Set How Many Processors are Allocated to a Virtual Machine

You can change the number of virtual CPUs that will be used to handle the processes running in a virtual machine. Parallels Desktop automatically calculates the maximum allowable number of virtual CPU. 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.

To set how many processors are allocated to a virtual machine:

  1. Shut down the virtual machine.
  2. Open the Actions menu and choose Configure .
  3. Click General and select a number from the CPUs menu.