An easier fix for your problem with the mistaken application launching would have been to select "Reset Windows Applications" from the Applications menu in Parallels.
That said, however, I would like to add my thanks to the Parallels team for including an option for disabling this new function. I, too, would just as soon not see a listing of Windows apps on the OS X side although it is fairly trivial bit of clutter; nor am I particularly excited at the prospect of using the Start menu as an OS X application launcher. I will welcome having the option of turning this off.
As for the rest of this thread, I don't see what the big deal is. If you have turned off Local and Global sharing, the most "harm" a piece of Windows malware could do would be to open an OS X application. That's no harm at all.
Of course, if you turn on sharing, then it would become possible to run malicious scripts on the OS X side. That's a pretty significant "if".
Last edited: Jun 11, 2007