Parallels Desktop boots from, reads and writes NTFS and FAT32 partitions

I'm not much for Boot Camp, Apple's dual-boot method for running Windows on Intel Macs, so the value of a feature introduced in the latest beta of Parallels Desktop initially got past me. Parallels has taken a major step toward bridging the virtual/physical gap by wiring its Desktop virtualization software for Intel Macs to treat a Boot Camp (Windows) partition as a virtual disk. That feature is presently in beta, and Parallels warns that the beta can bite you, potentially causing a loss of data in your Boot Camp partition.

When made final, this feature will allow users to boot Windows natively for maximum performance and compatibility in games and other demanding applications, and use the very same partition to boot Windows as a virtual guest of OS X and run the two OSes simultaneously (as God intended). Parallels Desktop can also access a Boot Camp partition as a secondary drive with read and write access to FAT32 and NTFS file systems.

If this raises questions in your mind about the potential for Windows virtual machine access to NTFS or FAT32-formatted external media, know that they're in my mind, too. I'm checking it out, but the standard wizard interface in Desktop doesn't expose that capability.