Parallels Cant Load Windows

patrickneil

Bit poster
My Mac crashed one day and now I am getting a message everytime I launch Parallels saying "Virtual Machine Windows XP cannot be opened since it is already used in another Parallels Desktop Window"

How do I fix this?

Please Help ;)
 
It wont open that dirctory in terminal... and when i view the directory in Mac I dont see anything similar to that file. Thanks Any other ideas.
 
you wont see the lock file in finder. You need to cd to the directory that your PVS and HDD files are held in.

this will either be

cd ~/Library/Parallels

or

cd ~/Documents/Parallels

in one of those directories, you will find another directory containing the lock file you need to delete.

its called .winxp.pvs.lock or somethign similar. rm *.lock in the VM directory (the one containing the hdd file) should solve it.

If you are not proficient in the use of command line tools, then you will need to get someone who is to help. unlike in finder, theres no trash can if you delete the wrong thing.
 
Last edited:
Hello,

1. Make sure Parallels Desktop is not running.
2. Open Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
3. Run exactly the following command (better copy-paste it from this letter into Terminal as is):
rm -i `find ~/Library/Parallels/ -name *.lock -print`
4. Terminal prompts you to confirm the deletion of the file. Make sure that the file has "lock" at the end and confirm the deletion by pressing
"Y".
5. Start your virtual machine. You shouldn't see the "already in use" error anymore.

Best regards,
Mike
 
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