I started using Parallels 11 in past month and love it; however, I am often having to restart Parallels Desktop because instances of running Windows 7 programs somehow get corrupted and will not activate -- therefore becoming unusable while running. When this happens, if I click on the running Winows application, it briefly activates, but then the active application on my Mac switches to Finder. I am generally able to hit the Close box to kill the Windows app, and Restarting Parallels Desktop generally resolves the problem,. However, this is obviously an annoying (and seemingly unpredictable) problem. Has anyone else had this issue and been able to solve it? Thanks! I am generally running Windows 7 in Coherence mode
Windows Applications Won't Stay Active - Toggles to Finder
- Thread starter JDL
- Start date
Hello JDL, please update Parallels Desktop 11 to the latest build and check how it works. Please refer to this article for Parallels Desktop 11 update summary.
Thanks. I updated to 11.0.2 (31348) per your suggestion. In recent days, I may have discovered that what I thought was a bug is really just a (confusing) feature. If I <cmd> H Hide Parallels Desktop in OS X, I can consistently reproduce the behavior of Windows applications not staying active when clicked (toggles to OS X Finder as the active application). If I leave Parallels desktop visible, I never experience the problematic behavior described in the previous post. Is this a designed in feature of the Parallels? Is there a setting that would allow hiding the Parallels Desktop and still being able to use Windows applications? Thanks.
Thank you for this post!. I have been suffering from this issue since upgrading to Parallels 10 14 months ago.
I have always used the option+command, then double click on the Finder icon in the Dock to "hide" all applications so that I can view only my Finder windows.
Without realizing it, this simple action caused Parallels to fail to reactivate my applications when I switched over to the PC side. Restarting Windows was the only way to sort out whatever was occurring in Windows, because all application windows were not visible. Having to do this seven and eight times a day was a real pain!
This did not cause a problem in Parallels 7.
Parallels Technical Support, please take note of this. I had extended intervention from second level Tech Support and the practice described above was never suggested as a possible cause of my difficulties.
Again, thanks JDL!!!
I have always used the option+command, then double click on the Finder icon in the Dock to "hide" all applications so that I can view only my Finder windows.
Without realizing it, this simple action caused Parallels to fail to reactivate my applications when I switched over to the PC side. Restarting Windows was the only way to sort out whatever was occurring in Windows, because all application windows were not visible. Having to do this seven and eight times a day was a real pain!
This did not cause a problem in Parallels 7.
Parallels Technical Support, please take note of this. I had extended intervention from second level Tech Support and the practice described above was never suggested as a possible cause of my difficulties.
Again, thanks JDL!!!
Glad that was helpful ChrisT5. I suspect a lot of people struggle with this. It comes across as being a bug.
For Parallels Support/PaulChris@Parrallels etc., Now that I have used your software for a few months (99% happily), I have two UI suggestions that would make the software more intuitive and allow unnecessary things to just stay in the background:
1) The issue mentioned here. Make it so that Parallels Desktop doesn't care whether it is visible or hidden. I'm sure many people like ChrisT5 and me just keep Windows running at all times. I have no need to keep Parallels Desktop visible on my screen --it's a visual distraction, and I would prefer it be either hidden or simply running in the background. As this thread makes clear, hiding it can also cause an unexpected problem that most users would consider a bug
2) The need to manually switch graphics configuration from Scaled to Optimized for Retina when docking and undocking from an external monitor. If this does in fact require a Windows restart to change, could this be made automatic as an option in settings? Nicer still if it could just be changed automatically in Windows when the computer is undocked.
Thanks!
For Parallels Support/PaulChris@Parrallels etc., Now that I have used your software for a few months (99% happily), I have two UI suggestions that would make the software more intuitive and allow unnecessary things to just stay in the background:
1) The issue mentioned here. Make it so that Parallels Desktop doesn't care whether it is visible or hidden. I'm sure many people like ChrisT5 and me just keep Windows running at all times. I have no need to keep Parallels Desktop visible on my screen --it's a visual distraction, and I would prefer it be either hidden or simply running in the background. As this thread makes clear, hiding it can also cause an unexpected problem that most users would consider a bug
2) The need to manually switch graphics configuration from Scaled to Optimized for Retina when docking and undocking from an external monitor. If this does in fact require a Windows restart to change, could this be made automatic as an option in settings? Nicer still if it could just be changed automatically in Windows when the computer is undocked.
Thanks!