I switched to 3.0.1, I can NO LONGER boot any VM I have, and so I've had to switch to Parallels 5 !

I thought some folks should know this, before somehow this article thinks of implicitly suggesting that a migration to Fusion might be a user's best bet. Probably not.

I'm using AVG Internet Security 9.0 on my Parallels 5, Windows 7 Ultimate iMac setup. AVG is very unobtrusive. I just got tired of dealing with Kaspersky's solution. It was just too annoying. I haven't had any issues using AVG IS9 so far. Everything runs smoothly. I have a 24" 3.06 GHz iMac which is not quite as powerful as your machine, but I'm only using the Windows 7 virtual machine as a test to see if I'll eventually move it to BootCamp when Apple gets full compatibility for Snow Leopard. I usually use my Windows XP Pro in BootCamp for any serious stuff. It runs faster and has been very reliable. Even so I usually keep a Winclone 2.2 bootable backup in case anything goes wrong in the future.

Ah, i didn't know Kaspersky is included. Still.... if it had not i wouldn't even have considered getting a paid app. AVG works fine in most cases. Or even Comodo, also free.