Multiple Windows 10 users support

I am new to Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac. I apologize in advance if I am posting incorrectly. I need to accomplish the following:
I currently have a native Windows 10 environment on a Dell desktop supporting 2 users with unique desktops, user files, etc.
I have been converting to Mac environment at work on a Macbook pro 13" with Parallels desktop supporting Windows 10. It works extremely well. I want to use a Mac mini at home but need to support 2 users as described above. I have installed Parallels Desktop 11 for mac (trial) which will end in a week. Everything looked great for awhile. I defined UserA and set up a desktop environment which looked very good. I defined UserB and his desktop looks exactly like UserA. I really need to keep both user's Windows environments unique.
Is that possible? How to accomplish? Again, I apologize if I am going about this wrong. But, I don't know how else to find out within a trial period time. I appreciate any advice or even "It can't be done.".

 

Hello ThomasF3,
This might have happened due to Shared Profile feature enabled on the Virtual Machine. Open Configuration>Options>Sharing and customize the options under Shared Profile. Let us know how it works.

 

Hi ThomasF3 - I have / had exactly the same issue and contacted Parallels support for a solution. They said to disable some of the Sharing options in the configurator but that also disabled the ability to share between Mac OSX (El Capitan) and Windows 10 which I wanted. I'm on Parallels 11. I also tried to share the Windows virtual machine between two users but you have to close it down each time (not just suspend) to swap Windows users and that's not very fast or elegant.

At the moment I have implemented the following solution, which seems to work but has a couple of issue (see below description):-

On the Mac user call it Mac-A install W10 virtual machine without <share virtual machine with other Mac users> option. Parallels <Windows 10.pvm> (the virtual machine) gets installed in a Parallels folder inside the Mac Documents folder for user Mac-A.
Create Windows user (say) Windows-A on that virtual machine and setup Windows desktop, documents etc.
Create additional Mac user (say) Mac-B and install another W10 virtual machine without <share virtual machine with other Mac users> option. Parallels Windows 10.pvm> (the virtual machine) gets installed in a Parallels folder inside the Mac Documents folder for user Mac-B so is totally separate from the Mac-A user.
Create Windows user (say) Windows-B on that virtual machine and setup Windows desktop, documents etc.

You now have two Max OSX users (Mac-A and Mac-B), each with their own Parallels virtual machine running a single Windows 10 user (Windows-A or Windows-B). Swap between Windows users by swapping between Mac users - easy and quick. Each Windows user is independent and can run differently. For example, Mac-A / Windows-A can run in Coherence mode while Mac-B / Windows-B can run a full-screen W10 desktop window.

It seems to work but . . . running two Parallels virtual machines at the same time takes a fair amount of horsepower and is noticeably slower firing up Windows apps. I have a new maxed-out iMac 5K which can handle it but seems an awful waste of computing power. Also - I have to activate two separate copies of Windows 10 which is still an outstanding problem since I only have one activation code from my W7 -> W10 upgrade. Finally, I haven't yet figured out the best way to implement file sharing between the two Windows users, or even between the two Mac users. But sharing between Windows and Mac environments is fine.

I should close by saying that I'm new to Mac / OSX and Parallels so this solution (which seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut but does seem to work) could attract some criticism from the more seasoned users out there, so I'm donning my flame-proof under-garments while I go in search of more-elegant / alternative solutions. I'm absolutely open to better offers . . .

Hope this helps anyway.

Cheers

Graeme