Keyboard and mouse does not work in Parallels with Boot Camp after upgrading; on MBP

I would agree, zap the PRAM... It seems to address potential issues. Never had an issue, have had auto-login and non-autologins on quite a few installs with BootCamp.

 

Zapping pram didn't work. In fact, when I boot into windows, i get a bsod after it starts up. I even tried to plug in a USB mouse, and it wasn't even getting power. I think its because parallels crashed once and it swapped out some drivers or something and now it doens't work.

 

Viable Solution - extra mouse

Another person mentioned this before -- but after DAYS of head-scratching, and trying the PRAM zap and all the other things -- here's a recipe that I think will work for most people in this cul-de-sac of Parallels land.

1 - PLUG IN ANOTHER USB MOUSE, or use your fancy Bluetooth mouse that proves you're really cool already No second mouse, no love. As long as it's recognized by MacOSX, this method SHOULD work (ymmv).

2 - when you start your fancy new Bootcamp VM, it's all about what you do BEFORE you click into the window.

3 - down in the lower right of your VM window (get out of coherence or full screen if you're in that mode) you'll see icons for all your Mac resources (hard drive, virtual floppy, etc.)

4 - Roll over (do not click) the icons until you find the USB icon (it looks like a trident, or an upside down squid), once found -- click on USB, a new menu appears.

5 - Read that menu closely. You'll see the entry Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, probably IR receiver, and (hopefully) something vaguely referencing the other mouse (Parallels Team, better descriptions please). For example, my bluetooth mouse is called "Apple Wireless".

6 - Click Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad ONCE, this indicates to your VM that your laptop keyboard and trackpad are going to be the input devices for this session.

7 - USING YOUR TRACKPAD, click once on the VM window -- wait a second or two, and now your trackpad SHOULD be moving the white mouse inside your VM window. If it isn't, try hitting CTRL+ALT to escape out and do it again -- if all else fails, reboot Parallels and try again.

8 - Ok, here's the magic (if you have to login, don't worry, we'll get there in a second). Now reach for your bluetooth or USB mouse. Is it moving the BLACK mouse arrow? The one that goes with MacOSX? If the trackpad is moving the WHITE mouse inside Parallels, and the other mouse is moving the BLACK mouse outside Parallels, you've made it -- we're gonna land this plane. If not, flail around until you create that situation (sorry, that's about as far as I can get you )

9 - NOW -- if you have to login, go ahead and login, using the internal keyboard and TRACKPAD. If you're already at the desktop, go to step 10

10 - Once the desktop appears and stops chewing on startup items, IMMEDIATELY go to the "OTHER" mouse, the one that moves the BLACK arrow, go up to the ACTIONS menu of Parallels, and select "Install Parallels Tools..."

11 - During installation inside your VM, you will be prompted for stuff -- use the TRACKPAD and WHITE mouse arrow to select the standard "yes/continue" buttons"

12 - When prompted, restart your VM.

Once this is complete and you've restarted your VM, your mouse, trackpad, keyboard and other doodads should all be working correctly -- the proper effect is that, when you move the mouse cursor over the VM, it becomes "white" automagically, but when you move it off the VM, poof it's black again.

If you've reached this point, shudder -- slump your shoulders -- and weep in frustrated joy that the pain is finally over. You will never have to do that hand-over-hand cliff-face leap again on this VM.

Welcome to the Bootcamp as Parallels experience.

PS - I know this should go without saying, but please don't attempt these steps with another VM window running at that same time.

 

Simple Solution

mgmead, Thanks for the taking the time to post your step-by-step solution! I do want to add that while I was unable to resolve my keyboard and mouse issues following your steps, I did manage to come up with a simpler fix following a similar solution. I carried out this solution using Parallels Desktop for Mac build 3188, on a black Macbook w/2GHz Intel Duo Processor and w/an external USB cable mouse attached.

The most important thing to do if you are in this situation (i.e., your mouse and keyboard do not respond from within the parallels VM while running Windows XP off a bootcamp partition), is to make sure that you have a spare USB mouse that works inside Mac OS X. Once you do this, use bootcamp to boot into WinXP and make sure that the drivers for that mouse are installed correctly on the Windows side (check Start>Run>devmgmt.msc). Once you have done this, restart your machine into Mac OS X, launch Parallels Desktop and start up your bootcamp copy of WinXP. Now, this solution worked for me using auto-login for WinXP, which skips the WinXP welcome screen AND any login-window prompts. What you will need to do next is click the "Devices" menu entry at the top of the screen, on the parallels menu bar (in Mac OS X). Choose "USB" and then find the device that most closely describes your external USB Mouse (for me it was "USB Optical Mouse," though for you it may be something less explicit like "USB Receiver"). Choose that device and you should now be able to move the white mouse pointer inside the Parallels VM with your external USB mouse, while at the same time being able to control your black mouse pointer with your trackpad.

Ok, you're almost done. The next and final step is simple. Go to "Actions" on the Parallels menu bar using the black mouse pointer and choose "Install Parallels Tools...". It may take a while, but you should eventually see a grey window that says something along the lines of, "Parallels Tools is now installing, please do not shut down or turn off your machine..." Once that's done, Parallels will restart the VM and, once WinXP loads up again within Parallels, you should be all set and ready to use your Macbook keyboard and trackpad!

 

Keyboard and Mouse Will not work in parallels

Hey everyone:

I just posted the same issue a few hours ago, the same thing is happening to me also...
This is the thing:
When clicking inside the VM (in this case using Parallels to emulate Windows XP SP2 over OS X) you don't get a response from either mouse or keyboard, and in my case it's the onboard mouse and keyboard on my new macbook.
I tried all.. from "Actions --> Install Parallels tools" to clicking "Devices --> Apple Keyboard and Mouse", and actually when clicking in devices I loose my mouse and Keyboard in OS X as well.

I really don't know if this is a problem within Windows; meaning that the .cab file in the C:\Windows\Driver Cache needs to be changed to another one (which I did but no success) or reinstalling Parallels (which I also did with no success as well).

Help help help. that's what we need, and most likely from a guy who already went through this or knows a lot about parallels...

This is actually my posting:

"Hello everyone,

I got a new Macbook (2.0 GHz, 1.6 RAM) two weeks ago, installed Bootcamp and Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Basically everything is a fresh install.
Then I installed Parallels v3188 and in order for my VM to run I had to rename the file drivers.cab to SP2.cab in the C:\Windows\Driver Cache.
The problem is: My mouse and my keyboard does not work inside the VM, they work on OS X and if I click on the parallels window it looks like my mouse is inside but it does not move and so does the keyboard, tho when I press option + command I get back to OS X normally.

I tried clicking "Actions --> Install Parallels tools" and it did not help me.

I don't know what else is there to do... if anybody can help me would be great..."

Hope we get a solution to this issue.
Thanks a lot!

 

gabri,

How long did you give Parallels tools to install? 15 minutes? an hour?

 

I have installed the beta versions of parallels previously and worked. It is this version that does not work...
I have been trying to get this version to work for a week.

 

Sounds like you need to dump Parallels completely and re-install it. You can keep your old .hdd file with your data. See: http://forum.parallels.com/thread1226.html