HELP!!!! No Windows Control Panels in PD4?

Hello,

I just upgraded my Boot Camp partition to use PD4, and now none of my Windows Control Panels work. This means that I have NO CONTROL over Windows. I can't check the hardware, the WEI, Display properties NOTHING! It worked fine before the upgrade. How can I get control of my Windows back? Please help, I need this for school, I didn't expect PD4 to break it!

Rich S.

 

Ditto

Same problems. I'm getting "authenticate now" messages but can't access anything in the system that would provide that service. Control panel is blank, trying to get properties on "Computer" (vista sp1) does nothing. Running Windows Update, nothing happens. No window opens, no notification of failure ... just nothing.

On the bright side, everything works just fine when operating outside the "system envelope". Every program I've tried so far has worked just fine, I can interact with the Mac disks and move data between vista and os x.

Course, in a few days Vista will become convinced I'm a thief, and degrade my "experience" I guess.

On another bright side, this is a Boot Camp installation (dedicated hard drive) and thus far I've had no problems at all booting directly into windows. It says it's activated and everything is working just fine there. Problem is, I have a very integrated experience going on my computer. Lots of data resides on OS X disks, very little is on the separate Vista HD. So, it is just about impossible to work from an exclusive windows boot. I need all that data hiding on the OS X disks.

Well, I'm sure this will resolve in a while and naturally the sooner the better. But I've been a happy camper with parallels for 18 months so I can wait for a bit to see this ironed out.

BTW, after install the system had disabled UAC in vista. I turned that back on as I find it somewhat annoying but reassuring to have a watchdog checking and asking for permission for system changes and updates. Maybe this is a problem with Parallels 4. But, somehow I doubt it.

Rick

 

I have the same problem. I found a work around to get to most of the control panels. Launch windows explorer and navigate to control panel using the left sidebar. I still can't get windows to open the network and sharing center, or update but I can change my display settings.

 

Exactly the same problem

The upgrade to 4.0 has been a nightmare. I can't believe they would release an immature product like this. For those of us that rely on our computers for work and can't afford several days of downtime and troubleshooting dealing with a software update this is unacceptable. I can't believe I spent $40 for this upgrade and then they want to charge me for phone support to fix what they've broken.

Unbelievable.

 

Hi Rick,

I am glad that I am not alone. I noticed UAC was disabled, but turned it back on as well. I am wondering if PD4 mucks with the security profile, and has disabled these features when running in the VM? If so, there should be a way to disable this "tweak." It is really unacceptable, as you have no way of telling if Vista is activated, or if you need to reactivate. I am going to poke around later today, and if I find something I will post back. Thanks!

Rich

 

Well at least I'm not alone. When I open Control Panel the explorer window never fully draws, and then it closes.

I'm running Vista SP1 from a boot camp partition. It also screwed things up when running in boot camp after the conversion. It no longer sees my GeForce 8600M 512MB when running native in boot camp, just a generic VGA display adapter.

Thanks for posting the workaround shangashabe, that helps a lot.

 

I'm having the exact same problem and now my windows installation is totally hosed, I cannot go into boot camp and utilize it since it has reset my resolution to 640X480 and cannot go into the control panel to set the resolution or do anything in the control panel. When I go into Parallels its all hosed up as well and cannot access the control panel. What sucks on top of all of this is the update was kinda forced on me since the update that ran for ver. 3.0 failed and couldn't open parallels after that so I had to download the 4.0 version and install and to find out I have to pay for this when I already have a 3.0 version. So I uninstall the 4.0 version to install the 3.0 version and now my windows install is all scrambled. Like you stringgz301, I depend on my computer for working since I'm a software developer. I'm half tempted to send parallels a bill for my lost time today and yesterday. I'm so ticked I can spit nails and hopfully one of them sticks in the head of the developers over there. Perviously I had issues with 3.0 and never could get a straight answer or resolution to the problem. I ended up loosing an entire week of productivity then as well. This is perty much the final straw that breaks the camels back and I am totally dropping parallels and I would never recommend this product to anyone. I'm usually really calm about issues like this since I'm in the same business but this has gone on way to long and totally has screwed me out of work. They act as if this is some kind of hobby, and peoples lively hood doesn't depend on their product, but when in reality this is a product that many people rely on for a lively hood. You need to get you head out of your backsides and act as if your customers count or you'll be struggling even hard in a poor economy. Just my two cents.

 

What I have been able to figure out from the Control Panel not opening and the Windows Installation showing as not activated is that the Software Licensing Service is not running. Whenever I try to start this service it gives me an error that the Key Management Service (KMS) failed to start. There are some references to fixing this by removing the read-only attribute of Windows\System32 and all sub-items. I have had no success in getting this to work either through Regular boot, Safe-mode or recovery console. Hopefully someone is able to come up with a solution to this problem as I am not confident a reinstall will resolve the issue.

