I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit under PD 6.0.11992 on a Mac Pro. I use Coherence mode. I have 4 hard disk drives installed in the Mac, one of which I have dedicated to backup storage. It has a 750GB GUID partition for Time Machine and a 250GB FAT32 partition that I want to use for Windows backups. I decided to use FAT32 in the hope that it would simplify access requirements. Windows has the 250GB partition mapped as a shared "folder" with the drive letter Y:\\psf\WINBACK. I can open WINBACK in Windows Explorer and copy files to and from it. I can create a new file in Notebook and save it in WINBACK. But when I try to set up Windows Backup to use WINBACK as its destination, it requires me to specify "Network credentials" to "access" the network location. I have tried both my Windows and Mac account names and passwords; but the result is always the same: "The specified network location cannot be used. Verify the path points to a correct network location and that the supplied credentials can be used for write access to the folder. Details> The parameter is incorrect. (0x80070057)" What credentials do I need to use? Why does Backup need credentials at all? Incidentally, I have deinstalled then reinstalled Parallels Tools three times but that didn't help.
Do not access the path via the \\psf\ shared drive path, as it contains characters that many Windows programs considers illegal (i.e., a dot that is not used to prefix the bogus three character suffix hinting at a file's contents). Access the volume using the standard Windows shared mount names (e.g., 'Z') and everything will work fine. I had this problem when attempting to use Visual Studio under Parallels. It is a know "feature."
Unfortunately, that won't work with Windows Backup: the application allows only removable drives or network locations. There is no provision to specify a drive by its Windows-allocated letter. As I mentioned earlier, it is the network drive "access credentials" that seem to be the problem. But thanks for the suggestion!
