Wouldn't it be nice if Parallels Desktop could remember to autoconnect some USB devices, but leave others alone? For example, the reason I use Parallels is for development, a lot of which I do using numerous PDAs and phones. As I have to connect and disconnect these frequently, I find leaving USB autoconnect on is the best option. However, this means that whenever I plug in any USB device I actually do want to use with OS X it too gets grabbed by Parallels. I think it would be nice if you could leave autoconnect on but exclude some devices, or vice-versa. For example, when I leave autoconnect on then whenever I start the EyeTV app it powers up my EyeTV Mini USB device, and Parallels grabs it. If I could just set this particular USB device to be excluded from Parallels' autoconnect then everything would work far more smoothly. Similarly, if I plug in a USB mouse when Parallels is running then it gets grabbed by Windows instead of OS X. I think that allowing the user to specify that some USB devices should never autoconnect would really help in these cases. There could be a connect behaviour sub-menu in the menu for each USB device containing the options: Default, Virtual Machine, OS X. Default would mean connect the device to whatever the global setting the user has chosen is, and the Virtual Machine and OS X options would mean always connect that particular device to that operating system in the future.
Nice idea. Don't think most of the users may need this config in the gui, but we will consider adding this functionality as a hidden configuration option, described in the manual.
That really would be great... We have some Paralegals and attorneys... Each gets to use his OS of preference for most things, but certain aps, including the one they sync their standard issue Treo 700p with is on Windows... So, auto-connect for their flash drives can be an issue if they like the Mac side. I certainly would be using it!
There may be a few more people interested in this than you think! I use parallels for two main purposes - I run Outlook against an exchange server (because I think entourage sucks) and I sync my Treo 650 PDA against outlook. I also have an ipod which I sync with itunes under OSX. When I want to sync the ipod I shutdown parallels. Be much better if I could simply tell parallels to leave the ipod alone! By the way, I think you have created an awesome product, and coherence is a fabulous innovation. Regards John
