Cannot access Parallels VM from Windows 7 using Remote Desktop Connection

I have one Laptop running Windows 7 and another running Windows XP. I can access the XP machine from Windows 7 using Windows Remote Desktop Connection (RDC). I have recently bought a MacBook Air running Mavericks and installed Parallels 9. I have migrated my XP system to run in the Parallels VM environment and stopped using the Windows XP laptop. Windows XP under Parallels runs perfectly and I have not had to make any configuration changes. Even access to the Internet is working. But when I try to access the Windows XP machine (now running under Parallels) from my Windows 7 laptop using RDC I get the error "Remote Desktop cant find the computer "computername"... etc".

Some technical information that I can offer:
- Win 7 and XP (under Parallels) are both in the work group WORKGROUP
- the ip address of the Win 7 machine is 192.168.0.23 and the XP machine is 10.211.55.3. I have changed this to 192.168.0.99 but that did not help.

Is this type of access possible at all? If so I would appreciate some guidance please, preferably in simple terms.

Many thanks

 

Are both machines connected to the same router? Changing the IP was the right thing to do.

Can you even ping the XP machine from the Win 7 machine?

What type of networking option are you using on the XP VM: bridged or shared? If it's shared, the VM is getting its IP from the host Mac and that may cause the problem. Use bridged networking to get an IP from the router through DHCP or assign a manual 192 address.

Steve

 

Hello Steve,
Thanks for responding.
- yes both machines are definitely on the same network.
- no I can't ping from Win 7 to XP (destination host unreachable)
- I edited the "Parallels Ethernet Adapter" properties and changed the IP address to manual 192.168.0.99 but this made no difference. I hope I am changing the IP address for the correct adapter - this is the only one I can see in Network Settings. I'm afraid I don't know where to find the "shared or bridged' networking options on the XP machine

Not sure where to go from here...hope you can shed more light

Many thanks for your time

Chickoo

 

Hi Chickoo,

1. Click Virtual Machine menu > Configure > Hardware > Network 1 and make sure that for this network adapter the Connected check-box is marked.
2. You can change the network configuration to Bridged Default adapter here.

To know how to access Virtual Machine menu, follow http://kb.parallels.com/117287

Thanks,
Looran

 

Thank you Looran and Steve.

I have made some progress after setting the Network adapter to Bridged on the Parallels menu. Then I entered the IP address manually as 192.168.0.99 (in Win XP network settings). Now from my Win 7 machine I can use Remote Desktop Connection to access the Win XP machine within the Parallels VM.

However when I access Win XP from my Win 7 machine I have no access to the Internet. After much head scratching I stopped the Parallels VM machine and rebooted the Mac. Then I restarted the VM and Win XP. Now I am able to connect remotely to Win XP and use the Internet. So all is well. Strangely, when I checked the IP address of the XP adapter the system said it was 192.168.0.99 and that it was assigned by DHCP! This is weird because that was the address I had assigned manually. Somehow DHCP has decided to assign the same address which explains why it is all working.

My worry is that because I can't explain how DHCP has assigned this address it may suddenly stop working one day. Will cross that bridge later.

In the meanwhile thanks again

Chickoo