In the latest round of "Ask Ben Anything", Parallels Marketing Manager and product guru attemps to answer some of the more commonly asked questions about the company's products.

Problem: I'm a road-warrior, so I'm often in hotels and airport lounges and Starbucks and so forth. For example, I have a T-Mobile WiFi subscription (and am writing you from a United Red Carpet Club). But I can't seem to get it working with my Parallels workstation! Even though my host laptop is crankin' away with a great Internet connection on my T-Mobile WiFi account, the VM insists the connection has "little or no connectivity".

- Scott J.

Easy to fix! There's a mode under "Networking" called "Shared Networking". This mode, in layman's terms, means that whenever your Mac is online, your VM is online. It works via NAT (Network Address Translation) that enables your VM's IP address to hide behind your Mac's IP, which gets your VM online even on a connection (like a T-Mobile HotSpot) that only allows one IP per connection.


In my line of work a "snapshot" capability is really useful. I know that cloning a machine is one way to revert to a previous state, but that is too slow and not as useful. Any future snapshot plans for Parallels?

Keep up the great work! Thank you for Parallels. It runs on my MacPro at work and is truly a killer app.

- Ash

Thanks for the support! Yes, a "snapshot" type feature is in the works and should be ready by the next major update. Hold tight for a few more months.


Is there any limit to the size of a folder/file I can drag & drop?

- Marc K.

Nope, none at all. It'll just take a bit longer to work with a massive file or folder. For really big files, you may just want to store them in a Shared Folder so its always at the ready for both OS X and Windows.

If you are interested in finding out more about Parallels, their products, or more Q&A with Ben, check out his official Parallels Blog site, here.