Upgrade from Mac OS X Lion to El Capitan

I would like to do an upgrade from Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 towards Mac OS El Capitan.
As I am currently using Parallel Desktop 9, which is not compatible with El Capitan, I bought the upgrade towards Parallel Desktop 11. However, I cannot install the new version of Parallel desktop on my Mac OS Lion. (compatibility problem?).
I therefore wonder if I first need to upgrade my Mac OS system to El Capitan and only afterwards install the new Parallel desktop version? And in this case, how can I avoid to loose all the windows documents and software that I'm currently using with Parallel Desktop 9?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Hi Thomas,

OS X shall be upgraded first. Parallels Desktop 11 compatible with OS X 10.9.5 and above. Windows virtual machine itself is a file with extension .pvm that is located on your Mac, you may find it as described here: http://kb.parallels.com/en/117333. I would recommend to take a backup of this file just for safety prior to upgrade. Also, please check if you you saved some of your important files (you mentioned Windows documents) directly in OS X. In case of successful upgrade, all of your files including Windows virtual machine will remain on the same location, so you'll be able to continue using it.
In addition, this article may be helpful: http://kb.parallels.com/en/123222 (Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac upgrade activation)