Does Parallels make Slim Drivers (for Windows 7) pointless?

[EricH1]

Seems to me that virtualization bypasses the native OS device drivers. If that is true, is it pointless to update the drivers in the Parallels environment?
Thank you,
Eric

 

[Parallels User]

It's compley obscure what you mean because the vocabulary you use does not seem to mean what you want it to mean.

1. Define 'slim drivers'
2. By 'native OS device drivers' do you mean the Host OS (OS X) or the Guest OS (Windows) device drivers?
3. Define 'native drivers', do you mean the drivers (software controllers for hardware devices) that come in the installation media of the OS?
4. Are you referring to all drivers or specific drivers (e.g. Display, mouse)?
5. Are you referring to Parallels Tools?

 

[EricH1]

Hey Specimen,
Sheesh, sorry for the sloppy post. Thank you for the courtesy of your reply!
1. SlimDrivers was a free website/service (now owned by DriverUpdate) that CNET and I agree is excellent for maintaining aging Windows machines. It is very cool, and here is what it does:

• It scans all installed drivers and compares their revisions against the online manufacturer's data
• It presents the data in tabular form, clearly recommending which drivers have updates available
• With one click, it will update all your outdated drivers, with an optional backup first

Fantastic! My ancient Sony VAIO desktop was performing poorly, and I think that updating the drivers might have solved some memory leaks.
2. 'native' meant Guest (Windows).
3. Yes, I meant 'software controllers for hardware devices'.
4. I am referring to all drivers, because that is what SlimDrivers does.
5. Not sure what you mean here.
Let me see if I can restate this correctly:
Not understanding the details of how virtualization is implemented, I am thinking that Parallels completely bypasses the Guest (Windows) device drivers when a Windows Guest is hosted on a Macintosh. I am thinking that the Host (Mac) OS device drivers get connected to the Guest OS at the Application Layer(?). I am thinking that the Guest device driver codes might not ever execute. If that is true, I am thinking that it would be pointless to update the Guest drivers in the Parallels environment to fix the memory leaks that I fixed with SlimDrivers on my PC.

I hope that makes more sense. Please advise.
Thank you!
Eric

 

[Parallels User]

Forget Slim Drivers under Parallels then, it's pointless, install Parallels Tools, which are the drivers Parallels provides for the virtualized hardware, slim drivers will not be able to update nor should update these anyway.

Think it like this, Parallels is like Sony, it's like a hardware maker (except the hardware is virtual, or rather a virtualized version of the real one), so Parallels provides also the drivers for this hardware, which are only distributed through Parallels, via Parallels Tools.