[markw10]

Well I get my first Mac on Tuesday, a C2D MBP. I'll be selling my IBM thinkpad as I convert from Windows to Mac. Yet there are some Windows programs I'll use for quite some time so I know I want to run Windows XP also. I had originally planned on running BootCamp but I play few games (except for maybe Flight Simulator X which I can install on my Windows Desktop) but really everything else is stuff like health software, coin database software, Garmin GPS software, and niche small programs like that. I heard in the past that Parallels was incompatible with some hardware such as some programs won't work with USB ports, etc. but I have heard most of this will be solved by the end of the year.
Either way I came to the conclusion since I don't have to reboot and can run Windows side by side with Mac it's the way to go and seems most Mac users make this choice. What I want to do is ask how should I best handle data? At home I mostly access data on my main desktop where I have a lot of hard drive space whether it's videos, music, movies, office files, etc. This isn't a problem at all and I think with Parallels I know how to access it both from Windows and Mac. On my current laptop I have a 2nd partition on the hard drive where I store data and I sync this fairly often so that when I'm on the go on vacation, meetings, etc. I have my data with me.
How is the best way to handle that with Parallels? I know that with Parallels it essentially creates something like a virtual hard drive as the Windows part of the Mac. Should I store my data files in that virtual hard drive or simply in a folder on the Mac side. Obviously what's important is that I can access the data as well as write to and modify it from both Windows and Mac. Is it even simpler to simply place that data in a complete separate partition on the hard drive to access from both Windows and Mac and if so what format would I use to format the hard drive? Thanks in advance for help.

Keep your files Wintel,the Mac OS can recognize anything,try accessing a Mac file from an PC and you will have a lot of problems,I forget the name of the program that these use on PC's and Mac's that allows you to run both.

[jc1350]

In the Windows VM I installed the Parallels tools so I have full functionality. I THINK, but am not sure, it is required for this:

In the config for the VM you can create shares and have them mount to specific directories. I have 2: 1 that goes to the root of my user's directory and another that mounts at the photos directory. I then mounted them as shared drives in Windows to M: and P: (mounting them to drive letters is not necessary but helps with some programs. This allows me to open/save any file I want both for both Windows and Mac. I've had no problems with it at all so far (been using Parallels since July). This saves me from having to maintain 2 copies of data files.

I have the std apple keyboard and am using windows based dreamweaver in a parallels created partition
I cannot find the # key It is invoked in Mac mode by alt and 3

Any thoughts please?
Thanks

found it is as a normal win keyboard