How to keep Parallels running in the background?

[Rich Brodsky]

I just upgraded to Parallels 7. How can I force it to run in the background and not switch to Parallels when a new window pops open or new app launches? I just want it to remain a background app unless I click on an active window within the app. That was the default behavior until this version.

 

[PatrickJ]

Not sure if I'm following, but are you on Mountain Lion? It has this new thing of closing apps that are in the background w/ no windows open.

Otherwise.. there's a pause option inside the VM preferences, unless it has just recently been removed..

 

[Rich Brodsky]

No, I'm running Lion. I don't need/want to pause PD7, I want to keep it running in the background without having it continuously pop up and steal focus away from my Mac as the active app, whenever a window pops up.