Windows Porting Lab w/ Parallels & MacBook in Roadshow event

Running UT on a MacBook Pro and attending the Windows Porting Lab track in the Roadshow event. I got Windows 7 on Parallels all set up, but am confused about: "QuickStart parallels kits; Windows 8.1 licenses will be provided"

AFAIK the Parallels kit includes the daily flavor of Visual Studio. Add the Windows 8.1 license/install I should be good to go. But - this is an 8 hour session. Upgrading a Windows 7 install over WiFi to Windows 8.1 plus the additional install of Visual Studio will easily take 2 - 3 hours. Has anybody attended one of these roadshows with a similar config and maybe have any tips? I'd rather be doing some coding than staring at progress bars. Any tips or pointers?

TIA