Parallels 5 & Windows 7 - your settings?

[Conrad11]

Hi there,

I have just finished upgrading my Macbook adding another 2GB of RAM to make it 4GB and adding an Intel X25m SSD.

I am in the process of setting up Parallels 5 to boot my Bootcamp partition for when I need both Windows 7 and OSX. I just wanted to know what settings people use and any features they enable/disable in Windows 7 to help it run that bit faster in Parallels.

My Macbook specs are: 2GHz P7350, 4GB RAM, 9400m 256MB, 80GB SSD, Snow Leopard OSX

My parallels settings are:
- Windows 7 Pro
- Windows Basic Theme (with most of the sparkly stuff off except for text smoothing)
- Disable system restore
- 1 core
- 1.5GB RAM (Should I go 2GB)
- 128MB Video memory (with 3D acceleration enabled).

I was wondering whether people think I should up it to 2GB considering that I have 4GB RAM in total (but bare in mind that I have a Macbook and therefore run 32bit OS (as I can't run 64bit Snow because its a Macbook.....so I don't think Mac addresses all 4GB).

Is there anything else that you think I should change?

Anything I've missed?

Also - do you need two licences for Windows 7 for what I am doing (booting from the Bootcamp partition), because Windows 7 says it needs to be activated again.

Thanks for any input...

 

[NickK]

If 5 is like 4 there's a option to dynamically assign memory so you don't need to statically reserve X GB for the VM.

 

[Conrad11]

If 5 is like 4 there's a option to dynamically assign memory so you don't need to statically reserve X GB for the VM.

I think that I already have that option on but you are also able to set the "maximum" for one particular VM to have.....or at least I think thats what the option is for????