I've been trying to disable the auto pause of my Windows 10 VM. However, I can not find the options or I am missing it somewhere. My scenario: I will have my Windows instance running and switch back to my Mac to respond to an email. Then I go back to Windows and it has auto paused. I unpause the instance and the screen goes black. I can't do anything and I have to force stop the VM and then restart it. Then I have to get back to where I was before the auto pause happened. Therefore, I would just like to disable auto pause and keep my Windows VM running until I am ready to shut it down. Thanks.
open your windows 10 VM configuration settings by clicking the gear icon in you parallels control center or actions < configure with the VM open Click Options < Optimization < un-tick pause windows when possible This should stop parallels from automatically pausing windows when not being used. Please let me know if this does not work as you may have another issue, Windows should not BSOD on resuming from pause.
Hi Dustin, Thanks for the reply. I did not see the option to pause windows when possible at the location you are referring to. I did find it under options -> applications. I do have the option of "pause windows when possible" unchecked but that did not disable the auto pausing feature. See my screenshot for further details.
im running parallels 12 i think that is why the option to pause windows is in a different location. See if you have the option under hardware < cpu and memory < advanced < Hypervisor to change to the apple Hypervisor and see if this resolves any issues. Do you have nested virtualization or adaptive hypervisor enabled also? This could be causing your BSOD issue when resuming windows from paused.
I'm running parallels 11 so that is probably the case with options being at different places. I did not find the Hypervisor option under hardware but I did find it under the gear icon for my windows 10 VM (screenshot attached). The option "Enable Adaptive Hypervisor" is currently enabled. Should I disable it?
Yes try disabling adaptive hypervisor and Real Time Disk Optimization. Reboot and see what happens. Also have you reset the SMC on your mac yet?
First, thanks a ton for helping me out. Second, making the changes did not disable the auto pausing. I'm still having the original issue. Third, I didn't think of mentioning (but maybe it makes a difference) is that I'm running Windows 10 from a bootable USB stick that is Bitlocker encrypted from work.
ohhh, yes this may ver well be the issue. When the machine gets paused we could be actually shutting down the usb stick and then it will not allow it to wake because of the bit locker. Can you copy the VM to you local machine and run it from your internal hard drive? Is this an option? I dont know your situation for work machines. Obviously its important or bit locker would not be in play here.
Yes, this makes total sense that when the VM pauses the USB goes to sleep and then BSOD. Unfortunately, copying the USB stick to the HD hasn't worked in the past due to the 2 partitions on the UBS stick (bootable partition and encrypted partition). I'm not sure how to copy both partitions over on my HD so that parallels would pick it up and use it correctly.
Ok so the partitions on the usb stick are bootable partitions that are bootable on any machine correct? They are not a parallels VM that your running from an encrypted usb stick? Also is disabling bit locker an option just long enough to move the partitions to you mac? You could also possibly create a system image of your USB machine on your mac and create a New virtual machine from it. Here is a link that is about a VM and bit locker http://www.shulerent.com/2012/09/04/locking-down-a-virtual-machine-with-bitlocker/ I dont have a setup like this to test for you but you may also be able to use the parallels migration tool and migrate from this bootable drive to you local mac. You would click to create a new VM and the Select migrate from a PC. I guess really i need to know what your options are and what your comfortable with doing. There is also the option to just create a new virtual machine with a fresh install of windows and then just mount the usb drive to have access to all of your encrypted information like it is just any other network drive. This will only work if your bit locker encryption key is local on your machine or on the usb drive itself. You must have the key available.
So here's what I have to start from and my constraints. I am using a Kingston Windows 2 Go bootable USB stick that was created by my IT guy at work. From my understanding, it has 2 partitions on it. One that is the bootable partition and is not encrypted. The other partition is an encrypted Windows 10 image that the IT guy created. So it's not a Parallels VM and I can't disable Bitlocker on it. Unfortunately, due to company policy, he cannot help me (or anyone) getting anything other than what he has done. However, he said that if I can figure out something else he wouldn't care. Hence, the reason why I am using Parallels (thank goodness for you all!). I need to use the Windows 10 that I have on the USB stick because it has the VPN I need to use to get onto the work network. Does all of this make sense? If I can't create/copy from the USB stick to my local HD, then disabling auto-pause would be the next best thing. So far though, that has eluded me on how to do that.
ok i would recommend creating a new windows 10 VM on your mac. After this just plug in the usb drive and connect the encrypted partition to the new windows VM and you will have all files and settings. This would see the easiest way and you should not have any pause troubles because your Os is running on your internal Hd but all you "work" stuff will be on the usb stick and still encrypted as it was before since you are not changing anything on the kingston stick. Your just not going to use its boot partition. You will be using your own that will be more manageable since it will be a parallels install and a .PVM file.
Thanks for your help! I'll give this a try. My only concern is that the VPN application that is on the encrypted partition won't be available for me to use on the new windows 10 VM on my mac.
you also may be able to change your energy saver preferences on mac to help your sleep issue. Un-tick the put hard disks to sleep when possible and tick enable power nap. Not sure but this may be the issue because i know OS X will put usb to sleep when not being used. I had the issue with a mouse before and i would have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to work again.
