In version 7, Windows ME had very limited Parallels Tools support/drivers, version 8 improved a bit and sadly version 9 completely dropped drivers/support for Windows ME guests. You should support the OS, you should be providing drivers for all the functionality that is available in Windows ME. Networking, sounds, video, USB, printing, etc. Everything should work perfectly. In Parallels 8 there was an issue with the network driver, which required IRQ 7 and was conflicting with the LPT1 Printer Port which was also using IRQ 7, therefore you had to either have networking at the expense of lost printing, or have printing but no networking. I want drag and drop support as well, or at least make network shares work. This is not acceptable, Parallels 9 is supposed to improve on the last version, not make it worse. I understand that the user base for Windows 9X/ME might be small but people buy your product because they need compatibility. Let me just add something, when you click on My Computer and go to its properties, then the hardware manager will show several yellow exclamation marks with unknown devices. Parallels 9 should be able to get rid of all of those yellow exclamation marks and make all devices in device manager operate fully and correctly while running Win ME.
You won't like this answer, but there's absolutely no reason to use WinME, WinME was plagued with problems, use Win98 (if you can) instead. It's even possible some of the problems you complain about, interrupt assignment (IRQ), are probably related to WinME shortcomings and bugs. If you want to keep using WinME I suggest you look for Win98 related posts and knowledge base articles to solve your issues.
Thanks for your reply. As a customer, I think that this shouldn't be the solution, to ask to move to another OS. The product page says that WinME is supported, but it's not supported. If Win98 can be supported, surely WinME can also be supported because WinME is based on the 9x code. The main point is, it states that it is supported but it's not because a supported OS should offer all the basic functionality. No networking, 16 colors and low resolution isn't basic functionality, it's bare functionality. I appreciate your suggestion very much, but why was Parallels Tools removed from version 9 when running a WinME system? It used to be there until version 8, it was getting better until it got completely removed. This is not helpful, I wasn't expecting to lose functionality when I upgraded, I was expecting more support.
From my signature: "[NOTE] I'm a Product Expert, that doesn't mean I'm affiliated with or work for Parallels." I'm giving you my advice as a experienced user, which is: stay away from WinME, it will save you a lot of headaches.
I'm having the exact same IRQ 7 conflict with Windows 98 SE, so no, this is not a Windows ME problem. Attempting to disable the LPT1 does not free up the IRQ. Removing it, then attempting to configure the network interface to non-conflicting resources, results in a BSOD.
