[kman42]

I want to install Windows on my computer to run a single program, but I don't really want to risk my computer. I don't really need the internet on the Windows installation. Can I just shut off the network connection and have a pretty safe installation of XP? Do I even need to do that? Is the Parallels disk image fairly off-limits to the rest of the OSX installation? I know that viruses would still have to be specifically written to jump across, but I'm curious how much protection there is built in.

thanks,
kman

[Blasphemy]

It doesn't natively see anything else on your computer. You have to manually set up shared folders. I don't know how it'd work if you have windows sharing on your mac - windows may be able to see that shared folder.

If you're running windows, you could always disable the network from within there. Or get zonealarm (or similar) to stop/block all network traffic in or out.

[Chuckit]

You can set Parallels up so your Windows VM doesn't have a network adapter at all. And yeah, the VM can't really see outside of its own environment.