Need Anit Virus If I'm running XP via Parallels?

I've read the threads on anti virus sentiments in general - but will my machine be more vulneralbe if I'm running XP through Parallels?

Yes and no. OS X is not more vulnerable, but your Windows partition is.

so just install a windows antivirus there? easy enough. thanks.

If it did get a virus how would that work? If I just reinstalled parallels would it wipe things clean?

When you install Windows using Parallels it creats a virtual drive. Parallels will emulate windows and all functionality related to Windows restricts to itself. As Schweb rightly pointed out, a virus in your virtual drive wont harm the host system. If it's infected with a virus all you have to do is to remove the image file.

I agree - it's just like running a virual machine under Windows itself - if the virtual machine gets infected, just get rid of it. For that reason I don't use A/V when running Windows on a virtual machine. The way I work is to set up a virtual machine the way I like it with all the apps I need, then clone it. From then on I only ever use the cloned machine. If anything happens I make a new one.

Cheers,

Jack.