Parallels 4.0 always shares my home folder, although I don't want it to do so

Running Parallels 4.0, build 3810.

I want to share certain specified folders only to the Windows OS. So I have turned smartmount off, and I set up shared folders this way:



As you can see, only the user-defined option is checked. This lasts until the end of the day when I shut the VM down. The next morning, when I restart, it shares my entire home folder. When I look in the configuration options, the top "Share Mac OS X folders with Windows" option is checked, even though I didn't check it.

I can reproduce this 100% of the time by shutting down the VM and restarting it. As noted above, SmartMount is off. In related threads others have blamed SmartMount, but that can't be my problem.

Please advise. Thanks.

 

This behavior does not reproduce ot our machine, even when VM is completely shut down and then started again the preferences are still intact, i.e. "Share Mac OS X folders with Windows" stays disabled.
A thing that can be tried:
Disabling this option should disable Shared Profile as well. Try the following sequence:
1. Disable Shared profile. At that point Windows should give you a message that user profile has changed and it needs to log off.
2. Click OK and Windows would log off, then login back.
3. Go to Parallels configuratrion again and disable Shared folders, all except user-defined folders.
4. Shut down VM completely and start it again.
5. Check if the issue persists.

 

Shared Profile is not enabled on this machine

Shared Profile is not, and never has been, enabled on this machine. So I cannot do steps (1) and (2). Step (3) is what I already ready have. Steps (4) and (5) merely confirm the bug I have already replicated reliably.

Thanks for your further advice.

 

I have exactly that issue.

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=92424&highlight=Smartmount

 

Hello,

Please follow the steps below in regards to the issue:


1) Please unzip the attachment to some place and start virtual machine.

2) Right-click to the CD-ROM Icon on parallels VM window and choose "connect image". Select the unzipped prl_fs_drv.iso file. As well the image may be connected through VM configuration

3) After Windows is booted, log on to it as Adminitstrator or some other user with Admin-rights, open the CD-Rom content (usually drive D:\ ; My Computer -> D and select install.bat. After that you should see several messages and invitation to reboot.

4) Please reboot the VM and try to install Parallels Tools. This time it should work.

5) install.bat should log all actions to the c:\temp\setup.log.

Now, reboot the virtual machine and change the settings.

Let me know if it worked or not.


Thank You
_________
Anupama
Parallels Team

 

I am still having the problem as well.

Aidan,

I am still having this problem, intermittently but regularly. I have also opened a ticket with Parallels Support, and have several times reinstalled Parallels Tools at their request.
I use my host Mac in at least two different network environments. I wonder if the intermittent nature of the problem is related to the use in multiple environments? Aidan, do you also use your host Mac in multiple environments? If so, that might provide a common thread to assist diagnosis of this pesky problem.

Thanks.

 

Not really. The network enviroment is static. But I find that if the Mac attached drives are shared with the PC I can remove them by turning on Smartmount then turning Smartmount back off in the settings and they are removed (until the next time they show up). But I never really know if attached Mac drives will be visible to whoever is using the PC VM. And that's a major security issue for me.

I'd really love a version of the Parallels Tools that just provides drivers for network, video etc and doesn't have any of the other "useful" toys like sharing applications, drives or anyting else that lets a PC user access part of the host machine.

 

Hello All,

Have you found a resolution to this problem. I seem to be afflicted it by it as well. Something to add is that I have found that if I follow Aiden's suggestion of toggling Smart Mount on off so that they are no longer visible works as long as I shut down the VM. However, if I Suspend instead of shutting down the machine they are visible in the VM again when I restart the VM from the suspended state. Could this be a bug in how the suspend operation is performed? I haven't tried the disk image solution provided by Anupama earlier in this thread, did this correct the problem for either of you?


Operational Environment:
Parallels Desktop for Mac v 4.0.3846
PC VM - Windows XP Pro 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06