I am running Parallels 3.0 on my MacBook pro with Windows XP Professional for quite some time now and plan to upgrade to 4.0. As usual, things mess up in a Windows installation after some time and the overall constellation became very slow over time, so I'll plan to have a completely fresh reinstall of Windows XP. Doing this, I might consider changing some a bit of the setup & configuration I chose when I first installed Parallels about 2 years ago an work with since. I'd ask for your advise here, share your experiences and help me make the right decisions when reinstalling. I work most of the time in Windows (Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, a few other apps) but need to run Mac at the same time as one app I need regularly (though not often) is Mac only. So Bootcamp is not a real option as it requires me to restart when using an app from the other OS. Here the things that came to my mind: 1. Virtual Windows disk size & format As I use Windows as my major OS I figured out that I need to dedicate the biggest part of my Mac HD to the Windows partition/Parallels. All my files I would usually store on Windows (see issue below). So I set up a fairsuly large Windows HD (120 GB out of 160GB total Mac HD size). I configured the virtual HD as fixed size. There are a couple issues with this as I went along: - Backup of the Mac becomes cumbersome as any Mac backup program considers the Windows partition as "one file" that is then backed up completely during every back up - taking so much time and making backup files unnecessarily big. Would it be better to have the Windows HD in variable size (not sure if I use the right Parallels expression here), so it grows over time as needed? Any disadvantages of this? Speed? Is there a way to do a smart backup of the Mac incl. the Windows partition that would not backup the entire (50%empty) Windows partition every time but only backup the files that actually changed? 2. Storage place for my files I have set up a number of folders that I have on my Windows desktop - permanently visible during work, where I organize my most important files (client projects etc.). I don't use the MyDocuments folder of Windows at all, as I enjoy being able to arrange the most important folders around my desktop and have it visible during my work. Would it make sense for me to store all files on the Mac partition and use the Mac desktop as my primary working environment? I find the Finder to be so much cooler (and may be better) than the Windows Explorer to perform file-management tasks - incl. its fast search function - and of course the ability to have smart backups on the Macside that would cover all my files. Would this create new problems in that some Windows applications save their files to Windows automatically and I will then have to manually move these files around on to the Mac side? Could I set up all my Windows apps so that they store documents in folders on the Mac desktop by default? My aim is to make this really simple in the end and have all files on either this (Mac) or that (Windows) side. 3. Coherence mode/Mac & Windows desktop I usually use coherence mode as I appreciate the Mac dock also for Windows up. One annoying problem, however, is that as soon as I click on one open Windows folder window the windows desktop disappears in the background and the Mac desktop comes through - and if I click on the Windows desktop icon to have the Windows desktop in front, I can not see any of the open Windows-folders. So essentially dragging a file that's on the Windows desktop into an open folder is impossible. Is there any way of an alternative setting that avoids this? 4. Speed Would keeping the Windows partition small and having all files stored on the Mac side make the Windows installation perform better than having a fairly large Windows partition with all files on it? 5. Battery I feel that the Mac's battery is really draining fast when using Parallels/Windows. Is this true or a misperception? If so, it could be a way out to switch to Mac versions of my most used programs (MS Office) - yet I'd need to still run Outlook as Entourage is so much weaker than Outlook with all its extensions and so. Will I still enjoy seamless integration between Mac and Windows office programs? 6. A more general (not ideological) question: should I try to have as many tasks as possible performed on the Mac side or on the Windows side? (when I have idencital apps like MS Office) available on both platforms? What would be the benefits of performing most tasks that I now perform in Windows in the the same app on the Mac side instead? 7. And finally, any general tips & hints from you out there who might have gone through what I prepare to go through? Things you tried and turned out to be great (or just not good)? Any of my thoughts familiar to you? Let me know what you think & advise.
