From another thread discussion, I came to realize that the Mac version of Parallels Desktop is lacking a VM flag "Exit application on VM shutdown." Can y'all please add that? Thanks.
If you exit the vm by clicking the red "close" button, but using apple+w, or by "quitting" parallels by menu or by apple+q it already does this. The reason the default action is to not close the app on shutdown is that the only way to make changes to a running vm is to shut it down first! If the app quit, it'd be impossible to make any changes on a VM that was set to autorun when opened.
In that case, would it be better to stop the application? I have noticed that when you shut down linux, for example, you still have to stop the VM to make the changes. That way it would function as a normal machine, when you halt, the machine gets powered off. (older versions of linux, you'd shut down the OS, it would halt, but you'd still have to press the power button to shut it down. That is the behavior that I am seeing right now.
Well, Parallels doesn't yet have a full ACPI implementation. That's why you're not seeing the machine "Power Off" at the end. I'm guessing that the Parallels team have some sort of "hack" in place that recognizes when Windows XP is in the "You may now turn off the computer" state and automatically cuts power. It may work that way for other linux distros, i'm not sure.
As I posted elsewhere, there are (much better) ways around this: "As for properties, according to interface guidelines they should be a sheet on the VM window - I shouldn't have to hide what I'm looking at, but it should be directly connected to that VM. This is exactly what sheets are for. Properties should be changeable at any time, and the user should be notified as to which can take place immediately, and which will take place on the next boot." Voila! Now you can support "auto-quit on shutdown" to go with "auto-start on open". Of course, to do these things correctly, Parallels will need ACPI support. Something I've harped on at length as it causes all manner of problems...
