I noticed recently, that Parallels runs/starts excitingly fast, if nothing is conncected to my MacBook Pro and Network Sharing is not active, Bluetooth off. Then Parallels starts within 2 or 3 secs and XP resumes after a very short time - about 2-3- sec too. That is as you could want it to be. Back in my office, I conncet the usual: Cinema 30 inch, some USB equipment and have iChat, Maill and Safari active. Now startup of Parallels takes 2 to 3 times longer and XP needs some time to resume (10 untel 20 sec.) and during this time, XP is just unresponsive. If XP is finally resumed it runs in both scenarios similar fast. Probably some startup checks of the system are not optimized and the developer team should look into it??