New User Configuration Question

Hey everyone! I am both a new Mac user and a new Parallels user. Before I get started installing Parallels on my machine I wanted to ask a few *very* basic installation questions. I'm a statistician and unfortunately some of the programs I use only work in Windows. So I'm planning on using Parallels to run Windows. I do not intend to use bootcamp asI will need to go between several programs on the two OS.

If I do not plan on using bootcamp to boot the machine in Windows and only plan to use it as a VM do I need to partition my drive? If I leave it unpartitioned do I select NTFS or FAT? Does anyone have any suggestions on configuring parallels given what I'd like to do with it? I'm running a 2.66 ghz macbook pro with 4GB memory and a 320 gig hard drive.

Again, I apologize for the basic questions but I want to make sure it's configured correctly before I do anything unnecessary to the drive.

Thanks!
Danielle

 

Hello,

In case you willnot Use Boot Camp, you do not have partition hard drive. You may check differences in FAT and NTFS, in general in Parallels Desktop VM there is NTFS.

When you will install Parallels Desktop and start installing Virtual Machine you may leave options by deault, or you may increase RAM settings tio 1 GB and video to 256 MB