I think I understand the goal being to distinguish Mac OS X processes from those running in a virtual machine, but in the end of the day, this is something absolutely not needed and which ruins the design and elegance of icons. I know I have Parallels Desktop installed and running. No need to remember it to me on each Windows icons. Not terribly important, I know, but I'd love to see these overlays disappear in a later build or version.
If you go to the parallels desktop application and select "Show Contents" to open the package you'll see A Resources folder in one named Contents. In this there is a WinAppFav-Over.icns (and a mask to go with it). Altering this in a graphics app may remove the annoying bard - but it may also wreck a working version of Parallels! Try at your own risk!
Dear Sir/Madam, The double red bar is our company logo. Just look at my avatar. It is used to differentiate the Mac and Win applications. Thank you for your suggestion, we will think about it. Best regards, Alexander
Hi Alexander, Your point about the double red bars being the company logo is interesting, because from a marketing stand point, obviously you want your brand to stand out. The problem with most new users is that your logo also looks like a pause button, which then becomes an usability problem as they might believe that the virtual machine is paused. Irrespective of that, parallels is amazing. Thank you for a wonderful product. Kind regards, Marcio
Agree 100%: the parallel bars are confusing OK, I know it's your logo. And that's fine. I get it. Two *parallel* lines. It's cool. And I'm not being sarcastic. But it is VERY confusing to a first-time user to see those red "pause" buttons on the dock. I'm thinking, "How did I pause my VM? And how do I un-pause it?" Obviously it is not a deal-breaker and after five minutes of confusion, I'll never be confused again. But I think you need a better symbol. Just my $.02 on it.
You can remove them... here's how http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=107273&highlight=red+bars
I also thought this was a pause icon, and I found this forum while attempting to research what I thought was a bug. Now I know it's supposed to be there, I'm less bothered by it, but I do agree it could be more aesthetically pleasing.
Indeed. Noticed this with Parallels Desktop 18 when my father couldn't tell the difference between Outlook running on Windows in a VM and Outlook running natively for MacOS. I was telling him to look for the one with the two red vertical lines on to help distinguish, but now I realise these have disappeared. I'd personally prefer an option to configure this as on or off.