It seems like the Parallels team have given up on me! does that happen often? I can imagine that it is irritating to more experienced users when Junior's keep asking the same questions. Maybe they could remember when they were new to stuff and how they learned. (bitch over)
I think if you read through it carefully they have answered some of the questions (not all) but provided no solution.
Hello, I'm sorry for the possible inconveniences - we are trying to answer as fast as we can and to provide actual solutions but sometimes it is rather hard to cover all existing threads at one time. But it seems that your issue with compressing the virtual HD was solved at the end in your thread (actually two threads). We will try to improve our service, thank you for the feedback anyway!