In hopes of making your experience as effortless as possible, we've designed Parallels Workstation to be extremely user-friendly, even if you're a computer "newbie." This section highlights some of the terms you'll need to know as you work your way through this guide.
Virtual machine (VM): The whole point of Parallels Workstation is simulating other computers running inside your physical computer. This computer-within-your computer has its own operating system, its own software suite, and its own "screen."
You might call it a PC simulator, an imitation PC, or a mock computer. But in the computer-science industry, it has a standard name: a virtual machine. Every time you start up Parallels Workstation, you're actually turning on a virtual machine running Windows or any other operating system you want to use.
Each virtual machine behaves as though it's running on a PC with these components:
A virtual machine lets you do tricks like these:
Primary Operating System (Primary OS): This is the operating system that loads when you hit the power button on your computer.
Guest Operating System (Guest OS): This is the reason you bought Parallels Workstation: it's a second, different operating system that you can run simultaneously. The guest OS on your computer might be Windows XP, or Linux, or any of several other operating systems—and they can all be running simultaneously in different windows!
Hard Disk Image: Just as a virtual machine is a simulated PC, a hard disk image is a simulated hard drive. It's actually just a file (of a size you can specify) on your real hard drive, but it looks to the virtual machine like its own actual drive.
ISO Image: A file that contains the entire contents of a CD-ROM disc or DVD, commonly used to install a guest operating system in a VM.
FDD Image: A file that contains the contents of a floppy disk, used to install specific guest operating systems, such as OS/2.