Upgrading from Parallels 5 to 6

Hi,
I am interested of knowing how smooth is the upgrade from parallels 5 to 6,
Specifically, Will it use the same Windows images I have today or that I will have to install everything from scratch?,
How stable is the latest build of 6 comparing to version 5 (I am using version 5.0.9370 from July 2010) ?

Will It work much fastest (The application I am using are mostly compilers and other software development tools) ?

I will appreciate if you can share your experience.

 

the upgrade should be pretty much painless. install the new version, start your VM and it will update parallels tools. i didn't notice a lot of speed improvements between 5 and 6 (but it was a while back so my memory may have waned a bit). software developer here and have not noticed any problems with sql or VS. if you keep your VM on an external drive though read the forums. there are a lot of problems with the current version of parallels running VMs on external drives. if your VM is on your local Macintosh HD then you will probably be okay. i had to roll back to a few releases back - currently on 11822.