The secret: 1) only atttach the thumb drive once the vm is open otherwise MAC OS X caputures it first 2) Don' t select the flash drive from Parallels devices but rather Right clicking on the USB icon in the bottom right hand corner of windows. This allows Windows to recognize it. I hope this helps others who may be having a similar problem. So simple when you know how....
Step 1 is not necessary - you can eject the thumb drive from your Mac in a Finder window and then do step 2 in Parallels. It should get the same thing accomplished. How is your printer problem going?
dkp- thanks for that - it will make it quicker adn less "fiddly". You did mention that before but I'm only just starting to get my head around it all. I have not made any further progress with the printer though I am on the point of re-installing it.However I am reluctant to do that as at least the printer does work now on the mac side. Also in Parallels Devices my actual printer is there but I was told not to select it here. I just wish I could see the icon in the bottom right task bar of windows like I eventually could with the thumb drive. Now windows has frozen and I'm completely stuck as I don't know how to unfreeze windows. I had just got going and had registered my software etc when that happened. One step forward and two steps backwards at the moment.
Sorry about the freeze. It can be frustrating when everything is new and broken. I don't recall if it's been mentioned, but for the printer to work in Windows it has to be shared out on the Mac. That is done with the System Preferences tool under Sharing. At that point Bonjour should see it. If that doesn't work then you can try using the Unix printer interface. You get to it at http://localhost:631/ on your Mac. When you've defined a printer in there you can use the Windows Add Printer tool to add a new printer. It will have an address like "http://xxx.xxx.xx.xx:631/printers/myprinter where the xxx's are your Mac's IP address.
printer not working in vm dkp I have sorted almost all my problems now including some not mentioned here too- so that is the good news .however the printer is still not being recognized by the vm. 1) printer is selected in mac systems in the shared folder 2) error msg when trying to download from that url you posted (see screen shot ) 3) should i uninstall Bonjour ? http://www.flickr.com/photos/httpwwwflickrcomphotoswattos/
When I right click on the USB icon I get the same 4 choices that I get if I click on Devices - namely IR Receiver, Apple Internal Keyboard/Trackpad, Apple - Wireless, Built-in iSight. How can I select the thumb drive???
Under build 3186 (Parallels won't download to my MBPro 3188), right-clicking or left-clicking on the USB icon in the lower right corner of the Windows screen, both display the device; however while the device is selected, I still get the message "USB device you are trying to connect to the virtual machine is being used by another application. Close that application or unplug the device and plug it back again. Then try to connect the device again." This message displays whether I've right or left-clicked the icon. The device is not being used by another application (and has been unmounted via the finder).
One of the four thumb drives I have does that, too. I have decided it's the device, not Parallels that is the problem as all the others work perfectly.
