Past versions of Parallels had the option to purchase and install Windows 7 from within the software, so you could get started right away.
From the Parallels launcher, you can download free operating systems including Chrome OS, Ubuntu Linux, Android OS, or even another version of Mac OS X using your Mac's recovery partition. To get Parallels up and running, you're going to need to have the full version of another operating system on hand. While it is not cheap, if you identify with one of the use cases above, it's worth the money. But be warned, that in order to use this software with Windows as I did in this demo, you're going to be spending $80 for Parallels, plus the price of Windows 8.1 (currently available for about $120, £70, or AU$130). If you're going to use Parallels with one of the free operating systems offered in the app (more on this later), you'll only need to spend the $80 for Parallels. In this particular case, your mileage may vary because your Mac may not have the video processing power of high-end video cards. Parallels is also useful for people who play video games because it lets them pick from the much larger library of Windows titles and play them on a Mac.
