Parallels Install of XP SP1

I decided to go with a Parallels install of my English version of SP1 XP Pro. Here's how I did it.

1. Make a big dinner: The wife took the kid to his aikido lesson leaving me at home to make dinner. I crafted an ornate vegetable salad, salmon in a cream sauce over organic pasta and some gyoza (pot stickers) that the wife insisted I cook because it's the day of the expiration date.
2. Open a suitable bottle of wine, in this case a Toqui Andino moscatel semillion from Chile, part of a half case of assorted plonk that my wife gave me for Valentine's Day.
3. Enjoy family dinner, do dishes, and enjoy leftover Valentine's chocolates.
4. Bring the MacBook downstairs. Download and install the latest version of Parallels. Download SP2 for XP and leave it on the desktop. Go back upstairs to get the power cord. I want to be plugged into a stable power supply in case things turn ugly.
5. Fire up the MacBook and go back upstairs to rummage for XP upgrade and Windows 98 CDs.
6. Come back downstairs to find that my son has opened the application folder and launched the Tic-Tac-Toe game from the Big Bang Board Games folder. Explain the rudiments of tic-tac-toe to son, play a few games and beat the computer handily. Son expresses an interest in Four-in-a-Row. We play a few games; the computer beats our asses. Send son upstairs so that the wife can read him a bedtime story and I can get back to the task at hand..
7. Locate open bottle of Toqui Andino. Pour a glass and watch the Windows installaton. It takes place in a small window on the Mac desktop. I input my serial number for XP, and the installer asks for a CD of an earlier Windows version to verify the upgrade. I find the "eject CD" key on the keyboard and switch the disks. It's almost too easy, and I don't have to install any additional drivers for the network or video cards. The XP install can take care of itself. I top off my wine glass and head upstairs to iron a shirt for work.
8. Shirt ironed, I head back downstairs and find XP booted up and ready to go. One problem--when I move the mouse from the Mac desktop into the XP window, the cursor disappears. I install Parallel Tools and get a working mouse in Windows.
9. Here's where Parallels does its stuff. I open up My Computer in XP and create a temp folder. Then I drag the SP2 file from the Mac desktop into the very bowels of Windows. It takes awhile, but soon Service Pack 2 is installed and I've got a firewall.
10. I download the AVG free anti-virus program and Spybot S&D. Not that I'm planning on doing much browsing in Windows, but my wife wants to watch Korean soaps on a site that doesn't play with Macs.
11. My wife is reminding me that I have to get up at 6 in the morning. Windows Media Player works, so does MS Internet Explorer. One last thing--I click on the balloon asking me to activate my copy of XP and head for bed.