Questions & Answers for Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac - Standard Edition

It is the best decision you would ever make in your life...your life productivity will increase multi-fold using Apple MacBook Pro Retina. I recommend the following:
1. Buy the max hard disk space available if you plan to download your pictures and videos from your iPhone and iPad AND old emails. I bought a 256GB hard disk and have only 16GB left. FIrst analysis is how much space you will occupy in the new MacBook and decide accordingly. You cannot upgrade later.
2. You don't have to install Parallels at all.
3. iWork is great, but you don't have Access. If you need Access, then I suggest you install NeoOffice. Cost is US$ 10 per year. It has everything and more than Office Professional and it will work flawlessly on Retina Display. I evaluated all the other Free Office softwares and chose NeoOffice.
4. I have Parallels and my old Office 2003 Professional, but seldom use it. I use NeoOffice everyday, but miss the feature that iWork would offer me to upload all iWork files automatically on iCloud! I already have bought Keynote and plan to buy Pages and Numbers soon. Unfortunately Apple has stopped trial versions of iLife. I wish they would allow trial before purchase.
5. I do miss Outlook and the ease of emails in Outlook. Mail in Apple is not great. Other than Outlook, you can give up Office.
6. Of course you have one more choice - you can choose Office for Mac including Outlook - NO Access -, over iWork.
I hope this helps.

• Answered by Ruumi D
• May 20, 2013
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Yes, you can upgrade to Windows 8 inside Parallels Desktop 8.

Detailed instructions can be found in Knowledge Base article # 114985 on the Parallels site.

Kurt Schmucker
Senior Product Manager
II Parallels

• Answered by Kurt S from Bellevue
• Apr 10, 2013
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Because not all programs are available on mac yet. So for some people if you want to do your work on a mac but the program is not available then this is the only way. As I've found out doing my uni work.

• Answered by Sarah H
• Sep 30, 2012
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Yes, you can run MS Publisher in Parallels Desktop 8. I just checked the Parallels Forums and Parallels Knowledge Base and there are no issues reported with Publisher.

Kurt Schmucker
Senior Product Manager
II Parallels

• Answered by Kurt S from Bellevue
• Apr 10, 2013
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The standard and educations versions are the same. The education version may require some additional validation of student/academic status (e.g. university ID card, university/college/school email) to gain the discount.

• Answered by Benjamin M
• Sep 30, 2012
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