Installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit questions

[Chi-HsiuL]

Dear all,

I understand that this thread might be a duplicate of others, but I am just confused.

I have installed the trial version of PD5, and I bought Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate from University IT store. I haven't open the package so that means I still can get the refund if it is necessary.

After reading threads about installing Windows 7 in Mac and called thru VM from Parallels, I found the messages involved sound stressful. There seems to be a long "to-do-list" for PD5 to go.

Could someone in Parallels answer my questions below to clear my confusion before I actually buy this software?

1. In "Getting Started.pdf", there is a paragraph saying: "If you have the Boot Camp partition in your Mac and select the Boot Camp Partition option in this window, the assistant will .........". This paragraph sounds like we can go without previously setting up a "Boot Camp partition", and install OS directly through the interface of PD5. Is that true? If it is true, how will PD5 handle the partition? Will it create a partition by itself? I think the document itself needs to be refined in order for user to get a better idea.

2. How much of the work the user need to do in order to install Windows 7 so far. Has there been any step-by-step solution being produced? If so, what's the risk of doing so? Does Parallels give support if I install Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit in my Mac?

Many thanks for your attention!!

 

[Chi-HsiuL]

I think I understand what's going on.

Yesterday I bought Windows 7 and installed it with the option "Create New Virtual Machine". Apart from if you install from Upgrade disc you will need to use custom option for your installation, (I am not sure if we also have to do this for Windows 7 full installation disc or not, but I followed this path and succeed.) everything went smoothly. Now I have installed Office 2007. If I don't open too much applications on the mac side, Office works well in all the modes (coherence, crystal, ... etc.). The memory setting is 2GB for the virtual machine as suggested by many users on the forum. When starting the VM where there is no sufficient memory, the VM will not start. And, the next time you start the VM it will say it has recovered from a serious failure or something like that.

Create New Virtual Machine creates a big file for a Windows virtual machine in my mac. Parallels does the ugly part of simulating the environment for the Windows 7 system. I guess it probably cheated the Windows system so that it "thinks" itself as if it is in a properly formatted disc. So in this mode, there is no BootCamp required. However, in this way you may not boot from Windows directly when you start mac, as there is no bootable partition for Windows created.

I don't understand why Parallels doesn't say much about the methodology in the user guide or something, but I think I get the idea.

After immediate installation of Windows 7, the OS remains in boxed mode, Parallels gives notification to user to install the Parallels Tools. After installation of this tools set, all the modes are working.