Windows 10 Preview 2 - Parallels Tools installs on every restart

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Diane_Wilson

Bit poster
I just installed the Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 that was released today (January 23). Parallels Tools installs, and says that the install was successful, and wants to restart. After the restart, it does the same thing again.... and again.... On restart after installing the tools, it does not seem to recognize that the Parallels tools are installed.

Any suggestions?
 
Hmm, that's not encouraging. I'd love to know from the Parallels team if they foresee being ready to deal with Windows 10 when it comes out officially for the public later this year.
 
Same here - build 9926. Previous Windows 10 releases worked fine though.

Parallels will be getting the test builds at the same time as us. Other than that it works quite well really.
 
You might try to work around this issue temporarily, you can disable the PT Auto Update mechanism following these steps:

IMPORTANT
Proceed at your own risk, you should know what you are doing, if you have any question or doubt regarding these instructions then don't do it, incorrectly editing the config.pvs may result in the loss of data, backup your VM first.​

1) Shutdown the the Virtual Machine, it shouldn't be suspended or running.

2) Go to the .pvm package if the VM in Finder -> right click on it -> Show Package contents

3) Find the config.pvs file and open config.pvs in any text editor, for example TextEdit.

4) Find "<AutoUpdate.......>
<Enabled>1</Enabled>
</Autoupdate>"

5) Change the value in "Enabled" from 1 to 0: i.e "<Enabled>0</Enabled>"

6) Save the changes and exit the text editor.

By doing this, the Parallels Tools won't check for update.

You should revert these changes once a new Parallels Desktop update is released (change the value back to 1).
To be more precise, this disables the mechanism by which PT checks if the PT version installed is the same as the one in Parallels Desktop and autoupdates if not, might or might not workaround this issue, please share your experience.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
CTL + ALT +DEL and stop PTools from re-installing. Then use Cortana to find the startup apps and disable PTools from starting. This also seems to work. But PTools still does not fully install correctly.
 
It should be enough to cancel Parallels Tools installing dialog. You should click close (red 'x' in the corner) button when PTools installation has started and answer 'Yes'.
 
I did the new install, shut it down, and checked the "enable" value in config.pvs. Interestingly, it was already set to zero. The weird graphic characters on all the Modern UI screens are gone - in fact, there is no text at all (which makes it rather difficult to use the Settings app to change the user from the Mac username to my Microsoft user account, or to make any settings. The settings app shows all blank, with nine grey squares, each of which leads to another screen, and is only visible if I hover the mouse above it. I won't delete this copy, but will wait a day or so to see if Parallels comes up with any answer and will see if I can search the forums to find an answer.
 
Changing the configuration from DirectX 10 to DirectX 9 fixed the lack of text. On another thread, it was reported that the newest Mac Mini worked without the change, but the 2011 version required the change. Problems fixed. Thanks.
 
StanislavZ said:
It should be enough to cancel Parallels Tools installing dialog. You should click close (red 'x' in the corner) button when PTools installation has started and answer 'Yes'.
Click to expand...
This is a terrible official suggestion, canceling the installation will result in partial install of PT since cancel does not roll-back changes (why?). Besides, it doesn't work.
 
Changing AutoUpdate to the "<Enabled>0</Enabled>" solved the problem for me. This was occurring on the Windows 10 Pro Technical preview Build 9926. Thanks for the tip. Your help is greatly appreciated!
 
Specimen, maybe I didn't express myself clear. What I meant to say was: if you're caught in PTools reinstallation loop (second, third iteration, etc.), you can stop it by cancelling Parallels Tools Installation agent with close button.
Close button is available before installation progress reaches 15% and does not leave system in inconsistent state as nothing has been modified in system yet.

If this solution does not help, please make a problem report with detailed logging enabled and post ID here.
Thank you. We're working to resolve this problem.
 
I was having this problem as well on a 2012 Mac Mini. Initially I had it after updating from the first Win10 Technical Preview to the latest one, build 9926. I was able to stop the Tools installation using Task Manager, but once I restarted the VM, the installer would return. I wound up trashing this VM and starting over from the ISO, and had the same problem AGAIN.

I went into the configuration and noticed that the VM was showing it had 2 optical dives. This is a Mac mini, there is no optical drive, let alone two. One of the two was connected to the Parallel Tools ISO, so I disabled that virtual optical drive. That seemed to fix the issue. I didn't get a chance to look at the first VM (the updated one I trashed), but I suspect it, too, had an optical drive bound to the Tools ISO.

When set up the new Win10 from scratch with its ISO, I used the default settings, for what that's worth.

Oh, and I updated Win10 VM on my 2014 MacBook Pro without seeing this issue.
 
Same as 'dsilverman' ... I also spotted 2 optical drives, with one connected to 'unattended.iso'. I have no optical drives on this MacBook Pro so disabled that virtual optical drive. The Parallels Tools installation agent no longer appears each time I start the VM.
 
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