Build 5582: Should I update?

I am on a macbook with 10.5.3 and am running XP on build 5582 in Parallels 3.0. I only access XP to run a program required for graduate school. Everything is running fine as it is currently, and have absolutely no problems. My question is should I update to the newest build 5608? I am afraid if I do that some freak thing will happen and I will lose all my coursework. I appreciate any advice.

 

If you do not need to update, then stay on 5582. As you mention - everything works for you nicely now, so don't fix what isn't broken. ;-)

 

You only need to update when you install sp3 in windows xp.

 

For OS X 5.3 I would install Parallels 5608, it resolves some graphical issues with Parallels under Leopard 10.5.3 (that didn't occur in 10.5.2).

In relation to freaky things happening, they can happen anytime either if you upgrade (because it can break something), or if you don't upgrade (you're not protected against a more recent issue), so learn to live with it.

Hint: Buy an external drive, use Time Machine and Winclone.

 

Nop, not sure Time Machine is good idea, unless you use third party plugins to change default per hour time settings
The main problem with Time Machine is that by default it takes snapshots every hour.
There are third party plugins which allows to change this behavior to once a day.
What is the problem.
Let say Time Machine is backing up Parallels Desktop
and example file order is
Snapshot.xml
DiskDescriptor.xml
VirtualMachine.pvs
--etc
winxp.hdd

There is some seconds between Snapshot.xml or DiskDescriptor.xml has been backed up, and to go to the winxp.hdd file and during those seconds you write some data to disk
After that you turn off your Mac, not waiting to the next hour data will be synchronized
And some how disk failed
If you restore you will not be able to start VM, as there is difference between data in Snapshot.xml and in real snapshot file, the same is correct for DiskDesciptor.xml file in winxp.hdd bundle

Microsoft Windows use Volume Shadow Copy for such situations, but Mac doesn't and this is the main problem we recommend to use our tools for backup purposes.

 

You're right, since I hinted at Time Machine, I should've been more insightful.
I 'll give some details about my setup, I do use TimeMachine Editor to make it only backup once a day and upon external drive mounting, and I also have the virtual machines in the Do Not Backup List (I have them mirrored/copied on the external drive), and finally Winclone for cloning the Boot Camp partition.