OSX 10.5 Server on Lion with Parallels 7.0

[Billmccl26]

I am frustrated trying to do what all of the Parallels documentation says I should be able to do: Install OSX 10.5 Server as a virtual machine running in Parallels 7.0 on OSX 10.7.1 Lion as the host OS on my 27" IMac.

My frustrations:

1. I can find almost no documentation for Parallels 7.0 that is not regarding Windows as the client OS. Where is the documentation on running OSX as a virtual machine in Parallels? I am clear on all the prohibitions from Apple against running Client OSX versions before 10.7, but I have a clean installation of OSX 10.5 server that has installed appropriately on my IMac.

2. I have been unable to link the virtual OSX to the printers installed on the host machine. How can this be done?

3. I cannot determine how to transfer files from the host to the virtual machine. Where is this documented? I can find the shared folder on the virtual machine, but it is empty, and clearly does not show the host machine home folder as is suggested.

4. I have been totally unable to coax the virtual machine to increase the size of its virtual HD. I have gone through the configuration steps to increase the expanding HD to 128Gb from the default 64Gb, but nothing has changed on the virtual HD, and I am out of space for running applications and storing files in the virtual HD. The system is running on a 2tb HD, and over 1Tb is available on the host HD, so there is no shortage of space. Again, where is there documentation on how to do this?

Thanks, and any help will be appreciated.

 

[joevt]

Make sure Parallels Tools is installed correctly. Use the Parallels Desktop help menu and search for "Parallels Tools for Mac" You'll know Parallels Tools is working when you change the size of the virtual machine window and the Mac guest changes screen resolution at the same time (this is the Dynamic Resolution Tool).

Search for "parallels tools overview". It will show what features are supported for each guest OS.

Once Parallels Tools is properly installed, you can change what appears in the "Shared Folders" folder by changing the Sharing settings at Virtual Machine -> Configure -> Options -> Sharing.

For printing, any network printer should work. If it's not a network printer, you can tell the host Mac to share the printer as a network printer then the guest should be able to use it.

For the hard disk size, it's possible that Parallels increased the size of the hard disk but did not increase the size of the file system on the hard disk (the individual partitions on the hard disk). Parallels can resize the file system only for the last partition on the hard disk and maybe only for Windows (I'm not sure). Use Disk Utility to find out. You'll need to run Disk Utility from the Installer DVD to change the size of your guest OS partition.