Virtual Snow Leopard in Parallels: Copying & Pasting

I am running a Snow Leopard server as a virtual machine in Parallels 8.0 on a Mac mini with OS 10.8.3 as host.

I want to set up a situation in which folders are shared between the host and virtual machines, and in which I can copy files, text, images and data from one to the other by copying and pasting or by dragging and dropping. The instructions in the Parallels Desktop User's Guide are for running Windows as the virtual machine. I have studied them, tried to follow them despite running a Mac 10.6 server and not Windows as my virtual machine, experimented in various ways — all in vain. I am reduced to plugging in a USB flash drive, copying, removing the flash drive, switching to the other machine, reinserting the flash drive and pasting. Please could someone provide me with comprehensible instructions (or a link to such instructions) for achieving what I need in the case of a Mac Snow Leopard virtual machine? I should be immensely grateful.

 

In the meantime:

"...switching to the other machine..." - you mean, of course, just clicking back and forth between the two environments: vSLS and ML?

Have you installed Parallels Tools from the Virtual Machines menu? Maybe try to install it again?

Also, there should be a Shared Folders folder on your virtual Desktop. Inside should be a Home Folders and additional folders for each external hard drive connected to your Mac.

If it is missing, in the meantime you can access the files on your real Mac's hard drive using File Sharing, as follows:

Open System Preferences from the Apple Menu of your ML Mac. Click on the Sharing icon and then check the box for File Sharing. Note the IP address of your ML Mac as "afp://192.168.0.101 or similar and write this down.

On the vSLS Mac in the Finder, go to the Go Menu, then Connect to Server... and enter this same address and hit enter. Then enter your ML account name and password and then if more than one hard drive are attached to your ML Mac, select which one you want to mount in vSLS. Repeat for additional hard drives, if necessary. Note that this should cause them to each appear on your vSLS Desktop if in vSLS Finder Preferences you have checked all boxes for these things to appear; and files should now be accessible to vSLS.

NOTE: I also suggest that you go to System Preferences in vSLS and turn on Seconds on the Menu clock (to continuously see if it working) and also similarly turn on File Sharing, in case you need to access the opposite situation (vSLS files in ML through File Sharing).

NOTE: Certain older Mac files that had Data and Resource forks may get corrupted in the transfer from one environment to the other. I recommend that you use the Finder File menu to go to Compress and zip these files, copy them over and then upzip them in vSLS if corruption is a problem.

 

Still (or again) in trouble!