I need to regularly work with a single VM under both Mac OS X and Windows, would buying Desktop for Windows with Desktop for OS X be a solution? Thanks.
Parallels Desktop 4 (and later versions) VMs are compatible between different platforms. So, for example, you can have a virtual machine in your Parallels Desktop 4 for Mac and later use it in Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows. Earlier versions of Parallels Desktop (2,3) will require conversion which is not reversible. Regards, Max
I managed to download the Parallels Desktop for Windows 4 trial version and found the answer for myself. Yes the VM are compatible. However, there are two caveats. One is that the Windows version of course uses a different set of Parallels tools and thus moving the VM necessitates the reinstallation of the tools. Two is that there is some trouble copying the VM from Mac because of some read issue that might've been caused by symbolic links. I am using 5 beta version for the Mac btw.
Thank you for this update! Parallels Tools re-installation is indeed recommended to match the version of the product. However the trouble with copying you're talking to is not clear - can you please elaborate on that? What happened on that way and how it was resolved? Thank you! Max
