Huge problems running windows through parallels on my macbook pro

Hi

I have installed Parallels on my macbook pro. I am running windows 7 but it runs so slow that most things time out before they even get chance to load. If there are windows updates then you might aswell forget about the laptop as it takes ages to do anything through windows. The reason for running the parallels software was so I can run sage accounts and connect to our existing network of windows PC's which run sage through an eithernet wired network. After a day of messing around with it it does seem that I am on the network but I just cannot connect to any of the other PC's on that network almost as if the Mac is blocking it?

Any ideas as I was lead to believe this was a great way to run windows but right now i'm thinking of just scrapping the idea and buying a desktop PC

 

How much RAM does your MacBook Pro have? How much RAM have you set for your VM? 8 GB for the Mac and 4 GB for the VM are good values.

How is the network adapter for the VM configured? Is it shared or bridged? Use bridged if you want PC's on your network to see your VM.

Check Activity Monitor on the Mac and Task Manager on the PC to see where your RAM and CPU are going.

 

Make sure you dont break the RAM limits set, try and stay in the green section when adding to virtual machine in the settings for it. If you laptop only has 4g, you will be limited to about 1-2g RAM for the VM. Anymore and it will slow both down because of swapping out memory constantly. Also what are you running on the Mac, any CPU intensive thing at the same time, for instance compressing video while trying to use the VM?