LOL, agreed as to why they do not. Its OK my original supposition was the Virtualbox windows 7 with 8GB of Ram and SSD and an i5 or better CPU is a pretty painless way to go now a days. Virtualbox is damn good, always up to date (turn off VB auto-update) and free.

Prior to SSDs booting up and launching applications and Windows updates could be pretty painful relatively speaking with VMs.

Crossover/and or Wine is interesting and worth considering and there are free virtual box like Wineplayers that are worth considering. In my work use case their not an option.

GoodLuck.

Is it better to create the VirtualBox VM with the 32, or 64 bit dic please?

Also, how much RAM do I allocate? I have 16Gb available.

64 Bit Windows 7 All the way. 32 Bit can not address even 4GB of Ram, it Maxes out @ 3.5GB. Even on Windows Laptops with only 4GB of Ram I always use 64bit Windows, much snappier.

Ram wise give the VM 4GB of Ram to Start. CPU wise Give 1 or 2 (hyper threading makes even a Dual Core Appear as Quad usually). Disc Size wise I recommend setting the VM for 50GB it will not take up any more space then you actually need and will likely be under 25GB from your description of the App with the OS, etc. Once the Disc size is set you can not revisit it, so its best to be a little generous since the space is not actually used unless needed.

Installing Win 7 on VB now.

With only one app to use (and not much space available) I allocated 30Gb for the VM. OK so far..

Setting higher disk use will not use more space, just keeps you from having to recreate the VM from scratch.

A few other niceties about Virtualbox...

1) Assume you installed Extension pack and Guest Additions already

2) You want to Define a Shared folder between Win and Mac (usually Desktop and Documents both)

3) Command F switches between Full Screen and Windowed

4) You want to check all the leave me alone Boxes that pop up about Mouse integration and Video etc. Most of these now crop up in the Top right of the screen during the VM start.

5) From Preferences Turn off Auto Update

6) Don't ever Visit the Mac About Box for VB you can not close the Window without closing the Application

7) There are two sets of VB settings Preferences and Settings (control Memory, Video Ram, CPU, Shared Folders, etc). Most Can only be set when the VM is not running.

Ok, cracked that.

All good except I can't seem to cut and paste between a link I was sent in an Apple Mail and the WE URL bar. Am I missing something obvious?

Its in the Devices Menu Called Shared Clipboard Bi-Directional Cut and Paste (Can't be in Full Screen mode).

This is also the same Tools Menu for Installing Guest Additions which has to be done first for lots of nice features including Proper Video Display to Work.

Also Make sure your Mac Dock is set to Auto Hide. VB like a lot of Applications will not use that space when not in Full screen mode unless its set to auto Hide.

Is it possible to clone this VB&VM complete setup to my Mini, or do I have to start from scratch again please?

Easy
 

Very Easy to Clone. In fact this is the best way to keep back ups of the VM should they ever get corrupt.

1) With the VM not running but Virtual box running Highlight the VM in question (you only have 1 at the moment).

2) From the File Menu choose Export, there are options for names and formats (you can go with the defaults).

Thats it. Once written copy it to another machine and instead of Export you Choose Import from the File Menu.