General Settings

You can view and change the virtual machine name, processors number, amount of memory, and add description to the virtual machine.

To edit these settings, do the following:

1. Open the Virtual Machine menu or Alt-click (Option-click) the Parallels icon in the Mac menu bar (in the Crystal view mode) and click Configure .
2. In the Virtual Machine Configuration window, click General .

Note: Some of these settings can be changed only when the virtual machine is not running.

General Settings include the following:

• The virtual machine name. The Name field displays the name assigned to the virtual machine. The length of this name is limited to 50 characters. The name of the virtual machine is displayed in its guest OS window .
• The guest OS type and version. This field displays the type of the operating system installed in the virtual machine or declared to be installed in the future. The OS type and version field should reflect the real operating system type and version installed in the virtual machine.
• The number of processors. The CPUs field allows you to change the number of virtual CPUs that will be used to handle the processes running in the virtual machine. The maximum allowable number of virtual CPUs is automatically calculated by Parallels Desktop. The calculation is based on the number of physical CPUs available to your Mac OS X computer.

  Note: It is reasonable to use more than one CPU in your guest OS if you are going to use applications that perform better under multi-core processors.

• The memory amount. In the Memory field, you can set the amount of RAM that will be available to the virtual machine. To configure the main memory limit, drag the slider or type the value directly into the Memory field.

  Note: If your Mac has 1 GB of RAM, it is strongly recommended to assign not more than 512 MB to a single virtual machine.

• The virtual machine description. The Notes field displays additional information related to the virtual machine.

If you want to prevent Virtual Machine Configuration from unauthorized changes, click the Lock icon at the bottom of the window. The next time someone wants to change the settings in any pane of Virtual Machine Configuration, an administrator's password will be required.