early 2006 Intel Core Duo iMac 17" 1.83GHz Parallels Desktop build 5.0.9376 Windows XP Pro SP3 Earlier today, just after booting my Windows XP disk in Parallels into Coherence mode and trying to open a Word 2003 document, a Windows dialogue box popped up, stating that a new piece of hardware had been installed and its software required me to restart. Sleepily and probably stupidly, I clicked OK, because I was keen to get started using Photoshop Elements. The only piece of hardware I had plugged in while Parallels was starting up was a USB midi keyboard, which was not connected to Windows/Parallels USB adapter. As Windows tried to restart, a dialog box came up stating one of the usual 'program not responding' errors, and inviting me to end now. Strangely, the dialog box (still in Coherence mode) was all wavy, looking as if it were underwater, like the entire Parallels window appears in the pictures attached with this message. I Ended Now and let the machine restart. On the reboot I found the window (Including the 'Mac' part with the Parallels title bar and controls at the bottom) was distorted in Window mode. Also, Kaspersky was turned off and the blacklist was corrupted (the blacklist being corrupted is a regular error, but I've never known protection to be turned off). An update of Kaspersky caused the computer to hang until I quit with task manager. In the meantime, I checked the Parallels preferences and, under 'Appearance', changed 'Transition to Full Screen' from Warp to None. I rebooted again, and this time, Kaspersky stated I was protected, and proceeded to update definitions automatically. Coherence view worked OK, but Window mode is distorted as in the picture. I have since checked Modality mode which shows a tiny wavy window containing the Windows display. I actually can't remember what Modality is supposed to look like, but I'm sure a tiny window like that is no use at all, so I guess there are two problems there. All other views (Crystal, Full Screen, Coherence) work well. I have had some problems with the graphics on this Mac over the last year – screen tearing and slow updating of graphics. I solved them temporarily (for several months) using SMC Fan Control to change the speed of my CPU fan to 4000rpm. In the last week or so they've come back, but only when using Parallels so far. However, the waviness has only occured today and looks nothing like my previous graphics problems, so this is possibly a red herring. Any help with this is much appreciated. I've searched the internet and these forums and couldn't find anyone mentioning the same thing.
Modality is supposed to be a small window. You can make it bigger by dragging the bottom right corner. I don't know what's causing the wavy effect.
