Windows XP connectivity issue + PD8

[KausikD]

I am at my wits end. I hope someone knowledgeable can help. I downloaded and installed the trial version of PD8 today for my boss's MacBook Air 128GB. The installation went fine. I installed Windows XP SP2 on it. That went fine, too. Then I thought about updating Windows XP. And the problems started. The Windows Update won't run. Either it would crash, or consistently give me an error message 0x8024400A, which - on research - I found to be due to inconsistent internet connection.

I started checking the VM's internet connection. I tried the Shared Mode, the Bridged mode with default adapter and the wi-fi adapter. The wi-fi doesn't work at all. With both the shared mode and the bridged mode with default adapter, I can ping parallels.com, and can get a proper IP with ipconfig /all. But Internet Explorer keeps crashing on start, and Windows Update still returns the error message. Occasionally when IE opens up without crashing, it cannot reach any website.

I even uninstalled the Parallels Ethernet Adapter (that was there by default) and let Windows reinstall the Network Adapter. I also reset the Network settings to default in Parallels configuration. No joy.

My boss needed the computer by tomorrow morning. Can someone please help?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that everything in the Mac side works absolutely fine. The network and everything.

 

[KausikD]

Since there was no reply, I tried to do a few things on my own. I am writing in down here so that some poor soul may be helped in future. I remembered that I had a copy of the XP SP3 installer from a previous install for a friend. This is the standalone installer. If need be, it can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. I brought it to the MBA via Dropbox on the Mac side, and simply accessed the Desktop via Parallels to install it. The install went without a hitch; the Windows Update now worked perfectly, and I got everything working. There is just one remaining issue.

I brought the computer home to work on it. It connected without a problem to my home network (WPA2-PSK encryption). The Parallels VM Network adapter is set to the Shared (NAT) mode (and not the Bridged mode). I am slightly concerned that when I bring it tomorrow to my work, where the network is an Enterprise Network (with different protocols), I may have the same difficulties as this morning to connect to the Network from within Windows. Let's see.

Anyway, I hope everything goes without a problem tomorrow.