Overview

In the current version of Parallels Desktop, you can use your Boot Camp Windows Vista (SP1) or Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) partition as a bootable disk or as a data disk in virtual machines.

Warning: If your Boot Camp partition has not Windows XP (SP2) or Windows Vista (SP1) operating system installed, you may damage this installation trying to use it via Parallels Desktop virtual machine.

Using Boot Camp Partition as a Data Disk

To use the Boot Camp Windows partition as a data disk, add it as a hard disk to an existing Windows XP or Windows Vista virtual machine respectively. Add the disk with the help of Add Hardware Assistant. The Windows operating systems will automatically recognize it as a new disk.

Using Boot Camp Partition as a Bootable Disk

If you install Parallels Desktop on a Mac computer with a Boot Camp Windows XP/SP2 or Windows Vista (SP1) partition, and Parallels Desktop detects that there are no virtual machines on the computer, it automatically creates a new virtual machine for this Boot Camp partition and places it to the following location:

<Username>/Documents/Parallels/My Boot Camp

• If the Boot Camp partition is mounted to the Mac's Desktop, Parallels Desktop attempts to recognize the operating system installed on the partition and creates an appropriate virtual machine for the recognized OS.
• If the Boot Camp partition is not mounted to the Mac's Desktop, or if Parallels Desktop cannot recognize the operating system, it creates a virtual machine for Windows XP. If you have Windows Vista installed on the Boot Camp partition, you just need to change the type of the guest OS for the virtual machine from Windows XP to Windows Vista in the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog.

Alternatively, you do not need to create a special virtual machine for the Boot Camp partition, but can simply substitute a bootable virtual disk of an existing Windows virtual machine with a Boot Camp partition. To do that, use the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog.

Note: It is important to specify the type of the guest OS in the virtual machine correctly, in accordance with the operating system installed on the Boot Camp partition.

When you boot into Boot Camp Windows through Parallels Desktop for the first time, Parallels Desktop installs Parallels Tools.

Note: Using Boot Camp Windows XP via virtual machine may require to re-activate Windows XP or Windows Vista.

After that, you can use Boot Camp as usually to boot into the Windows partition, or you can boot into it via Parallels virtual machine, see the Booting via Parallels Virtual Machine section.

Limitations for Parallels Virtual Machines Using Boot Camp Partition

There is a number of limitations for a Parallels virtual machine that uses the Boot Camp Windows partition either as a bootable volume or as a data disk:

• it cannot be suspended or paused
• such a virtual machine cannot have snapshots and the Safe Mode feature cannot be enabled for it
• compression or compacting cannot be performed

Note: In this version of Parallels Desktop, there is no limitations on types of users who can access the Boot Camp Windows partition from a virtual machine. You can log into Windows even if you don't have administrator rights.

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