 

I too have this issue with my PD4 upgrade. I can run the BootCamp partition on the bare machine but not under Parallels. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the Parallels tools several times. During the reinstallation of Parallels tools, when the virtual machine goes to reboot, it hangs after the shutdown step with a white underscore displayed on a black background.

The PD4 upgrade has been a disaster for me. Parallels should be embarassed by the poor quality of this release.

 

Movin' on

Have a bunch of work I need to finish for a job this weekend and so, I'm moving on. I dumped Parallels 4, stripped out the tools from my Boot Camp partition and had Fusion grab that installation and make a VM out of it. No problems there so I'm back up and running in around 30 minutes of work primarily focused on re-creating aliases to point to new addresses across the Mac/Vista divide.

I've been using parallels since may/2007 but can't wait for a fix this time out so ... perhaps I'll keep my eyes on this problem and try again if some definitive resolution appears to crop up.

Good luck to others I'm sure a fix will appear shortly.

 

Hi Rick,

I have done some spelunking, and part of this issue could be stemming from a program called CPInterceptor, that runs at logon. I can find no information on this program, but the title implies that it "intercepts" something, possible the Control Panel? This definitely has something to do with the Software License service not running. I had thought about jumping ship to Fusion, but I just can't justify spending the extra $80 to get a VMWare license, particularly after spending the $40 for my upgrade. This issue is really frustrating, but hasn't impacted me as much as I thought it would. I have been able to run all of my Windows apps so far. However, I am expecting Vista to just give up the ghost soon, and lock me out until it can be activated again. Thanks for your help!

Rich

 

I'm wondering it there's a sort of Catch-22 involved here. I just went into the Windows Control Panels via Windows Explorer and noticed that the VM thinks Vista is not activated. I tried to activate it online, but could not. Since the problem mentioned above may be happening because the Software Licensing thing isn't activated, would you think that by getting Windows activated via the phone with Microsoft, (and therefore kicking in the Software Licensing) the whole "no control panels" problem might disappear? I'm reluctant to try this without some concurrence by someone who knows Vista better than I do!

 

Same here (

Another thread with this problem: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=132592#post132592

 

Hi Jimcoyle,

The issue is the Software Licensing Service is not running. You will not be able to activate it over the phone either. My copy of Vista is activated when I boot from the Boot Camp partition, just not while running in Parallels. I do think that getting the system activated will alleviate the control panel issue, as this appears to be be the new reduced functionality mode for Vista SP 1. Prior to SP 1, reduced funtionality mode prevented you from doing anything except Internet Explorer and then for only 30 minutes at a time. It seems that something that Parallels 4.0 does, is preventing the Licensing service from running, which is the root of the problem. I am pretty Vista fluent, and am unable to get the service to start, nor can I find the place where Parallels disabled it. My guess is something with the group policy managment, but I am still unable to find it. I also submitted a help request to Parallels, and am awaiting a response. Previous experience tells me that I will probably not get an answer form Parallels, as they do not seem too concerned with customer service. But then again, I did give them my money... grrrr!

Rich S.

 

I'll toss in some more information here:

Event Viewer shows that "Key Management Service (KMS) failed to start" and then "Software Licensing service failed to start" with the same error code: hr=0xC004D103, [2, 6]

When I try to start "Software Licensing Service" using net start slsvc, I get this:

System error 53507 has occurred.

Please help us, Parallels!

 

I tried the "net start slsvc" thing with the same result. I reported this problem to Parallels and got what I suspect is a boilerplate reponse:

Please check your Vista for viruses. We suggest to use Kaspersky antivirus.

And if there are no viruses, please repair Windows installation as described in this article:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/5223

And if it did not help please check if you can see the 'Install Parallels Tools' option in the 'Virtual Machine' menu.
If it is available, click it.

If no of these suggestions solved the problem, please specify if it is the Parallels Desktop window that doubles or is it Windows desktop?



Thank you,
--
Anna Pichueva
Technical Support Engineer
Parallels


I explained that there are no viruses and just to be a good citizen did a needless repair routine. I'm still waiting to hear back from Parallels, which, given my experiences with them, could be in weeks rather than days.

 

I just sent them a support request. I really hope they have a better advice then repairing my (perfectly working) bootcamp installation.

 

Guys,

We are trying to reproduce this problem in our lab. I will keep you updated on the progress and be sure we will provide you with a fix as soon as we can. I apologize for inconvenience.

 

Hope you don't mind the double posting here. A thought occurred to me regarding this problem...might certain anti-virus applications be incompatible with a Parallels VM? I'm using Avira Anti-Virus.

 

Hi jimcoyle,

I would be surprised if it were an anti-virus issue. I am using Microsoft OneCare, and have been using it since Jan 2007 (since I switched to Vista), it worked fine in Parallels Desktop 3.0 and in Parallels Workstation 2.2. I really think that Parallels Tools is doing something with the Group Policy Editor during conversion, which is not undone when the tools are removed. The only way I could test this, is to totally remove and re-install Windows Vista. But who knows? Thanks!

Rich S.