Windows Start Menu in OS X Dock

R

richw2000

Bit poster
Firstly, sorry if this has already been discussed.

In coherence mode, each separate windows application now appears in the dock (awesome), it would be nice to just use the dock for all tasks regardless of OS rather than having to use the windows start menu and task bar

Therefore I would love to see the start menu of each parallels desktop in coherence mode appear in the osx dock. This would remove the need for the windows start menu at all.

You could use the start menu icon to access the start menu and display an OS X style menu when clicked, or even just bring up the windows start menu at this location.

A small extension might be to allow the selection of this feature in the individual desktop settings so that you can decide whether it will be integrated in the dock or not. This will allow a nice way to select the default parallels desktop that you use for running apps.

This would also allow coherence mode to use the full resolution of the mac desktop, rather than having to scale the resolution slightly to incorporate room for the OSX dock. This could be acheived by allocating the space for the dock as space for the task bar.
 
If right click (or Ctrl-Click) on main Parallels icon in dock you'll find a Start Menu option in contextual menu. Is it OK for you or you need full integration of Windows start menu into Dock?
 
Hi Andrew,

I think the Start menu contextual menu in the Parallels dock icon is fantastic, along with the 'favorite applications' feature :)

However, there seems to be a bug, which I have already emailed to beta@parallels.com but I wanted to mention it here as well:

I have the "Windows Task Bar" "Show" box unchecked in the Coherence view options, because the dock icons and favorite applications contextual menu completely free me of needing the windows taskbar, so I never want to see it, if possible. But when the Start menu is invoked via the contextual menu in the Parallels dock icon (or also by pressing the command key), the windows taskbar reappears, and the only way to make it disappear again is to switch out of coherence view, then switch back into it again.

Once this bug is sorted out, I will be happy to never see the taskbar again! :eek:
 
Another good solution is to just tell the windows taskbar to not stay on top of all windows. I then move the apple dock off to the left side of the screen and tell it to auto hide. I never use the dock anyways. This seems to give you the most stability as far as things working the way you would expect but not having the windows taskbar in your face when you are working on the Mac.
 
Andrew @ Parallels said:
If right click (or Ctrl-Click) on main Parallels icon in dock you'll find a Start Menu option in contextual menu. Is it OK for you or you need full integration of Windows start menu into Dock?
Click to expand...
I would prefer the Start menu to be in the dock rather than as a context menu. This was implemented in Virtual PC 7 and it was so handy.

I think for me part of the problem is that when you install a new application in Windows you have to go to either the context menu or window/fullscreen mode to be able to run that application so that you can then add it to your favourites which adds it to either Dock or Desktop. Having the Start Menu integrated into the dock like VPC then it makes it just that bit easier and also makes it even more Mac like.
 
On a sort-of related note - the quest to dump the taskbar when in coherence would be helped by a quick mac-based way of accessing the other bits of the taskbar:

1. The notification/"system tray" area - this is the bit to the right with (critcially) the parallels tools icons. Other apps tend to put widgets there.

2. The "quick launch" area - could this be synced with the "Favorites" feature?

3. The Windows desktop - probably just a menu off the parallels icon. There's a taskbar widget you can enable that does this.
 
I don't get the Windows XP Start menu when I click (or double-click) on the Parallels icon in my Dock. Any idea why?
 
i know it is ther because it worked sporadically, kind of trial-and-error, for me. now after using Ps for a while it does not work anymore at all
 
Clicking the Parallels icon to get the Start Menu works only if the Dock doesn't auto hide/unhide. Go to the Apple Menu, select Dock, and choose "Turn Hiding Off".
 
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