Developer - new to Mac

Hi folks - yes, I did searches on FAQs, I even unsuccessfully tried 3 phone calls to Parallels to get info - left vmails, nobody has returned my calls.

I'm a developer and gamer, moving to MAC full time. Buying a new MacBookPro with plenty RAM and plenty hard disk space.

I am confused what product from Parallels I need. Here is what I need:

1) I want to virtualize all versions of windows, including server products 64 bit etc. I'm expecting a similar experience to VMware, VirtualBox and Hyper V (all I've used). Will the base Parallels desktop product be the only version I need? I can't decipher this from anything on the product information/website.
2) I want a full hardware capable Windows 7 virtual machine (no boot partition). If I virtualize a Windows 7 install in Parallels, will I get full graphic hardware support for a great gaming experience? From FAQs I think you can use up to 1gb video memory which should be enough. Do you really pay a price for video performance with this approach? Is this the wrong way to think about Parallels? Should I just do the boot capability? (not sure how that works but assuming same as like boot partition for Windows and you can install multiple OSs?)
3) Is there a tool to migrate Paralles virtual machines over to other product formats like VirtualBox, VMWare and/or Hyper V?
4) From product pictures, does Parallels always run in a windowed environment? Can I do a full screen with no window/scroll bars so it looks like the native experience?

 

1) Yes. You can do a P2V (Physical to Virtual) Import of your Windows boxes into Parallels using Parallels Transport with the base parallels Desktop. All you need is a network connection on the same LAN for all computers involved.

2) I will not get "Full hardware" capabilities with Parallels or any VM product specifically where Video is concerned. There are issues with developing Windows Phone 7 or anything that required Direct X 10/ 11 or WDDM Drivers because they need direct access to the hardware. Parallels does a great job in coming out with updates so that may be something on the plate.

3) You would have to consult the other products for importing Parallels into their software.

4)If you are running Lion, you can do full screen/no windows or scroll bars for the native experience.

I want to apologize for the bad experience you've had so far but the software is rock solid and I use it for my iPhone / Android development connecting to an Azure cloud on my VM of Windows 7/ Windows 2008 R2 with no issues. Hopefully this can help make up for it.

 

Thanks for the response -

So will the Desktop version alone meet all my needs? I can install any version of any OS including all Windows Server products and Linux/Unix?

 

I would have to put "all" in quotes. It depends on what your graphic needs are for development and gaming. Check out the Guest chart for tested, compatible OSs Parallels supports. From my experience, Parallels handled everything I threw at it.