I have a USB-Serial converter. It worked fine until either the latest Parallels 8 update or the one before. I'm running Windows 7 64bit VM on a Mac OSX Mountain Lion machine. In Windows Device Manager, I have USB Serial Converter that is recognized by Parallels and reports is working properly. The USB Serial Port cannot start (Code 10). I have done a search here and Google. When I look at the USB devices in Parallels, It reports the USB HS Serial Converter and allows me to assign it to either Windows or Mac. It is assigned to Windows. I used to have the USB Serial Port as an option as well, but I no longer see that as an option. 1) I have tried all the available port settings, also to no avail (it has worked and is normally assigned to COM3). If I look at the USB Serial Converter (the device that IS recognized and reported to be working properly(, It gives a Location: Port_#0004 Hub_#0003. When I look at Port Settings in the USB Serial Port, all serial ports are available except Port #4 (in use). 2) I have tried assigning the USB Serial Converter to COM4, but as expected, that doesn't work, either. 3) I have also tried plugging it into a different USB port. No good, either.I have tried both the USB on the back of the iMac and also through a hub. No difference. 4) I have tried the uninstall and delete drivers and then re-install. I have tried downloading the latest drivers from FTDI (the manufacturer) but that has likewise not worked. 5) I checked Services to see if there was some USB or Serial service that needed to be started. Nope. 6) I have disabled the device (from Device Manager) then enabled it. Windows reports that it successfully enabled the device, but that it still wasn't working. Hopefully Parallels will respond that his is indeed a bug that will be fixed. If not, I sure hope someone has a good idea for a fix. Thanks.
Take a look at: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=267718 A couple of users have already escalated this to Parallels support, and the same, or very similar issue, affects the Signalink USB external "sound card" that relies on Microsoft PnP drivers, so the problem's rather pervasive. It appears that Parallels didn't do much, if any, regression testing of Parallels 8 with Windows 7, and probably expected their users to instantly and blindly migrate to Windows 8. I'm staying with Windows 7, but it's questionable if I will stay with Parallels 8, or drop back to the last known/apparently working version of Parallels 7 (by way of Time Machine), or upgrade to Fusion.
I worked around the issue by reading http://kb.parallels.com/114449 and then clicking on one of the links it offers and downloading ParallelsDesktop-7.0.15107.796624.dmg and installing it. I don't know at this point if that's the latest/last build of Parallels 7, however - they're rather opaque about that, generally speaking. But, it did install properly, saw my existing Windows 7 installation and used it, and once I tweaked one or two minor configuration settings, I was back on the air. Their marketing pop-ups for Parallels 8 never mentioned that it was incompatible with Windows 7, and the lack of sufficient regression testing is quite obvious. I am not going to be migrating to Windows 8, and therefore won't be using Parallels 8.
Having a similar problem. After the last update to PD8 Build 8.0.18345, my USB Audio CODEC stopped working. (external USB sound card) It shows up yellow with an error code 10, in win8 device manager. Before the update of PD8, it worked just fine. Reinstalling the windows drivers does not work. Guess this has something to do with Parallels Tools. I tried to reinstall this, but this didn't help.
I tried reinstalling Tools and a fresh install of Win7 and Win8 (both 64-bit), but nothing worked. I then recalled I had a copy of the 8.0.18305.811918 DMG sitting on my local drive. I reinstalled over top of my existing installation, reinstalled Tools in my VM, and the USB-to-Serial converter works fine. EDIT: Parallels is aware of the issue and has opened this KB article: http://kb.parallels.com/en/115234
I made a backup copy of my Parallels7/Windows7.pvm folder this morning after I was notified by e-mail of a new version of Parallels8 (according to KB 115234). I've downloaded and installed ParallelsDesktop-8.0.18354.823166.dmg and it appears to have resolved my problems, including restoring Windows 7 sounds to the iMac audio system instead of trying to pump them out my USB Sound Card. I determined that, because I had to undo my temporary configuration restriction for both the FTDI USB/Serial adapter and the USB Sound Card - Windows 7 actually gave its normal chirp/burp/grunt/whatever as soon as I did it! So far, so good - now to chew up another 35GB of disk space making a spare copy of this (tentatively) working P8 PVM.