I am hoping someone can please assist me with confirming the correct procedure to upgrade Win XP Pro to Vista when I am using Parallels version 5? I found some advice about upgrading at these two links below however these unfortunately do not appear to relate to my version of Parallels as I can't see a menu option to change my OS version (e.g. from XP to Vista and therefore initiate something) or locate an Actions Menu yet alone an option to "Prepare Windows Vista Upgrade". http://kb.parallels.com/5768 http://kb.parallels.com/en/5023 I am guessing that all I need to do is open Parallels Desktop, start Win XP Pro, and then when XP Pro is open and running I then insert the Vista upgrade CD and try to run the upgrade from within Win XP Pro desktop? Thanks in advance.
The option to change the OS type for which your VM is optimised is a little hidden in Parallels 5. Shut down your VM (but don't quit Parallels). Go to your VM configuration, select "General", and there you'll see the VM's name at the top. Directly underneath you'll see the OS type ("Windows XP"), preceded by a small icon. Click on it with the mouse, and you'll get a pulldown where you can change the OS type.
Thanks for your reply and advice I will check out that option. Since my post I decided to risk doing the upgrade the way I proposed (running the Vista upgrade CD from the Win XP VM desktop) and it seems to have all gone well, Vista is installed and now Vista is downloading about 100 updates so in a way it is working as expected ;-) I'll make sure though that the settings for Parallels recognize now that the VM OS is Vista (and not still XP). Thanks again.
