I'm confronted with frequent "limited memory" or "out of memory" messages from my Win XP VM. I'm not short of RAM or HD space and can easily enlarge the VM but I don't want to lose existing data or software. All are difficult to install and maintain vertical market applications that don't play well with trying to restore from backup copies. I'd like to make the VM for windows 75 GB since I have 4 - 500 GB harddrives on a MacPro with 8 GB RAM. Each time I encounter one of these messages, the only alternative I'm given is to upgrade but lose everything. Is there any way of enlarging the VM without losing everything already installed and the datasets that go with them? I just upgraded to 3.0 and it took place smoothly and without issue, but this problem has been plaguing me since 2.5. I don't have that much Windows software installed, but it is all large stuff with massive databases - imagine 18 years worth of Quicken data on stocks, bonds, and checks. My Quicken database is 9 GB by itself, but for tax purposes I can't afford to partition it. I need it all available online. (And no, the Mac version won't handle the Windows-created data as anyone who uses Quicken has come to understand). Add to that VPN software and applications for my wife's medical practice (designed to display and manipulate 2-D and 3-D MRI, CT, and Ultrasounds) and you begin to understand my desire to not want to risk fragmentation or disassociation of the software or its data. The hassle of getting the vertical market software from my wife's work is just plain daunting and it takes hours to configure correctly. I *really* don't want to have to reinstall it again. I've got it working perfectly under Parallels but I doubt I could replicate this without spending a whole lot of time. Someone tell me there's a way to expand the Windows XP VM without trashing the existing VM and I'll be a happy person.
