Looking for Best Practices

K

KennonS

Bit poster
I'm a new Parallels user looking for best implementation practices.

I have a Mac Pro, Intel Quad 2.66, 6GB, 2 TB.
I have WinXP 64 bit installed to run MS Office 2007 applications, large XL spreadsheets w/ heavy macros.

I have allocated 3 CPUs & 3 GB Ram to the VM.

System appears to be running well enough, though I haven't really stressed it yet.

I want to be able to back up a 'fresh install' so that I can revert to 'like new' condition should XP get funky. (In my past life I always kept an XP Ghost image around to remedy performance degradation. I haven't had that for 3+ years with OSX and I don't really want to go back in time!) I am concerned about XP viruses infecting my Mac environment. (I've installed the Parallels Internet Security). My feeling is that there should probably not be any shared folders/files between the VM and OSX, but I'm aware that completely locking this down will make it more difficult to use.

I'm looking for your best practices:
... Clone vs. Snapshots
... Security
... Integrated workflow
... System performance settings
 
Ditto!

Forgive me for piggy backing on this thread, but my situation is similar...

I'm also a new Parallels user. I've been a Mac user since the original Mac II, but my main workstation for the past 4 years has been a PC; a work requirement. I've recently migrated back to the Mac. I have a macBook Pro. 2.53 Ghz Core 2 duo, 4GB RAM. I'm running XP Pro SP3 as a VM. At the moment, most of my work is being done on on the WIN VM.

Some of the things I'm trying to figure out, is how best to tune Parallels to favor the PC environment. It seems Parallels is not even seeing half my RAM.

Also, I would imagine it would be good to get all my files moved from the virtual HD to the physical HD, so they are more readily accessible?

I'm also trying to figure out how to get windows running on one one monitor and the Mac OS on a second.

Would love to hear any best practices from anyone who is successfully managing both environments in a robust work environment.
 
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