Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac“I’ve been testing the new Parallels 7 on last year’s version of the MacBook Air laptop, running Lion with 4 gigabytes of memory,” Walt Mossberg reports for AllThingsD. “That’s the recommended amount of memory for running Windows 7, the version of Windows I tested.”

Advertisement: Upgrade today! to Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac from previous Parallels Desktop version

“In my tests, this latest Parallels edition ran Windows quickly and smoothly, and integrated well with some of Lion’s new features, even though my test Mac isn’t the fastest Apple laptop available today,” Mossberg reports. “For instance, while I’m writing this in a Mac program on the Air, I’m simultaneously running the Windows-only Internet Explorer Web browser, and a couple of other Windows programs, with no discernible slowdown in any of them. I can easily recommend Parallels 7 to Mac users who need to use Windows programs some of the time.”

Mossberg reports, “I found that the new Parallels started and resumed Windows much faster than its predecessor. When launching Windows, the Mac no longer slowed to a crawl, as it had in past versions. All Windows 7 programs I tested launched and ran quickly and smoothly, and the fancy visual effects in Windows 7, such as mini-previews for icons in the taskbar, worked great.”

Much more in the full review here.
 

Related articles:
Upgrading from Windows to Mac even easier with Parallels Desktop 7 – September 2, 2011
New Parallels Mobile app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch controls Macs, PCs, plays Flash and more – September 1, 2011
Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac makes Windows programs roar with Mac OS X Lion features – September 1, 2011