I recently bought a macbook pro 15 inch with a dual core processor. I have been a long time PC user & a lot of my software is windows only. I am not sure which version of windows to get; windows XP home service pack 3, or windows xp pro 32 bit (service pack 3) or windows xp pro x64 bit (service pack 2). The programs I have I have been using on a PC with XP home edition service pack 2, but I thought & have read xp pro is even better, & my programs just state they work with windows xp, they do not specify home or xp pro. Which would be the all round most compatible/stable with parallels, & work with my programs?
Hi SossityC, the choice of Guest operating system is totally up to you. In Parallels Desktop virtual machine you can install and successfully use Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Please find the list of supported operating systems in documentation. Please note that Parallels Desktop cannot guarantee proper operation and installation of OEM versions: http://kb.parallels.com/en/5129 However, full retail version of Windows XP is hard to find these days - this OS is pretty old, but still widely used.
Same question I'm a lifelong Mac user and want to install Windows for the first time. I need to buy a copy. I have a new MacBook Pro. I'm thinking about buying Windows 7 Home Ultimate 64-bit. It is supported according to the documentation. Are any other versions faster, easier to install, etc.? Also, where can I find the cheapest legal copies?
As far as I know there are no speed differences between win7 32bit and win7 64bit unless you have a lot of RAM assigned to the VM (32bit Windows 7 will recognize up to about 3.5 GB). Some on this forum claim that win7 32 bit runs faster on the VM; I've tried both and could not see any difference. The cheapest legal version would be Windows 7 home premium 32 bit OEM, available for instance here. Mind that you won't get any MS support on that.
