Currently, I am running Windows 2000 with Parallels on my MacBook. I am wanting to "upgrade" to XP. However, since Vista is coming out "soon", I am wondering if I should just wait. Any advice?
I heard if you buy XP now, it comes with a free upgrade to Vista when it becomes available - maybe this only applies to OEM's. Just be sure where ever you buy it, it comes with this inclusion, or check the Microsoft site for details.
No, Windows Vista is just not that good, and it contains all sorts of piracy checks. If the checks go wrong for any reason, Vista will turn into "Reduced Functionality Mode" which is pretty close to useless. I for myself will not be getting Vista and will stick with XP for as long as possible, on my PC and my future Macbook. If you want to run Windows, I strongly recommend sticking with Windows XP.
Windows XP is much more suited to VM use than Vista is. The main reason being that it uses less than half the amount of RAM. However, I'm sure that when all the glitz is turned off Vista doesn't use that much more RAM than XP. My advice would be to install a trial copy of XP if you need it now, and wait for Vista. By then, Parallels should hopefully have had enough time to work out the bugs in the new beta build.
Theoretically you can. On my PC under VMware Workstation, I can use an upgrade CD to install a newer version of Windows (since I have a bunch of older 95 and 98 CDs). I have since made ISO images of my Windows CDs so that I do not need to use a CD now if I need to reinstall. I do not know how that is supposed to work under Parallels though. Will it permit the changing of CDs during Windows installation?
