Add new user and share Windows VM?

David Nicholls · Oct 10, 2010

I installed Parallels on my Mac when it had only one user. I installed Windows XP as a VM. The VM was put in ~/Documents/Parallels/ I have since added a new user and want to share the VM. I can't access /Users/<user1>/Documents/Parallels/ while logged in as user2.

How to I get both users to share the VM?

DN

joevt · Oct 12, 2010

Move the .pvm to /Users/Shared/Parallels. You may need to change permissions so that everyone has read/write access to the .pvm and its contents.

Code:

JoeMacPro:~ joevt$ cd /users/shared/parallels
JoeMacPro:parallels joevt$ ls -ld *.pvm; ls -lR *.pvm
drwxrwxrwx@ 9 joevt  staff  306 12 Oct 00:42 Mac OS X 10.6.pvm
total 232
drwxrwxrwx@ 6 joevt  staff    204 12 Oct 00:07 Mac OS X 10.6-0.hdd
-rw-r--r--+ 1 joevt  staff  16384 12 Oct 00:42 NVRAM.dat
drwxrwxrwx+ 2 joevt  staff     68 11 Oct 17:13 Snapshots
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 joevt  staff  16194 12 Oct 00:42 config.pvs
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 joevt  staff  16194 12 Oct 00:42 config.pvs.backup
-rw-rw-rw-+ 1 joevt  staff  61925 12 Oct 00:42 parallels.log
-rw-r--r--+ 1 root   staff   1008 12 Oct 00:42 statistic.log

Mac OS X 10.6.pvm/Mac OS X 10.6-0.hdd:
total 18359312
-rw-rw-rw-+ 1 joevt  staff        1159 11 Oct 17:00 DiskDescriptor.xml
-rw-rw-rw-+ 1 joevt  staff        1124 11 Oct 17:00 DiskDescriptor.xml.Backup
-rw-rw-rw-+ 1 joevt  staff           0 11 Oct 17:00 Mac OS X 10.6-0.hdd
-rw-rw-rw-+ 1 joevt  staff  9399959552 12 Oct 00:42 Mac OS X 10.6-0.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds

The files above show read/write access for Owner, Group, Everyone. Directories also have execute access (for viewing list of files). I'm not sure why the statistic.log and NVRAM files only have write access for the owner. You can probably just ignore those and just have all files have read and write access for everyone.

David Nicholls · Oct 12, 2010

Thanks. That's what I tried to do, but I may have missed some of the permissions. I'll give it another go.

DavidA4 · Oct 26, 2018

Is this method still valid in 2018? I'm using the latest version of Parallels Desktop (Version 14.0.1 (45154)), High Sierra for macOS (10.13.6), and I have a 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I run Windows 7 Pro and Windows XP Pro (64bit) under Parallels

I've got a very similar issue. I recently created a new macOS account - but I don't see the Parallels Control Center anywhere. It would be very convenient if two macOS accounts could access the same VM.

Thanks!

David

AJ@Parallels · Oct 26, 2018

David Nicholls said:
I installed Parallels on my Mac when it had only one user. I installed Windows XP as a VM. The VM was put in ~/Documents/Parallels/ I have since added a new user and want to share the VM. I can't access /Users/<user1>/Documents/Parallels/ while logged in as user2.

How to I get both users to share the VM?

DN

Hello David Nicholls, Kindly follow the instructions from this link and check if it helps.

AJ@Parallels · Oct 26, 2018

DavidA4 said:
Is this method still valid in 2018? I'm using the latest version of Parallels Desktop (Version 14.0.1 (45154)), High Sierra for macOS (10.13.6), and I have a 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I run Windows 7 Pro and Windows XP Pro (64bit) under Parallels

I've got a very similar issue. I recently created a new macOS account - but I don't see the Parallels Control Center anywhere. It would be very convenient if two macOS accounts could access the same VM.

Thanks!

David

Hello DavidA4, Kindly follow the instructions from this link and check if it helps.

DavidA4 · Nov 1, 2018

This instructions appear to be out of date - the screens are not the same. I did my best guess to share the machine - but I get this window - instead of access to the VM (see attached picture)

any ideas?

Screen Shot 2018-11-01 at 3.55.44 PM.png

AJ@Parallels said:
Hello DavidA4, Kindly follow the instructions from this link and check if it helps.

Arun@Parallels · Nov 1, 2018

Hi @DavidA4 , please click on the two red lines (Parallels icon) > Control center and then try following the steps suggested in the above article.

DavidA4 · Nov 1, 2018

Control Center cannot be accessed - it is grayed out (see attached screen capture)

Screen Shot 2018-11-01 at 5.36.41 PM.png

Arun@Parallels said:
Hi @DavidA4 , please click on the two red lines (Parallels icon) > Control center and then try following the steps suggested in the above article.

Sathiya@Parallels · Nov 1, 2018

DavidA4 said:
Control Center cannot be accessed - it is grayed out (see attached screen capture)

View attachment 14342

Please locate the virtual machine file (.pvm) from the user account and double-click the file to start the virtual machine and check if it works fine.

DavidA4 · Nov 2, 2018

That worked. Thanks!

Sathiya@Parallels said:
Please locate the virtual machine file (.pvm) from the user account and double-click the file to start the virtual machine and check if it works fine.

Sathiya@Parallels · Nov 2, 2018

DavidA4 said:
That worked. Thanks!

Nice to know that it works. Please post again for additional queries.