Hello, I need Parallels and Windows for just one application: Visual Studio 2010 (or before long, 11). I run it in Coherence mode with a single GB of RAM allocated and love it. But I can tell it's using up my battery and processing power, plus generating lots of heat. I'm wondering if there is anything to be saved by going down from Windows 7? Does anyone know if there are any benefits to switching to Windows XP or another version of Windows for this situation. I absolutely do not need IIS or anything other than the features installed with VS (i.e .NET Framework 4 and whatever networking features Parallels relies on. I'd love your feedback. Many thanks, Chris
I personally think Windows XP 32 runs faster on 4GB RAM Mac, but a lot of people may argue that Windows 7 has better performance and 32-bit version eats the same number of resources. I usually look at System Requirements. Windows 7 needs minimum 1 GB of RAM to run just Operating System itself. In case you run some additional applications, especially something like VS - the Vm may be overloaded.
