Gillie, I have, well a bit overdone but, Win7 32bit installed in a VM works fine, but also Win7 64bit installed in Boot Camp for those stubborn, hungry Windoze apps.
For your CD/DVD drive, from memory, a question was asked during the setup procedure as to whether this drive should be available in the VM.
Try looking in the setup menu - small cog on bottom of VM Window, and connecting or reconnecting the drive.
All new to me as well, but I've been using Parallels for over a year now and it hasn't missed a beat yet, well, except for a failed upgrade in the last couple of days. All fixed now.
Posted here.
Added: For the anitvirus problem, possibly better to try asking Avast as well.
Last edited: Jul 11, 2012