Cannot install Parallels Tools

P

PeterSC

Junior Member
Installed the update 6.0.12092 then ran the tools installer using my admin id. It got all of the way through, failed at the end, then backed out. Parallels reports that tools need to be installed.

Now when I try to start the tools installer, nothing happens.

Followed the purge of tools from the registry etc. by following article ID: 8969 and still no joy.

Done the usual reboot, etc and no joy.

Any ideas?
 
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I am having similar problem.

The tools updater started automatically when I first started my XP virtual machine. It got all the way through then hung (20 minutes). I hit cancel, but it wouldn't cancel. I killed the process from Task Manager and received message that Installation has finished with error code 1073807364. However, I couldn't get the installer to start again.

I shut down my VM, restarted parallels and was able to start the tools updater to start again by using the menu option, Virtual Machine, Install Parallels Tools. However, same thing happened...it got to the end and hung. Had to cancel with Task Manager. Still no tools.
 
I tried the manual uninstall of Parallel Tools outlined in article 8969, but it had no effect. The Tools installer would not start.

I did not have to Task Manager out of mine as it successfully rolled back on its own and closed OK.

Finally I gave up, blew away the image file and reloaded an older one from Time Machine.

Haven't bothered to see if it will work again.

I never have trouble with my image and it's OS except when there's a Parallels update. These have caused me no end of grief. This is the fifth time I've used a backup image to recover from a Parallels update screwup.
 
Tried installing Tools on the recovered image and this time it installed OK, but it made my Vista behave as if it was not activated. According to Computer Properties, it is activated and shows the product key, but Vista behaves like an unactivated OS.

Back to delete image - recover image.
 
Fourth time lucky.

Remembered something from the last time. Deleted and restore the image again. I cancelled the auto install and let Vista sit open for about 20 minutes to make sure any auto-update processes that may be running, virus scans or services checking for updates, have finished doing their thing. I then ran the Tools from the menu and it ran OK.

Can't let the install run automatically if other processes may be running also.
 
Yes,definitely there is a delay in the processing,unlike the other programs.
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Can install tools - no image to restore

I stupidly performed the latest parallels update. Even more stupidly I didn't back up the hdd image for the O/S.

The tools install hung 80% of the way through. I had to kill the VM. I restarted it and it seemed OK but I thought I would do a clean reinstall of the tools just in case. I did Add/Remove programs and removed the tools (because I had read that in an older post). Then when I rebooted, it did not know the resolution and keeps bringing up the hardware discovery wizard. I then did the Virtual Machine menu item for Reinstall Parallel Tools and I get the dialog box confirming the install but when I click OK, nothing happens.

Any ideas on how I can salvage this?

Bill
 
inability to install parallel tools

After my last post, I downloaded and ran the Windows Install Cleanup Utility. during install of that utility it told me there was a parallel tools install suspended and I let it roll that back. I then ran the utility after it finished installing and deleted the parallel tools item from its menu. I re-ran the "reinstall parallel tools" from the virtual machine menu and I see msiexec does kick off but then it just hangs around doing nothing.

I would really appreciate some help. Unfortunately I did not save the .hdd image because it was quite large. Shame on me, I know.
 
Bill

Did you do the manual purge of Tools as outlined in this article?

http://kb.parallels.com/en/8969

As an aside, because this update process is so 'tender' I have all of my data saved to my Mac home folders so that the Vista image contains software only. It doesn't get that much bigger in size over time and I'm free to blow the image away and restore at any point without any data loss worries. I recommend this approach as it removes the stress of a failed update/Tools install.
 
I have performed that. The virtual machine menu still says "reinstall" and not "install" not sure if that matters.

And one other thing is that I can't completely kill the Parallel Tools directory because the prl_cc.exe image is alwa

I picked re-install and
 
hit the wrong button. What I was saying that prl_cc.exe is always open so I could not delete the directory.

I did everything else, rebooted windows and logged in as administrator and then I picked "reinstall" off of the virtual machine menu and the same thing happened. It asked me to confirm - which I did. Then it seems to have done nothing! I did notice that my mcshield process was running even though I disabled a bunch of services but that has never caused me this problem before.

I do keep my user data in a different virtual drive. My O/S virtual drive is still 32GB I think but I still should be able to make a safety copy - which I will in the future. blowing it away and reinstalling would be painful too because of all the software I have installed.

But if you have any more ideas on why that procedure is not working then I would appreciate it.
 
I was able to delete it (for some reason I thought that was part of the VM process but I guess that was a silly assumption since that would be running in Mac context).

But the same thing is happening. After I confirm I get one or two quick hourglass flickers and then nothing. Does it matter that the menu still says "re-install" instead of "install?"

I found one more registry entry for "Parallel Tools" that was not mentioned in the KB but it was only in the Program Files registry tree so I doubt it matters. But I deleted it, rebooted and tried again. Still no joy.
 
I happened to notice that there was a phantom CD drive (E:) with a Parallel Tools mounted on it (an iso I suppose). I went into that, found setup.exe, ran it and everything installed. So apparently it was just that the menu item is not working right. I wonder if it's something silly like it's expecting it to be D: or something like that.
 
Odd thing about the E: drive. I did not look for additional drives when I was battling the problem.

About the backup -- my image has all of the software installed so a restore of the backup is simply a 20 minute wait and I'm back in business. Zero pain unless we count the 20 minutes as pain. I don't, that's spelled 'r e l i e f' in my book. ;)
 
Sorry I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that you would blow it away and reinstall - not restore. I misread your note. Yeah, at 32GB it's no longer a big deal to keep another copy of it around I guess. I disabled it in Time Machine because I didn't want a 32GB copy every day but I can set something else up to snap it every so often. Or at a MINIMUM, when I do any updates to parallels.
 
Time machine doesn't work that way. It only saves the deltas. It won't fill up your backup drive with multiple copies of 32g images.
 
Are you sure? I think the deltas are at the file granularity meaning that the whole HDD container file gets backed up. In fact I've verified this awhile back that the HDD file gets backed up whenever the VM shuts down. I used a free utility that peers into the time machine backups and shows what files were backed up. I also saw it documented along with the instructions for keeping time machine from backing it up.
 
Am I 100% certain? No. But I can offer these two things: My 500g Time Capsule has three full months of data in it and the one thing my Time Capsule has proved its worth was the restore of the Parallel image file. I've use it more for this restore than all of the others combined.
 
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