Unknown changes to settings

I have been using Parallels for a month to run Excel in Windows XP. Recently however, some settings were changed which has led to two things:
1. When Parallels is not running, and I click on a MS Word document to open, it automatically starts Parallels and MS Word in XP (I previously opened Word documents in Office for Mac OS).
2. Through Windows Explorer in XP, I can now access my file folders in Mac OS, whereas before I could only see files in my shared folder which I had set up.

Anyone know what happened to my original settings?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Ben

 

Hello,

please, go to VM's Configuration Editor->Shared Applications. Is Smart select option there enabled?
Then to VM's Configuration Editor->Shared Profile. Is the first option there (shared profile) enabled?

Best regards,
Alicia.