Ok, one of the things I like about Parallels is that it seems to trim the memory usage to what the Windows guest OS is actually using. For example, I gave my XP 512 mb of RAM and I see in Activity monitor Parallels is really (actively) using just ~132 mb of RAM (rest appears to be paged.) I like that. Give more memory back to the Host where it can be better used. Now Vista comes along and has a much different memory strategy than XP. Vista figures unused RAM is wasted RAM so fill that puppy up with programs you might execute. Results in faster app launches. Like Outlook 07 opens instantly. I mean like instantly. I mean by the time my finger is off the mouse my mail is downloaded. Which is great. But how does that conflict with Parallels? Does that mean my Vista guests will eat more host memory which will result in degraded host performance? I'd love to hear from the Parallels team on the finer details of their memory management...
