new to mac, need help with parallels

I have windows xp professional upgrade. Will this work? The original installation cd doesn't have sp2, is there any way I can install it?

 

I just looked at the system requirements on the parallels web site and it just says XP, but does not say service pack 2.

 

You can use any version of Windows, way back to version 1, I believe. Your problem will not be the version, but the fact that you have an Upgrade CD. That means the CD will check for an earlier installed version before running. I suspect you'll need to install Windows 98 or maybe 95 first.

PS Why isn't this in the Windows sub-forum?

 

thanks for your reply. sorry, i wasn't sure where to post. this means I would have to load windows Me first. Wouldn't that affect my mac smooth production?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by your "Mac smooth production". You will probably not be able to use Parallels' nice and tidy automatic Windows installation wizard with a Me disk, so you will have to build the initial Virtual Machine by hand.

Or are you worried about having Me on your Mac? If you install Me first and then immediately upgrade it using your XP upgrade CD there should be no trace of Me left on the system. You'll then just have XP to contend with.

 

Windows XP Upgrade disks don't require you to actually install the previous version of Windows.
You should be able just to boot VM from the Windows Upgrade CD, at some stage it will ask you to put some previous Windows version CD into the drive to validate your Upgrade license, so just eject Upgrade CD from the VM, put ME CD, wait for the installer to confirm its version and connect the Upgrade CD back to VM. Please mind that initially you need to create Custom or Typical VM with Guest OS type Windows XP, not ME.