I did a stupid thing, I guess. I set my Windows XP VM up so that when opened the VM starts immediately. I've also set it so that when I shut down the VM, Parallels automatically quits. As far as I've been able to find, this leaves me no way to edit the settings for this machine since I can't edit them while it's running. I'm trying to update the amount of memory available to the VM, but can't do it with these settings and can't change the settings. I've contacted Parallels support and was advised to push Command, double click on the dock icon and continue to hold down Command for 20-30 seconds, but all that seems to do is launch Finder with the Parallels folder contents displayed. Has anyone else seen this? Is it possible to access the machine settings? Am I doing something wrong in following the instructions from Parallels support? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Well you can edit the configuration file (which is just a text document in reality) manually without using Parallels. It will be called something like this /Users/username/Library/Parallels/XP/XP.pvs I use vi from the terminal, but you could also use textedit. For the two options you mention they should be on probably the 12th and 13th line and be set to the following to put them back to their default. I am guessing they are both = 1 now. Start auto = 0 AutoShutdown = 0 Yeah, tested it and it does as you say. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding somewhere. Anyway try the above and let me know if that fixes it for you.
Bingo. Since it's Unix, I figured there was a text-based config file around somewhere, but I didn't expect it to be the pvs file. Everything worked exactly as you expected and I have more memory available. Thanks for your help.
You misunderstood the instruction to launch Parallels with the command key. Don't hold the command key down while you launch Parallels. That will indeed just show the Parallels app in the Finder. Instead, you want to launch Parallels and then immediately hold down the command key.
Well, if I misunderstood then I'm still misunderstanding. Here's what I got from support: "Push command key, double-click on Parallels Desktop and keep pushing command key for 20 - 30 seconds till you get the Parallels Property Page." Seems pretty clear, but I appreciate the clarification nonetheless. Just to verify, I'll try this method when I get back to my Mac. Thanks for the input.
Support told you wrong. Double-click on Parallels Desktop, then immediately push and hold the command key until you get the Parallels Property Page. Chris
Are you clicking on the shortcut to the Windows VM or to the Parallels program itself? If you go to your applications folder in the finder and dbl-click on the Parallels program, it should not launch the VM.
