Solution to Parallels Desktop v5 installer detected "Conflicting Applications" issue

I ran into a very annoying issue when I tried to upgrade a Parallels Desktop for Mac v4 (4.0.3522.205912) to the currently latest available versions (French 5.0.9308.543599, also tried English 5.0.9310.546799) and nothing I found during my research helped me and since the installer disk is now somehow missing and when following the thankfully already documented instructions to manually uninstall Parallels Desktop for Mac (http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v4/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/27136.htm), the program unfortunately gave me an obviously wrong error about "Parallels Desktop is not installed" (which I am/was not the only one affected with: http://forum.parallels.com/printthread.php?t=97400).

Finally after some time consuming research I was able to find that the remaining detected "Conflicting Applications" by the latest installer of the version 5 of Parallels Desktop for Mac (tried both the currently latest "ParallelsDesktop-parallels-fr_FR-5.0.9308.543599" and slightly more recent "ParallelsDesktop-parallels-en_US-5.0.9310.546799") was not a process, but was actually running as a service.

I was able to find/identify and then close them using the following terminal/command line utility:
sudo launchctl list | grep parallels

This command found two matching services and after stopping both of them via the following commands:

sudo launchctl stop com.parallels.vm.prl_naptd
sudo launchctl stop com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon

I was finally able to install (upgrade from version 4 actually) Parallels Desktop for Mac without any further incident.

I find it rather odd that the installer cannot (or at least "could not" in my particular case.) simply offer to stop all of the running Parallels Desktop processes AND services it actually found all by itself and/or at least offer to do so and if this actually requires an "administrator" password (sudo), to simply ask for it and etc. since the level of troubleshooting that was required to fix it manually is way above and beyond what the vast majority of average (Mac or PC) computer users are knowledgeable/capable of and much less inclined to go through.

MacBook (Fall 2008)
Mac OS X 10.6.2
Core 2 Duo 2GHz
4GB RAM
160GB HD

 

No ! not work

I have the same problem also after this issue ...

 

Same here

It's annoying to pay for Software and then be left alone with your Problems.
I am an Upgrader 3-> 4 -> 5.

I payed every Version.
Please fix this issue parallels

I'm on a macbook Pro 10.6

 

Same problem...

I'm having the same problem. Tried the solution (terminal commands), but no good for me — still won't install. Searching these forums, this isn't a new issue, yet still hasn't been fixed. So, now I'm stuck with a paid upgrade that I can't upgrade. Now what?
k.

 

Try uninstalling Parallels (the uninstaller will ask you whether you would like to keep your VM files, say "yes"), reboot your Mac, and install Parallels (latest build) again. That should do the trick. The installer can be downloaded from the download page (it will not overwrite your serial number so you'll have a fully functioning version).