I spent 25 years married to Windows, from Windows 3.1 on. When I retired from teaching, I retired my PC and bought a 27" iMac. I love it, but only missed one Windows program, Microsoft Publisher, that I had become a whiz at. I heard fellow Applelonians talking about Parallels, so I thought, here is my chance. I bought Parallels 7 for the Mac today, and then bit the bullet to buy MS Publisher 2010, even though, as a retired teacher, I can't even afford toilet paper. Then as I lay in bed tonight, I discover I also need to buy Windows. Before I go forward, I want to curtail my blunders without falling off a cliff. Must I have Windows 7, and if so, which version? Would you expect a 27" iMac, 1 1/2 years old to be able to pull this off, or am I going to have spent 300$ I don't have in order to do something I can't do. Yikes! Help!
Hello Smudgeyjoe, I am sorry to hear about your frustration. Indeed, a copy of Parallels Desktop requires a licenses copy of an operating system. At this point, you can install either Windows 7 or ealier. The full list of system requirements for Parallels Desktop is here
To reply to your question, Windows 7 Home Basic should be enough, be sure your iMac has at least 4GB of RAM for things to run smoothly.
