Parallels Tools Update is causing RAD to corrupt my workspace. I'm using Mac OS X 10.6.4, Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Build 5.0.9344, Windows XP SP 3. I do application development in RAD (Rational Application Developer) - a Java development tool from IBM, built on top of Eclipse. Monday morning, shortly after starting up Parallels, I noticed a dialog box just as it was closing itself...it said something like "Installed your Parallels update". I started up RAD the same way I've been doing on a daily basis for months, and all was normal for the rest of the day. I shut everything down at the end of the day...no apparent problem. On Tuesday when I started up RAD, it couldn't find the projects, files, etc. that I'd been working on the day before. It was still showing various remembered settings, such as credentials to CVS repository, list of my preferred perspectives, etc., just none of my actual work. After much futzing around, mostly using Time Machine to restore various bits, including the RAD workspace, and ultimately the Windows XP.pvm file, to prior to Monday morning, everything worked fine again. I noticed and cancelled Parallels' attempt to do the update this time...turns out it wanted to update the Parallels Tools...and again, everything worked fine. However, in order to definitively confirm that the Parallels update was causing the problem, after taking fresh backups I decided to let Parallels do its Tools update again. Sure enough, once it was complete, starting up RAD then closing it again corrupted things in exactly the same way. Restoring the Windows XP.pvm file (as well as the now corrupted workspace) fixed things again. It's difficult to know exactly how the workspace is being corrupted. I did a full compare of the before and after workspaces, and noticed lots of differences, but I can't be sure which of these are normal differences just due to saving the workspace. At least one odd thing showed up...in the tool I was using (Beyond Compare) to do the full binary compare of the before and after workspace directories, there were differences in a file called workbench.xml in which multiple lines in the before picture showed up as a single line in the after picture, and where the line breaks should have been, there was instead the character string which looks somewhat like an HTML Entity representation of a line break. At this point, I need to get some work done, so it seems my only option is to make sure I hover over the Parallels startup, and catch it within the 5 seconds provided in which I can cancel the automatic update of the now out-of-date tools (the indication of which I now see in the lower left status area in the Parallels window frame.) So: 1. Is there any way to permanently stop Parallels from attempting to update the Parallels Tools, which will break my work environment? 2. Has anyone else seen this problem? 3. Why is the problem happening in the first place, and is there a fix available/pending? Thanks in advance for any help! ..Russ
