Unlike dual-boot solutions, in which users must completely shut down OS X and endure a full OS start-up cycle to access a important application, Parallels Desktop for Mac empowers users with the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and Mac OS X at the same time. No hard drive partitioning required Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualizes a full set of the standard PC hardware, including - Virtualized processor of the host computer; Generic motherboard compatible with Intel i815 chipset; Up to 1500 MB of RAM; VGA and SVGA with VESA 3.0 support; Up to four IDE devices, that may be either virtual hard drives (from 20 MB up to 128 GB each, mapped to image file), CD/DVD-ROM drives (mapped to physical drive or to image file), or any combination of the two; Ethernet virtual network card compatible with RTL8029 (bridged to Apple Ethernet or Apple Airport adapter), host-only networking or Mac internet sharing; Up to four serial (COM) ports (mapped to pipe or to output file); Up to three bi-directional parallel (LPT) ports(mapped to output file); Shared folders that enable file and folder transfer between OS X and Windows; 2-port USB controller 1.1 (USB 2.0 devices supported)at speed close to native)