People, Note: I posted this a couple days ago on the Installation and configuration forum but got zero responses. Disappointing. Thought I've give this forum a shot. I currently use an older iMac (2006 vintage) running OS Leopard (10.5.8) and Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I use Parallels 5 (Build 5.0.9376). I have a separate partition for all my virtual machines and that partition is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). All my virtual machines (Windows XP and Windows 7) work fine. I just bought a new iMac (late 2013) with Yosemite (10.10.1) with a 1T fusion drive and 8G of RAM. I want to transfer all my virtual machines to my new iMac and have some questions: 1. I assume the best choice is to upgrade to Parallels 10 which is compatible with Yosemite but in actuality I don't need all the whistles and bells of total integration between my Mac side and Windows side. The most I do is a drag and drop of an occasional file between the two. Is Parallels 10 my best choice, or would an earlier version work as well (I assume my current Parallels version 5 won't work on my new iMac)? 2. The fusion hard drive on the new iMac will only allow me to create two partitions, so I'll have one for Mac stuff and the other for all Windows stuff. There is an option to format the new partition as MS-DOS (FAT). Should I format the new partition as MS-DOS (FAT) for my Windows virtual machines or should I format it as a standard Mac OS Extended (journaled) like I did on my old iMac and why? 3. I have 5 virtual Windows machines, 4 are Windows XP and one is Windows 7. All are 32 bit, as are the various versions of Office loaded on each. Each machine is a .pvm file on the PC Drive partition of my old iMac. Will I simply be able to transfer each .pvm file from my old iMac to my new iMac or will it be more complicated than that? If it is a simple matter of transferring the .pvm files, will the formatting of my PC Drive partition on my new iMac matter? John
1. Yeah, since if you run into problems this is the version you will be able to get the best support for. 2. Definitely as extended. The .pvms are expecting to be on an HFS drive (or be a bootcamp partition in its entirety). You may even run into the 4 GB per file limitation of FAT. I am unsure how and if the expanding images that Parallels uses will even work with FAT. 3. You should be able to simply transfer them, note they will be updated by Parallels to a newer version (and the new tools will be installed). I would NOT even try to format the destination drive as anything other than Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
EytanB, Somebody finally did respond to my original post on the installation and configuration forum but I must say that getting a response on these forums isn't something a user should expect to happen very quickly. I guess I'm spoiled by quick responses on other forums. Anyway, I did get Parallels 10. I did NOT partition my fusion hard drive so everything is Mac OS Extended, and I have successfully transferred all of my virtual machines over to my new iMac. It turned out to be a pleasantly simple and problem-free process. The bottom line is that I'm a happy camper with Parallels 10 and Yosemite. I've got other issues with Yosemite but nothing related to Parallels. Thanks for replying. John
