eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac
by Cameron Sturdevant
CPU
Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0 can now recognize up to eight CPU cores for use in a virtual machine. Here you can see that both cores of my Intel-based Mac Mini are assigned to a Windows XP virtual machine.
Video
VMs running in Parallels Desktop for Mac can now allocate 256MB of RAM for graphics-intensive applications.
Windows 7
Experimental support for the beta version of Windows 7 worked well during tests. The operating system was automatically recognized by the virtual machine creation wizard.
Windows 7 and File Integration
It was a snap to share files between the Mac OS X desktop and VMs running Windows, including Windows 7, shown here. You can see screen captures for this slide show on both the Mac and Windows desktops. A new Clip feature in Parallels can manage such files to reduce desktop clutter.
New USB Device Detected
Parallels neatly manages hardware devices such as the USB memory stick shown here. These types of tools provide the fit-and-finish touches that make Parallels Desktop for Mac easy to use.
