Parallels Desktop

Raised as a usability problem by 13 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 10 threads.

People raised many different problems with Parallels Desktop, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 13 complaints

Trackpad only sends scroll wheel events, so smooth scrolling and swipe gestures don't work in the VM2025-08-26
Windows Edge hijacks .html files, booting a VM unexpectedly2025-04-17
Linux guests in Parallels have poor continuous scrolling, making the desktop experience bad2023-12-29
Parallels website and linked pages give confusing, unclear information about Windows support2022-08-23
Shows scammy 'buy our other product' buttons inside the app2021-10-04
Can't disable macOS shortcuts in full screen, so switches spaces by accident2021-10-04
Unattended VMs hang on a sales window pushing upgrades and won't start2020-06-24
Upgrade ad keeps reappearing even after clicking 'Don't show again'2018-12-20
Pushes upsells like download insurance and antivirus during setup2018-12-20
Windows virtual machine takes about 30 minutes to boot and is practically unusable2016-11-17
Promo popups keep appearing; per-popup opt-out is useless and resets after updates2012-09-04
Extra fees and opt-in boxes added by default, unclear whether they can be removed2011-02-23
Backup add-on pushed in by default, and couldn't find how to switch currency2011-02-23