I really like the new Crystal mode. That said there are a few things I would like different - both aesthetically and functionally. I am trying to address them myself. do you like this: If so, read on and you can see how I did it. Goals: Make the Stack icon look different and make the small list icons easier to recognize. Add Run and Control panel launching to the Windows Application Folder stack. To effectively not have to use the menubar icon until shutdown. Before you do this, read this through AND BACKUP your Parallels.app and your VM file until it works. It works fine for me, but who knows what could happen. First lets change the Stack icon to something other than the default folder. IMHO even though this is technically a "stack" I think of it as a launcher or start menu replacement. This can be anything you want. Any PNG file with transparent background. For my desktop I used a slightly modified version of the Parallels Coherence icon. I've attached it to this post. Find your VM file. In my case it is in ~/Documents/Parallels. The file should look like a monitor with the Parallels logo and name. It will be called whatever you named your VM. so <VMNAME>.pvm. Right-click (or secondary click) this icon and select "Show Package Contents". You will see a file called "<VMNAME> Applications". Right-click this icon and select "Get Info". Leave it open for now. Now find the image you want to be the new Stack icon for your application menu. Right click it and open it in OSX Preview. On the menubar select Edit and then Select All. Again on the Edit menu select Copy. Now go back to the open Get Info window. In the upper right hand corner you will see a small representation of the "<VMNAME> Applications" folder icon. Click it. You should see a blue highlight or glow. Now on the menubar select Edit and then Paste. The icon should change to your new icon. Close the Get Info window. The stack menu has small icons and has TWO overlays on it. The OSX alias arrow and the Parallels two red lines overlay. The result is the small icons are unrecognizable. Lets get rid of both of the overlays. First find the Parallels Desktop.app file. It should be in the OSX Applications folder. Right-Click it and select "Show Package Contents". You will see a folder called "Contents". Open it and you will see a folder called "Resources". There are 4 files we need to replace. WinAppFav-Mask.png, WinAppFav-Over.icns, WinAppRun-Mask.png, WinAppRun-Over.icns. I have attached the files to replace in a ZIP file NewOverlays.zip to this post. Extract this file and copy it's contents into the folder called "Resources". These are just graphics files and cannot execute or have malware or anything of the like. Close the window with the open "Parallels Desktop.app" file. This has removed the Parallels overlay (after one final step later). Of course you could make your own overlay if you edit the .ins and mask files. Now we are going to remove the alias/shortcut arrow that OSX adds to all alias files. If you like them in other places in Finder, you can skip this step. Finder automatically appends the word "alias" to any created alias and so I feel the overlay arrow is not needed. Open Terminal, and copy and paste the following two commands (don’t copy the $, and press Return after each line): $ cd /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources $ sudo mv AliasBadgeIcon.icns AliasBadgeIcon_OFF.icns This keeps a backup if you change your mind later. Just reverse the above. Now go back to the OSX Applications folder. Find the folder within called "Windows Applications". Open it and delete all the contents. This hurts nothing as all of them will be recreated automatically when you run them when using your VM. Final step, on the OSX Dock, click and drag the existing "<VMNAME> Applications" stack off the dock and drop it so it is deleted. Again it will be recreated when you start your VM. Voila! You have what I displayed in the picture above when you run your VM. If you don't immediately see the icons changed, just wait a few minutes and they will. How to get a Windows Control Panel link on your <VMNAME> Applications stack: In Windows run Explorer.Exe. Navigate to C:\Windows\System32. Find a file called Control.exe. Right-click it and select "Create Shortcut". Right-click the new shortcut and select Cut. Navigate to your user folder and find your Start Menu\Programs folder. Paste into that folder. I'd suggest renaming the shortcut. It is now on the Parallels application stack. When you run this you will notice 2 icons in the dock when it is running. One of the icons takes a while to close. There is no way around this for reasons I explain below. I have been unable to get a "Run" Command on the applications stack. There are plenty of 3rd party launchers, but I've not figured out how to make them work correctly. Limitations: When Parallels updates you will have to repeat the part above to remove the Parallels red lines overlay. Not optimal. All other changes should remain. As of right now, Parallels does NOT support command-line options or those that require a target path for applications on the Application Stack. Only EXEs with no commandlines or working folder requirements can be added. This is why the Control Panel link works as it does. There are other cool things that could be done if this limitation wasn't there. It would be great to use Spotlight as a launcher, but for some reason in 5.0 the Windows applications that are in my OSX Applications folder do NOT show up in Spotlight?!? Sorting of the <VMNAME> Applications stack. You can sort this List stack (the main menu) just like any other OSX stack. That said, sub menus don't seem to be sorted with the same preferences. You can see in the screenshot above I have things sorted by "Kind" to make it look/act more like the Windows Start Menu. The submenu Accessories is not sorted by "Kind" Hate this but I doubt it can be addressed. Wishlist: Parallels guys, could you Control Panel, Run, Parallels Settings, Parallels preferences and the shutdown options menu to the Menubar icon? Would be These are very nice in VMware Fusion 3.0's menubar menu. Make the tedious process above an option in Crystal options. Select a folder icon and turn on/off the Parallels overlay (or allow a custom one to be displayed) Add Expose support for running Windows applications. (unrelated but a gripe of mine. Hope this helps others.
