I use Parallels quite a lot within my Mac environment, and recently tried to get Solaris/AMD 64-bit installed. Even on a Mac Pro system Solaris stubbornly refuses to install in 64-bit mode, picking the 32-bit kernel every time.
So after exhausting a lot of search options, I submitted a case to Parallels support – titled:
“Solaris installer does not recognise 64-bit CPU”
Overnight, I got the first email back from Parallels support, with this response:
Escalating this ticket to our next level of Support since the issue is regarding Linux.
I half-typed an email response to correct the engineer, but then I thought better of it. If I need to explain that Solaris isn’t Linux to a support engineer, then on second thoughts, I’d prefer to have my case escalated to an engineer who (hopefully) already knows this.
[2009-07-15 Edit]
The second level support engineer I got was much more savvy in the differences between operating systems and was able to answer my question. Solaris 64-bit Parallels support is being actively worked on, so hopefully I’ll see release notes for an update to the current version “soon” (my words, not theirs) mentioning added support for Solaris 64-bit guests.
[2009-12-30 Edit]
Parallels Desktop v5 does seem much better at supporting 64-bit Solaris. There’s a few tricks to getting networking going, but nothing terrible.