Where is the resolution option on the Windows 7/VM Hardware>Video settings screen?

Ok, I'm experiencing a very common, dreaded problem. I have Windows 7 loaded in parallels on my Macbook w/ Retina display. When I plug in my mac into my Thunderbolt display, my Windows environment appears to be mostly scaled correctly. However, when I right-click in Windows to bring up a context menu, the context menus are always super-small and completely unreadable.

Most instructions that I've found online tell you to go to the Virtual Machine>Configure... screen, and in the Hardware>Video area, set the resolution. The problem is that I do not have the resolution option that constantly see referenced.

How can I cut this feature on so that I can try to adjust the parallels settings to work properly with my display?

 

I had the same issue.

On the video settings in the vm config dialogue you have already navigated too, try changing the mode to 'scaled' instead of 'best for retina' or 'more space'. Once you have done that, the problem should be fixed.

The resolution now might not entirely be to your taste. If you switch to your VM, open up the windows resolution dialogue (right click on desktop then 'screen resolution') and adjust it manually you can do a bit of experimenting and see what works best. The resulting image might not be as visually smooth but i personally found it loads more usable. You will need to do this manual resolution configuration each time you load up the VM (or exit/enter fullscreen) as parallels will always revert to what it thinks is best for this screen/resolution.

 

Paul, thanks for trying to help, but that's the problem. There is no resolution setting. I have an option to change the amount of Video Memory and 3D acceleration, but there is no 3rd setting option for the resolution adjustment. Below is a picture of my Video settings screen.

 

Ah apologies, did you install the parallels tools?

http://kb.parallels.com/4841

 

Yes, it was both installed AND I followed the linked instructions to reinstall parallels tools. After restarting Windows and Parallels, this did not solve the problem.

 

Hmm. With the external monitor disconnected, do you see the resolution options?

Steve

 

That fixed the problem that I discussed, but it's still not fixing the underlying issue of the size of the context menus. I may need to start another thread about that issue. Thanks for solving this one problem, though.