Hi... I'm here only after I've tried a number of different things on my own... it's embarrassing that I made such a stupid mistake and can't figure out how to undo it... and now I have to expose my stupidity to the Parallels community. Haha! Under booting section of configuration, (I don't remember exactly what it looks like anymore because I can't get back into it but...) I checked some kind of option like: start virtual machine at parallels start up... but I ALSO checked something that was along the lines of "quit application when virtual machine closed." Now the problem is I can't get back into the configuration section because it starts running the VM as soon as I start Parallels, and it'll quit Parallels as soon as I stop the VM. It never gives me the chance to edit the configuration... and, of course, it won't let me change the settings while the VM is running. So what do I do? Thanks.
Start Parallels. It will begin loading the VM. Open the Parallels Action menu and select Stop. That will stop loading the VM and you can edit it so it won't autostart. I've also found this to be annoying.
This isn't a stupid mistake and many people have done this (including me). It's a poor implementation of a system configuration. There's only 1 time in which you can make the settings change. There's 2 ways to fix this. If you have 2 VMs installed: From the VM Catalog highlight the VM you want to edit. Press Control Key (Apple) then press the SELECT key. This will open the VM in a manner in which you can edit the settings again. If you don't have 2 VMs installed: Quit Parallels Select Finder. Your User Home Directory from the left pane. Library Parallels VM Name (folder) Open VM NAME.PVS in TextEdit. Find "Start auto = 1" Change the 1 to a 0. Save file. Start Parallels. This setting disabled the VM Autostart option.
