Can not connect to TCP socket server port on Windows virtual machine

I am running parallels desktop 8 on a mac with a windows 8 virtual machine.

I am unable to connect to a TCPIP socket server program running on my windows 8 virtual machine from any outside machine.

I have the firewall on the windows machine and the mac turned off.

I have tested the server program with a simple client program running on the windows machine, and I can connect to the server program from the client program on the loopback port 127.0.0.1

However, I can not connect to the server program from any other machine. I have tested it by running my simple client program on the same mac, as well as on an external android device.

I have tried both shared network with port forwarding as well as bridged network (both default adapter and ethernet).

I have read these three forum posts, which appear to describe similar problems:

http://superuser.com/questions/30917/how-to-make-a-port-forward-in-mac-os-x

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?100707-TCP-IP-settings

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2673595/access-parallels-windows-localhost-from-mac

However, I am still stuck, and I can not seem to get a client on any outside machine connected to the server program running on the the windows 8 virtual machine.

Any help would be greatly appreciated