I am running two IMacs with Parllels 5 and Windows XP transported from our previous Windows workstations. We still have two other WinXP workstaions and a Vista workstation that are not being moved to Mac workstations at this time. We are running a program called Camp Brain that uses a common Microsoft Access database stored on one computer. That computer was the first one that we switched to Mac. The second computer that we moved to Mac will locate the Access file on the primary Virtial Machine, but none of the actual Windows workstations will recognize it. I have tried shutting off the firewall to see if it was blocking the connection, but it still does not work. I also cannot see the virtual machines from My Network Places. I have confirmed that all machines and virtual machines are listed in the same workgroup. I need to know how to get my Windows machines to recognize the virtual machines on the network. I kept the names of the virtual machines the same as the original machines. The originals have been removed from the network and decommissioned.
Maybe change your VM Network Adapter to Bridged instead of Shared? You need to be able to ping from one machine to the other. You can't do that through the Parallels NAT/router unless you setup some Port forwarding information in Parallels Desktop -> Preferences -> Network -> Shared networking. If you click the ? button, it will explain that "normally, virtual machines set to operate in the shared networking mode cannot be accessed from external computers."
