Switching off Mac with a Virtual Machine open

I am used to switching off my Mac when I'm done rather than choosing sleep. My question is, if I were to use VMWare Fusion or Parallels rather than Bootcamp for Windows, would I have to shutdown the virtual machine before switching off the Mac or is there another way that doesn't make switching on/off the pair such a lengthy process.

You have to shut the VM down first if your not going to just put your Mac to sleep.

Thanks. Which means I guess that many people using a virtual machine will just put the Mac to sleep rather than shut it down.

Mikethebook said:

Thanks. Which means I guess that many people using a virtual machine will just put the Mac to sleep rather than shut it down.

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Alternatively, Parallels allows you to "suspend" the VM instead of having it shut down every time you close Parallels. (Not sure about VMWare, but it probably offers similar functionality.) This way, you can boot and stop the Virtual Machine relatively fast in case you need the memory, or need to shut down your Mac. (The current state of the Virtual Machine will be saved and then loaded upon "rebooting" the VM.)

Okay, that's great. Thanks.

Both Fusion and Parallels allow you to "suspend" the VM prior to exiting. Shutting down a VM is like a physical power off. Once you suspend a VM you can shut down the Mac no problem.