Problems with multiple OSX users accessing same VM

[iocomposer]

I installed Parallels on my admin account (new machine). Then, I created another user account for my son to use and tried to set up Parallels in his user account. I couldn't access the VM hard disc file since it was in my admin account's locked Library folder, so I logged back in as Admin, moved the Parallels folder into the Shared folder and then confirmed that my user account would start up the VM. It did. However, Parallels still won't acknowledge it in my sons user account. The permissions will only let me set the .hdd file to "Read Only" for the user account and therefor Parallels can't do what it needs to to use the .hdd.

Is there a way to get this to work properly? Should I reinstall WinXP directly into the Shared folder this time or is there an easier way?

Thanks in advance.

 

[gregss]

All you need to do is set up a few permissions in Mac OS X to make that folder accessible to all users. Go to /users/shared (or the directory you put Parallels in) in the Finder. Then, select the Parallels folder and "Get Info." In the permissions section of the window, show details. Make sure all users have "Read & Write" access to the folder, then click the button to apply the permissions to all enclosed items.

Note: This makes the Parallels folders available to everyone, which may not be appropriate if others use your machine. I'm sure you could implement a different permission scheme to handle this situation.

This approach has worked for me, and allowed me to run Parallels under multiple user accounts.

 

[craiggangi]

All you need to do is set up a few permissions in Mac OS X to make that folder accessible to all users. Go to /users/shared (or the directory you put Parallels in) in the Finder. Then, select the Parallels folder and "Get Info." In the permissions section of the window, show details. Make sure all users have "Read & Write" access to the folder, then click the button to apply the permissions to all enclosed items.

Note: This makes the Parallels folders available to everyone, which may not be appropriate if others use your machine. I'm sure you could implement a different permission scheme to handle this situation.

This approach has worked for me, and allowed me to run Parallels under multiple user accounts.

this didnt work... does anyone have any other ideas???

 

[darkone]

i moved my Vm from ~/Library/Parallels to /Library/Parallels then open terminal, cd to /Library and typed :-

sudo chmod -R 777 Parallels

works for me.

 

[craiggangi]

i moved my Vm from ~/Library/Parallels to /Library/Parallels then open terminal, cd to /Library and typed :-

sudo chmod -R 777 Parallels

works for me.

thanks for your reply. I am a total non-tech person, so when you say you typed that string, what does that mean??? where did you type it?

 

[palter]

thanks for your reply. I am a total non-tech person, so when you say you typed that string, what does that mean??? where did you type it?

Go to the Utilities folder on your Mac. (You can do that from the Finder's Go menu.) In that folder, you'll find a program called Terminal. Double click to launch it and it will open a Terminal window (i.e., a window where you can type Unix commands.) In that window, type the commands

cd /Library
sudo chmod -R 777 Parallels

(I'm presuming you've already moved your virtual machines as noted above.)

 

[Bill B]

What about the .PVS file?

I did the same, no problem with the main file (.hdd) however, I want multiple users to be able to use the same VM file without having to create an all new VM profile when someone logs in for the first time. Where would I place the .pvs file that stores all of the settings for all users.


Thanks in advance



Bill

 

[joem]

I would advise against putting ANYTHING in /library/<anything> unless you REALLY know what you are doing.

If you want a VM to be shared, put it in /Users/Shared. Once you do that, you will have to set permissions to make the files you moved accessible to other users. The easiest way to do that is to move the entire VM folder, and then select the folder in the Finder, and click More Information. Set access permissions to read / write for everyone, and select apply to enclosed items.

Then, in Finder, double click the .pvs file, and in the Parallels console, adjust the location of the .hdd file(s) to match the new locations.

Then it should work.

Mucking with /library can be dangerous, so if you aren't really sure of what you are doing, don't.

 

[fbronner]

And I would advise against running the same VM by multiple different users at the same time.

If you really want to share a VM between different users I would suggest running the VM into one account and having another account access the same VM thru an RDC connection, or perhaps thru a VNC connection.

 

[daveaultman]

And I would advise against running the same VM by multiple different users at the same time.

If you really want to share a VM between different users I would suggest running the VM into one account and having another account access the same VM thru an RDC connection, or perhaps thru a VNC connection.

What is your concern with sharing a VM amongst different users?

 

[Bill B]

What is your concern with sharing a VM amongst different users?

The Macs and Wintel machines are all in Active Directory. The Mac's have been added to AD. The user will login and authenticate using their AD login and password (same as thier windows login) Most likely there will only be one person who logs in at a time.

However, from a desktop standpoint if a user that has not logged in to the Mac and does so for the first time, we do not want to have to setup the .psv configuration for over 250 users. We should be able to setup the system so anyone that logs in (1st time) will click on the alias in the Doc and the winxp - Parallels desktop will run and then the user will be able to start Windows.

We have applications that are Mac specific and Windows specific, have the best of both worlds. Boot Camp is not in the picture at this time. If I can't get this to work properly, Apple and parallels and kiss 250 new macs down the drain. this is on the basis that I can get this to work.


VNC and RD are not in the picture

 

[joem]

Bill B., if I understand your need correctly, you want any user who sits at a mac with Parallels installed to have access to a VM on that machine. If that's the case, it's a simple thing to implement, but a VM is a VM and doesn't have settings on a per user basis. The guest OS can have per user settings using whatever method that OS provides, but think of a VM as a real hardware PC. You don't change installed memory or other hardware parameters on a real machine based on who logs in, and you can't on a VM either.

Only one user at a time can use a given VM and that includes the virtual disk. If a second user tried to start a VM, Parallels won't allow it, because if it did, instant disk corruption would result.

The user logged in to the Mac must simply have read / write permission for all the VM files. That will allow VM startup. Then if you want per user settings in Windows, the user must log into Windows. Logging into the Mac is not the same thing as logging into Windows any more than logging into a machine on your desk is logging into the machine sitting next to it.

Coherence aside, you still have two different machines running on the same hardware and sharing it. It is not one OS but two.

If this doesn't explain it well enough, you'll need to be a bit more specific about what you actually expect.

 

[bidemytime]

One more step

One step that's missing from this thread is the point the Parallels configuration file (.pvs extension) to the new location of the hard disk image file (.hdd extension). It's more of a Windows thing to have to re-point to files that move, but I guess Parallels is at least half-Windows, so c'est la vie.

So once you've got the two files (.pvs and .hdd) in the /Users/Shared/ folder, and you've changed the permissions as instructed in this thread, do the following:

1. Log in with the user account you want to access Parallels

2. Navigate to the /Users/Shared folder

3. Double-click on the .pvs file -- that launches Parallels and opens that configuration

4. Instead of hitting the green "play" button, click the "hard drive 1" link under Resources

5. From there, select the .hdd file in the /Users/Shared folder and click Okay

6. Click Save (to save the new configuration)

7. Click the green "play" button to launch the VM, and you should be good to go.

This worked fine for me; it even works for non-Administrative accounts.

Please re-post as to whether or not this worked for you.

- Scott