Fixed my PD 4 problems!

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David Moss

Bit poster
This worked for me, so hopefully will help somebody out there too.

After upgrading from PD 3 to PD 4 (trial license for now), with a single XP VM, I got some of the problems mentioned by other people here: specifically in my case, the screen resolution wouldn't change on resizing a single window or on switching to full screen, and coherence wasn't available.

I checked my services in the VM (Start -> Run -> services.msc) and saw that the Parallels Tools Service and Parallels Coherence Service were set to auto start but weren't started. I tried to start them manually and got an error 193, which means the exe file for this service is corrupt or doesn't exist. Checked the properties for the two services and saw the path to the executables for the two services given as follows:
C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Tools\Services\prl_tools_service.exe
C:\Program Files\Parallels\Parallels Tools\Services\coherence.exe
Click to expand...
Checked those paths and verified that the files do indeed exist and seem OK. Mysterious!

Then it dawned on me: started RegEdit, went to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Parallels Tools Service
Click to expand...
double clicked the ImagePath value to edit it, and put a quote at the beginning and end of the path name. Then did the same for the ImagePath value in the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Parallels Coherence Service.
Click to expand...

Went back to services.msc and hey presto, both services now start successfully - and hey double presto, I then have auto screen resolution and coherence working perfectly, just like they did in PD 3.

Windows XP doesn't understand spaces in pathnames for service executables, so you have to enclose them in quotes - it's that simple.
 
Oh man, I thought you may have solved my problem so I stated following along here. Problem is that I don't see any reference to Parallels Tools at all in services.msc. So, I checked the regedit instructions anyway and could not find any mention of Parallels Tools Service or Parallels Coherence Service.
 
I think you did find the cause of your problem, my experience shows that it's not going to work if these two services aren't up and running. In your case it sounds to me like an installation problem, if the services aren't there at all. Did you check if the executable files are in the directory I mentioned? If so, sounds to me like the installation had a problem at the stage of making the registry entries.
 
Hi David, thanks for the reply,

The executables are in the place you mentioned. I hope they get this fixed soon, it seems like this is a fairly common issue.
 
Hi awarner20,

You could try this: I've exported the two registry keys and attached them as text files. Save them in your Windows VM, rename them from .txt to .reg, then double-click each file to add it to your registry. After a reboot, the services should be up and running. If the only thing wrong with your installation is that these registry entries are missing (which is a big if), then that should fix the problem.

I guess I should add the usual disclaimer: editing your registry without knowing what you're doing can trash your system. If in doubt, make a new VM and try it there first.

If you get an error message that you don't have permission to edit your registry, then I suggest you try a reinstallation of Parallels Tools but this time logged in to Windows with administrator rights. Then open RegEdit and put the quotes around the image paths as I previously described.

Good luck!
 

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