I just recently started getting a WinXP (SP3) error everytime i try to start a file in parallels from the Mac using a shortcut. For example, if i right click any file in Mac to 'open with ..(an office product)' , then an error box results in WinXP with the error message: 'the application or DLL C:\\WINDOWS\system32\ShimEng.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check your installation diskette. " I'm on 4.0.3844. This just started happening, I can't think of any incident why..
It seems like you have a missing file association in your Windows registry. Could be caused by a malware. You can first try the solution from here. It also might be useful to check the Windows with an anti-virus. Alternatively, you can simply use the Windows System restore (if there were any restore points created) as it is described here. Or repair the Windows installation using the article: http://kb.parallels.com/en/5138 In any case, back up the virtual machine (just copy the .pvm file to some other place), so that you can safely try different approaches.
