How to Speed up a MacBook running XP with Parallels

[McGiord]

I have a MacBook 2.0Ghz Intel Core Duo 2 with 1Gb RAM.
I run Windows XP Pro from my Boot Camp partition.
It takes me aproximately 5 min :eek: since I start Parallels to the moment when Windows is able to respond to any of my requests, Messenger startup included.
I mostly used it to run MSN video chat with my friends and relatives, while surfing the web and Mail on OSX.

Beside adding more RAM what else could I do to speed up my Windows experience with Parallels.

Any suggestion is welcome.

Please also post your startup time with your hardware configuration to compare Ram, processor model and if you are using Parallels or VMware Fusion.

[Airforce]

I allocate 1GB for windows and it starts up in less than 2 minutes. An even faster method would be to just close it out. Then it just goes into "standby" until you start the program up again.

I have a macbook core duo 2ghz with 2GB of ram.

[McGiord]

Thanks for the comment.

I allocate 1GB for windows and it starts up in less than 2 minutes. An even faster method would be to just close it out. Then it just goes into "standby" until you start the program up again.

I have a macbook core duo 2ghz with 2GB of ram.

If I try to close it, Paralles gives me a warning message that if I close it without shutting down Windows the partition could be corrupted and cause problems after doing it.
Do you received this message also?
Have you experienced any "corruption" by closing it?

[phungy]

Parallels is a very RAM hungry program...Gizmodo did an "unofficial" test with 1, 2 and 3GB of RAM. Obviously the 3GB RAM made everything run faster...2GB RAM is much cheaper than it was 4 months ago.

[robbieduncan]

1) If you can run Windows 2000 instead of XP. It starts much faster!

2) Add more RAM :)

I have a 2.0Ghz MBP (CoreDuo, first generation) with 2Gb of RAM. Starting Parallels.app then starting my Win2k VM takes 70 seconds (6 seconds of which is for Parallels to start on a fresh boot). That's with only 512Mb of RAM allocated to Windows.

Personally I think Windows 2000 was the "high-point" of Windows performance...

[MOTU]

RAM

I was having the same problems. Freezes up. Beachballing.

I doubled the RAM to 2gb today and the difference is night and day. Currently running in coherence and I don't even notice it's running anymore.

XP boots up really quickly now as well.