I recently had the need to set up some Windows 7 VMs and found that Parallels v16.5.1 is broken. This is the newest version of Parallels 16 for Intel Macs. The Windows 7 OS will install but the Parallels tools will repeatedly fail to install. It appears to fail upon some driver install. This occurs with both 32 bit and 64 bit retail versions of Windows 7 and with Windows security turned on and off. A workaround is to create the Windows 7 VM in Parallels 15 and then move the VM to Parallels 16. However, upon every login Parallels 16 attempts to auto update the Parallels tools which will fail and corrupt the Windows 7 VM. In order to have a functional Windows 7 VM i need to have the Parallels 15 tools installed. Question, how does one disable the auto updating of the Parallels tools so to preserve the already installed Parallels 15 tools? On the side, are Parallels developers doing enough regression testing? This problem should have been caught, it has existed since at least Parallels v16.1.1. FYI.
Greetings, Thank you for your feedback. Kindly follow the steps below to disable Parallels Tools auto update: 1. Shut down your Virtual Machine (Click on the Actions menu on top of the mac menu bar > Select Shut down). 2. Locate .pvm file of the virtual machine as per https://kb.parallels.com/117333 > right-click on .pvm bundle > Show package contents > right-click config.pvs > Open with TextEdit.app 3. Press Command+F and type AutoUpdate then press enter to locate the below: <AutoUpdate dyn_lists=""> <Enabled>1</Enabled> </AutoUpdate> 4. Change "1" value to "0". It should look like the below: <AutoUpdate dyn_lists=""> <Enabled>0</Enabled> </AutoUpdate> 5. Press Command-S to save changes. 6. Launch your Virtual Machine again and check if you are presented with the auto-update prompt again.
To disable Parallels Tools auto-updating in Parallels, you can prevent the software from checking for updates by editing the VM settings. First, shut down the VM. Then, go to Actions > Configure > Options > Advanced, and disable the option for Check for Parallels Tools updates or similar (this option might vary slightly by version). If this does not suffice, block the update process by modifying the Parallels Tools installer files within the VM or using a firewall to prevent the VM from accessing Parallels update servers. This ensures the Parallels 15 Tools remain intact. As for regression testing, the recurring issues in newer versions suggest room for improvement in addressing compatibility scenarios like these. For further you may visit this website.
