A brief request to the developers. Currently, when Parallels is booting and again when Windows actually starts, Parallels "steals" keyboard and mouse focus. I routinely work with Parallels in the background (on a 2nd monitor), and it's annoying to be typing and suddenly have lost focus because Parallels took it over. A general principle in UI design is that applications shouldn't steal focus unless they need urgent attention. In the case of Parallels booting and Windows starting, this isn't "urgent," and thus focus shouldn't be taken over.
After dealing with this for a longer period of time, I've decided it's more annoying than I originally thought. Focus-stealing is a contentious issue in UI design to begin with, but Parallels steals focus multiple times during Windows start-up. The guest OS should not be able to acquire focus from Mac OS X, as Windows currently can. A guest OS request for focus should cause the Parallels icon to bounce in the dock (even in full screen), not give window and input focus to the guest OS. Parallels is built on the assumption that people will be running multiple applications in addition to parallels simultaneously. Given this assumption in design, Parallels should respect that Mac OS applications should not lose focus to a virtualized OS.
