Parallels would not start, now it does -- is this safe?

Bear with me, please. I've only had my first Mac for a couple of weeks and I'm still learning. The last time I played with Linux was a long time ago.

I installed Parallels 4.0 just fine on my Macbook Pro and it worked great. Had a hardware issue just 2 weeks after receiving the laptop, took into the Apple Retail store and they couldn't resolve it in-store and replaced the machine. They did a data & app transfer for me, too. Got home with new laptop, and Parallels does not start--jumps in the Dock a few times and quits. At the time I didn't know to go to Console and get the error code.

After uninstalling and reinstalling and repairing disk permissions and uninstalling (following instructions on threads here) and reinstalling, no luck. After reading another thread here, somebody mentioned a file in /usr/local/lib and I went to check but did not have read privileges on /usr/local/lib. So I added read only privileges for everyone on that folder and now Parallels seems to be working.

Is this safe? Should I restrict read privileges to admins only on that folder? Should I return the privileges to no access except for system (that's what they were)? Sorry - I was a PC user for over 20 years and developed software for 15--but I'm in over my head now!