Did a search and could not find an answer for this. But if I install Parallels, how much disk space is needed to say run XP with MS Office 2003 installed? I plan on doing no gaming but for work I need access to an Online Timekeeping Program that will only display correctly using IE6 or Better. None of the other Web-Browsers work (Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc). So thought Parallels may be the way to go. I have 47G of a 100G HD free but want to run the smallest I can go with that would allow maybe IE6, Word, Excel, & Powerpoint. Thanks!! Bill......
If you set your virtual machine up with a dynamic disk (which I think is the default), you specific the MAXIMUM size you want the disk to grow to. The size will start at nothing and it'll grow as required. For example, if you set the maximum virtual disk size to 10GB and then go about installing XP, you'll find that the file only takes 2-3GB of drive space. As you install more things into Windows, the virtual disk will continue to grow in size. Should you ever hit the point where you've added 10GB of stuff to it, you'll get a disk full message. It can be a pain-in-the-butt to recover from that situation, so I wouldn't recommend setting the maximum virtual disk size too low. Don't know if that made any sense or not. Parallels also has a great tool included called the Disk Compressor. At one point, my XP virtual disk had grown to 7GB. I ran the Compressor and it shrunk it down to a little over 3GB.
Downloaded Codeweavers and it brought up IE6 real good for the two sites I needed. A little confusing at first. But so far I like it and its about 40 to 50 dollars cheaper than Parallels. However, I almost want the ability to run within two windows. I may need to run something else some other time. I guess I will need to register this. Thanks for the link psychofreak! Bill....
Okay, A question for the Crossover Folks....How does Crossover handle Updates to the Program (i.e. Security, Patches, etc) like Outlook or Word or even IE6. Will it download the updates and then install and simulate a restart? Thanks!! Bill.....