Parallels general advice

The best advice I can probably give is for you to look for and ask for tips and advice in the Parallels Mac forum:

http://forum.parallels.com/forumdisplay.php?58-Parallels-Desktop-for-Mac

You will absolutely need to run antivirus and antispyware software in Windows, just as you would any other Windows system. You'll also want to have plenty of RAM in your system so that you don't strangle either Windows or Mac OS X. I'd recommend having at least 8GB in your Mac if possible. How much you can allocate to Windows will depend on what version you have; the 32-bit version can't access more than about 3.2GB of RAM no matter how much you allocate in Parallels.

Otherwise, my experience is that in general Parallels Desktop is quite easy and straightforward to set up and run, so your experience is quite likely to be good.

Regards.

A Parallels for Mac Tutorial Page.

And the documentation...

I would read the Getting Started and User's Guide before you dive in. It will prepare you for type of install and configuration settings questions/decisions that you will encounter. The videos may be useful for you too. Preplan.

You should have a minimum of 8 GB memory in your mini. Parallels suggests 4GB for WIndows 7 ... but start with 3GB. Home Premium will be fine in 64-bit if you have it. Have your Windows License key handy before the install. Allocate about 30GB for Windows minimum ... more if your Corporate work will require it. Allocate only half of your available CPU threads to the Virtual machine. If Parallels is sitting on an SSD, more the merrier.

If you install Parallels and Safari will not work, look in your ~/Library/Safari/Extensions folder for a Parallel's extension that I found was the culprit. Hopefully, in the last two months, they have fixed this.

Parallels on a Mac and Windows 7 works great. You may need to install more memory though. I have 6GBs installed and I use up alot of it. If you have M/S Office installed on your Mac you don't not need another license.. you'll be able to run Office from either Mac OS or Windows VM simultaneously. Files are interchangeable between Mac and the Windows VM. In fact you'll see files on your Mac Desktop in your Windows desktop window.

I currently use Parallels and windows 8 on a 2011

MacMini Server and a 2011 13" 2.7GHz MacbookPro

for some pretty heavy duty electrical engineering applications

and it works great. Both machines have 16 GBytes of RAM.

Do make sure you get as much RAM as you can afford. as it

really helps when running virtual machines.

Viking OSX, are the memory and drive allocations set automatically upon installing Parallels or do I set those manually as you are suggesting?

Parallels has manual settings for you to tweak the memory, cpu, gpu, and drive sizing. It is important that you let Parallels install its support tools into your Win 7 guest container during the install process. These are auto-enabled and should not be disabled.

OWC (macsales) is one source of 2x8GB memory for 16GB total.

I used the Window view instead of Coherence as I wanted more "separation" between Mac and Win.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials, though I read a report earlier this year that ranked Bit-Defender ($) software at the top of the Win security software. Not a fan of Sophos.

I don't have an answer for the 2013 Mac Book Pro memory compatibility requirement versus your 2011 Mac mini. Apple has only shipped the 2013 Mac Book Air so far.

I use VirtualBox, found the performance (for my needs) better than Parallels, however ....

I rarely use Windows at the same time as OSX so I dedicated 75% of the Ram to Vbox, and both processors. Windows runs fast and Vbox suspends fast. So I just treat Windows (which loads with Excel already running) as just another app. It's my 'proper' copy of Excel. Files save to the OSX documents folder.

VM's are so much more reliable and flexible than Boot Camp, and they break a lot less.

Personally, I use Windows in Parallels in full screen mode.

More often than not I need the screen real estate and have

many windows and/or apps required to be open in the Windows

mode as well as need for often many documents or website

open in OSX. I then simly swipe between desktops.

When initially creating a VM, the VM settings will have default values.

You can change them as needed depending on your application, in

particular RAM and VRAM allocations.

As for the comment above on VM stability, my personal experience

has been that VMs running Windows on Macs are more stable than

the same configurations running on actual PCs.

And I also use VirtualBox too.

If you haven't discovered it already, you can increase your guest vram from the slider maximum of 128MB to 256MB:

vboxmanage modifyvm vmname --vram=256

VikingOSX wrote:

And I also use VirtualBox too.

If you haven't discovered it already, you can increase your guest vram from the slider maximum of 128MB to 256MB:

vboxmanage modifyvm vmname --vram=256

Yes I knew that, fortunately I put little demand on video, so I left that one alone.

I have been using Apple products since 1985. The only malware that I ever encounted since then was an infected Word document that came from a Windows PC in 1994. Since then, I have occasionally installed, ran, and promptly deinstalled various anti-virus products (mostly out of curiosity) and have never found any malware.

Apple has several levels of protection already built into OS X.

• OS X: About Gatekeeper
• Safety. Built Right In.
• About File Quarantine in OS X
• Daily updates of XProtect anti-malware data files

  Advanced panel in Security Preferences

  • Automatically update safe downloads list

I run double NAT on my Airport Router. I run the OS X firewall. I don't use anti-virus software. Don't believe, based on past experience, that it is necessary. You can if it provides you with additional piece of mind. I wouldn't run Windows in a Virtual Machine without strong anti-virus software.

sjc47 wrote:

I'm not impressed so far with what Parallels is doing to performance. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Try Virtual Box instead.