Catalina & Parallels/Panorama 6 OR Mojave with native Pano 6

I’m going to step up to the MacBook Pro 16" which will be delivered with Catalina. I’ve been sticking with Mojave as many Panorama 6 shared databases require the continued use of Mojave.

The question for those that may have some experience here… Should I install Mojave on the new MacBook Pro so that I can continue to run Panorama 6 natively, OR should I run Panorama 6 via Parallels so that I can run Catalina on the new MacBook Pro?

I don’t think you have a choice here, my understanding is that the 16" cannot be downgraded to Mojave. So that’s one less decision for you!

Dang. I did confuse myself and thought that MacTracker stated that it would run Mojave. Looking again, I find that MacTracker doesn’t list the 16" yet. O well, there has been a part of me looking forward to seeing what Catalina can do. I guess I’ll learn all about running Panorama 6 in Parallels. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

On my laptop running Catalina I’m running Parallels for sharing Pan 6 and it’s been fine.

Hi James, do you have to reboot to get into Parallels and run 6? Just wondering how different it is from having Mojave on a separate volume as I’ve done, it’s working fine that way for me.

No reboot at all. It runs just like another app. You click on the icon on the Dock and you’re in a whole other OS with all the rest of your apps still available in the host OS.

Patrick,
picking up on ur conversation with James on running Parallels on macbook. I have a few questions if you can help with some advice. I’m on a 2017 macbook running high sierra and an apple genius helped with root permission to load Panorama 6. I just realized at my Panorama direct expires the end of this month in October. the process is to deactivate and reactivate with the last 4 digits of my cc. I’m afraid if I deactivate the software won’t load with my OS. it’s a shot in the dark. Can you share the steps for loading Parallels or how you’re continuing to use Inview?
Much appreciation for your sharing.

Steve

Parallels is installed per their standard installation process. Then in stead of installing a Windows OS you just follow the same steps but install a Mac OS instead. Unless you have the desired Mac OS installer, getting the one you want can be the hardest part. I’d have to look back through discussions here and possibly some of my own notes on how to download them from Apple, but it can be done.

Once you have the OS installed, you load Panorama 6 and InView as you would otherwise.

James,

I found El Capitan dang last night and downloaded the software.

Steve

Hi Steve,
Got your message, I’m on the road right now. I’m not running parallels, I made a separate volume so I have Mojave for Inview/Panorama and Catalina for everything else. That means I have to reboot to use Inview. Not that big a deal. There were some hoops to jump through and Provue has the steps in which to jump through them. Search panorama classic on the provue.com site. As usual it’s a pain to get the activation done right so make sure you de activate Panorama before creating a new volume. Hope that helps.
Patrick

Hello James,

I was intrigued by your post regarding Parallels with Pan6. May I confirm my understanding?

When you load the earlier OS into the Parallels “virtual environment”, do you still have access to your files in the regular Mac environment? Can you open Pan6 with a double-click like normal, or do you have to load a separate copy of Pan 6 into the “virtual environment”? Are the original Pan6 files accessible from the “virtual environment” as normal, so they can be opened and closed, data extracted, etc.?

I hope these questions are not too trivial, but the virtual environment scenario is beyond my experience.

Best regards,
Vic

If you’ve ever used Mac screen sharing, it’s very much like that. You have two Mac operating systems running at once and simply switch the view to go from one to the other.

Think of it as two Macs having to share one monitor and hard drive.

As I type this, I’m on Catlina, but this laptop is also running El Capitan right now. I can click on Parallels on the Dock and be instantly in the other OS running Panorama 6 as well as ever. I could perform a couple of tasks then click back to Catlina and then back to the other again. It’s no slower than clicking from one app to another on a single OS. I could also be running a browser in that OS and answering you there instead.

The virtual environment is just like a separate computer and has its own applications and files. I’ve determined that I can run Enterprise server or client in it too.

So, I don’t need a separate copy of Pan6 in that environment? And the files on the “separate” computer are still available in the virtual environment? If that is so, it would be great. I can keep all my Pan6 files and macros, and they will run as they do now!

Have I got that right?

Regards,
Vic

You DO need Panorama 6, or any other application you intend to run, installed in the virtual environment. It is the just same as having another computer.

Thank you James.

Jim, this is a question for you. You can see from your admin perch that I own Pan6, and in fact have purchased PanX. If I run Parallels with an old OS, can I just drag my Pan6 icon into the virtual OS, or do I need to do something special? I have my Registration number for my Pan6 application.

Regards,
Vic

I think you mean me. I’ve never used Parallels so I have no idea. You would definitely have to activate your Panorama 6 serial number on the virtual machine, just like on any new computer.

You have to treat it 100% like a separate computer. So you do have to do a standard Panorama installation. Depending on what OS you’re putting it on, you’re likely to find discussions here about any issues you might encounter.

It doesn’t matter that it’s a virtual machine - it’s all done the same.

Thanks everyone. Special thanks to James Cook.

The Parallels app seems a good way to continue with my Pan6 files after (or if) I am forced to upgrade my El Capitain OS to a more modern Mac OS.

Regards,
Vic

That’s true if you think about macOS 10.15 Catalina. Panorama 6 is able to run in older system versions up to and including Mojave.

A point to consider in regards to the long term future of using Parallels to run older versions of macOS. To do this, Parallels relies on the fact that the current operating system and these old operating systems run on the same type of Intel processor. In a few months, Apple will begin shipping new computers with a different, non-Intel CPUs. It’s probably unlikely that you will be able to run older versions of macOS on these computers, even with Parallels. Or if this does turn out to be possible, it will be much slower because of the need to emulate the different processor. So far, however, there have been no announcements that this will be possible. Just want to make sure that no one buys a new ARM Mac thinking they will still be able to run older versions of macOS. For now, I would assume that will not happen.