Overview

Generally, the process of creating a virtual machine includes the following steps:

1. Creating a virtual machine configuration. It's like building a real computer from different hardware components. This step is performed with the help of New Virtual Machine Assistant. In the Default, Express Windows, Typical modes, New Virtual Machine Assistant creates a virtual machine with the configuration typical for the selected guest OS. To create a virtual machine with a configuration other than the typical one, you can choose the Custom mode. For more details about the installation modes, see Default Installation Mode, Express Windows Installation Mode, Typical Installation Mode, and Custom Installation Mode.
2. Installing a guest operating system. When you have configured the virtual machine's hardware, you need an operating system to control it. To install an operating system in your virtual machine, you should connect the installation CD/DVD disc or its image to the virtual machine's CD/DVD-ROM drive, as you do to install an operating system in a physical computer. For a list of the supported guest operating systems, see Supported Guest Operating Systems.

   For Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows Vista virtual machines, New Virtual Machine Assistant provides a special Express Windows Installation Mode that automatically installs the selected Windows guest OS in a newly created virtual machine.

3. Installing Parallels Tools in the guest OS. Parallels Tools are available for most of the Windows and Linux operating systems (e.g. Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and others) and can be easily installed in your virtual machine. For more information, refer to Installing Parallels Tools.

After completing these steps, you may proceed with fine tuning of the virtual machine, such as setting up shared folders, adjusting its screen resolution, or installing applications in it.

Typical Configuration

A typical virtual machine has the following basic virtual hardware:

• CPU
• memory
• hard disk drive
• floppy disk drive
• sound device (except FreeBSD and MS-DOS virtual machines)
• CD/DVD-ROM drive
• network adapter
• USB controller (Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista and all of the Linux typical virtual machines)
• serial port (OS/2 virtual machine)
• parallel port connected to the printer set as default in Mac OS (Windows 95/98/ME/NT/XP/2003/Vista virtual machines). If Parallels Desktop detects no printers connected to the Macintosh computer, it doesn't add a parallel port to the virtual machine configuration.

Note: When the virtual machine is created, you can add new virtual devices to it, using the Virtual Machine Configuration dialog.

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