Why won't Parallels run the program?

Question

OK so I'm an teacher and recently I've recieved new software to try out with my classes and obviously it won't run on my laptop (os Mountain LIon). So I started to investigate the options.
1 Make partitions and run two os's at separate times. NOT working anymore not sure why.
2 Use bootcamp to run the two os's. Haven't tried yet.
3 Use a virtual machine. After investigating I chose to use Parallels 7. It downloaded and seemed very user friendly and even gave me the option of a trial windows 8. I installed it and the program wouldn't work it needs to be a windows 7 so I found one and it wouldn't work either then tried to install Snow Leopard. I tried with the disc that came with my laptop didn't work said that only server versions are supported so I found a server version downloaded it and installed it but it won't even give me the option of seeing the disc within Parallels and my file sharing isn't working with it.
So that's where I'm at, I've been working at this for a week now, reading around and trying new things but still not sure why none of them run the program.
A MichaelLax has posted a detailed way to install snow leopard but I'm not sure why all the terminal parts are necesary if that's what I need to do I'll do it but I don't understand why.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
I'm not looking to use the Parallels or any program much only to acces the information that they've given me to see if I can use it.

Answer 1

OK so here we go I installed windows again and everything seems to be working as normal so I put the disc in and I took screen shots but it won't load them for some reason but anyways here it is. These are the files and what happens when I click on them
Audio file     audio files always able to access
Video file     same as audio
xSprocket     several worksheets and things like that
xtras          more program files
autorun      when I click on it saws notepad is too small I need a bigger editor
readme      system requirements
TN_active teach file     when opened on the mac side it says its a powerpc product it won't open and on the windows side it switches to mac and opens stuffit expander (the compression thing I told you about) and then creates a file with nothing in it
TN_active teach application when I open it on windows it says its not a valid win32 application and on mac side it switches to windows and says the same thing
the link you posted BobTheFisherman was very helpful except for the fact that I need to install it first but I tried anyways and the indicated files had not been made yet.
In the end though I've come to the conclusion that it is not a Parallels or mac problem but simply one of the software I'm going to look for other windows programs to test how they work though just to prove my hypothesis I thank both of you for your efforts on helping me.