After much searching I finally discovered that Parallels creates a hidden directory in ~/Documents named .parallels-vm-directory. Deleting this hidden directory resets the "recent items" that Parallels shows you on launch. For me this was helpful to clear out some spurious references to vm's that appeared to contain path references to a shared drive.
Hope this helps someone.
Also hope the dev team stops using a hidden directory in the users Documents folder. It would be much better to put a visible directory in ~/Library/Application Support/Parallels
Hope this helps someone.
Also hope the dev team stops using a hidden directory in the users Documents folder. It would be much better to put a visible directory in ~/Library/Application Support/Parallels