How can I make Parallels not suck?

Running Parallels 5 with Windows 7 Ultimate. It takes SOOOO long to start up, and it so damn slow, that I never even use it at all although I would quite like to! I realize that I haven't gotten after it at all. Worse than that, when I accidentally open a windows application with quicksilver, the entire machine grinds to a halt for many minutes while it tries to load, and I generally have to just reboot my Mac.

Any thoughts on key settings I might try to speed it up? References to key threads etc most welcome.

Here's the mac I have:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,3
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.48f2

 

Hello,

There can be different factors that can affect your Virtual Machine performance. Most common things could be the amount of programs you are running within your VM, what programs you have running on your host machine at the same time, and even amount of memory available.

Some best practices that we recommend are first, make sure you are on the very latest build of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, which the last build that was released was v9376. You can find the download link to the latest version here http://kb.parallels.com/en/5802 or by going into your Parallels Desktop menu and selecting 'Check for updates'.

You can try tinkering with the amount of memory allocated to your VM. You can do that by going to 'Configure' in your VM menu and under the 'General' menu you'll then see in the window a slider so that you can allocate the amount of memory you want to your VM. We recommend you stay within the Parallels recommended values. Of course you wouldn't want to recommend all of your memory away as to not slow down the performance of your Host machine.

Also try checking the amount of programs you have starting upon booting up your VM. The more programs that you have that launch at start up and also attribute to the speed of which your VM starts.

Hope that helps. Thanks!