Parallels 9 keyboard and mouse don't all go to the VM making it a complete hell!

Parallels 9 keyboard and mouse don't all go to the VM making it extremely difficult!

In Parallels version 8 running Mac OS X VM in fullscreen actually sent Ctrl-up/down/lef/right/tab, etc to the VM. Also mouse events like pulling mouse to bottom of screen to popup dock worked fine.

Now in version 9 and such things go to the host, not the VM. This makes running Mac OS X in a VM extremely difficult.

I'm running the VM in fullscreen mode. I had the dock hidden so that it pops up when I move the mouse down to the bottom. Now with version 9 I get the host dock, not the VM dock. The VM dock is impossible to get to. The only way to access it is to disable its hiding. Starting a fullscreen application in the VM denies you access to the application menu since moving the mouse up to the top of the screen gives your the host (parallels in this case) menu, not the VM application menu.

This is going to cause problems running Windows and Linux also when the host wins over the VM locking the user out of functionality in VM.

I can't work with this! I need to go back to version 8 until this is fixed. How do I do that ? Parallels 8 is still available for download and I got it, but can I just install it without screwing things up ? Have version 9 changed the VM images in any way ?

I also filed a bug report on this through the help menu in Parallels.

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I know there is a separate group for Mac OS X guest issues, but posts there seem to go to /dev/null! In this group it was possible to post.

 

I have found that there are some workarounds that can be done. In Systemsetings/Keyboard most keys can be remapped. So in the guest Cmd+left/right/upp/down can be remapped to Alt+...

Cmd+Tab seems to be hardcoded and can not be changed.

There is still the problem of running the VM in fullscreen and then starting a fullscreen app in the guest. This locks you out of the guest app menu. Also since Cmd + Tab cannot be changed and thus is sent to the host it will be impossible to switch to another application in this case. The only way out is to exit the fullscreen for the VM.

I have also noticed when trying to run the VM in non fullscreen it scales the guest screen rather than adapt it to the virtual screen size. That sucks so much that you have to use fullscreen.

I'll also answer my question above: Have Parallels 9 changed anything in the VM image ? YES it have! New version of Parallels tools are automatically installed on first run. This will surely cause problems if you boot the image in Parallels 8.

I get the feeling that Parallels are letting the users test this version, and that it is not release ready yet. Taking ideas from Microsoft they are also making their users pay for the privilege of testing their software.

 

After rebooting my machine (something I very seldom do) Parallels 9 suddenly started behaving mostly as expected again!

Auto hiding the dock in the guest still doesn't work since pulling down the mouse to the bottom of screen still delivers host dock. Alt-Cmd-D works to hide show the dock however.

Maybe the Parallels 9 installation should end with "You must reboot your machine for Parallels 9 to work! Reboot now ? [Yes] [No]"!

This is the only software installation that I can remember since I starting using Mac that required a reboot!