New to Parallels...wow!! But lots of questions

[dcpmark]

I use a PC at work for basic Word documents and Lotus Notes, but I've owed and used Apples since 1979! With the coming of Lion and the prospect of losing Quicken 2007, I just decided to try out Parallels 6 for my Mac Pro. This is the coolest integration I've ever seen. Everything is seamless running in Coherence mode, and so far I have no troubles. I'm stunned that we get to have killer OSX machines and killer Windows 7 machines operating at the same time. But there's lots I don't understand.

I followed the directions to use my existing Boot Camp installation. Now I have 2 virtual machines, one called Windows & and the other called Boot Camp. Why do I have 2, what's the difference between them, and are there reasons to use one over the other? FWIW, I've been using the Windows 7 VM, and I haven't even tried to launch the Boot Camp VM.

When I bought Windows 7 Ultimate a while back I only bought the 32 bit version. Given that I have an '08 8-core 3.2ghz Mac Pro with 10GB on memory, what should I give Windows in terms of cores and memory? I only plan to use Windows to run Quicken and possibly some home automation software. No gaming.

How do I share files? I want to create a backup of my Quicken 2007 for the Mac to import into whatever Quicken for Windows I end up getting.

If I want to download Quicken for Windows, is there anything special I have to do, or does Parallels handle that for me?

TIA!

 

[kencohen]

Sharing folders

You can share most data between the Mac and Windows. In Parallels, under the Virtual Machine menu, select Configure. In the configuration window, click on Shared Folders in the list on the left side, then just indicate on the right side what Mac folders to share with Windows, and whether to share Windows folders with the Mac. Once you set this up, you should be able to open and save files in either direction. YOu may find that files you have saved in the other system will be read-only due to permissions settings from the original OS.

 

[dcpmark]

Thanks for the tip on creating shared folders!