Keyboard Preferences

In the Keyboard pane of Parallels Desktop Preferences, you can set keyboard shortcuts for certain commands.

Note: The keyboard shortcuts can be configured individually for each user of your Mac.

Configuring Keyboard Shortcuts

To configure the shortcuts used to perform certain actions, use the Double-click a shortcut to edit it list. Using this list, you can remap the Mac OS X shortcuts to Windows shortcuts that perform similar actions in Parallels Desktop virtual machines.

The shortcuts are divided into two groups: shortcuts for managing the Parallels Desktop software and shortcuts for working in virtual machines. Shortcuts for Parallels Desktop cannot be added or removed, while the shortcuts for virtual machines can be added using the Add button and removed using the Remove button .

To add a shortcut, click the Add button and specify the rule for translating the key combination.

• In the From field, use the buttons to add modifier keys to the Mac keyboard shortcut and enter the required key into the empty field.
• In the To field, specify the PC keyboard shortcut you would like to translate the Mac shortcut to. You can use the buttons for modifier keys and type the key into the empty field or select the necessary PC keyboard key using the arrow button.

To configure a shortcut remapping rule, double-click it and edit by entering the new key combination.

Important: There are Mac shortcuts that do not have similar shortcuts in Windows, for example, you can use the F11 key or Fn+F11 combination to see your Mac OS desktop with Expose, but in Windows there are no keys or key combinations that enable you to perform the same action, because there is no Expose in Windows.

The Enable Mac OS X system shortcuts checkbox, which is selected by default, allows you to use the default (F9/F10/F11/F12) and custom shortcuts for Mac OS X during your work with virtual machines in Parallels Desktop.

Using profiles

By default, Parallels Desktop contains four profiles that represent sets of key combinations typical for the following OSs:

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OS X
• Generic (for other guest OSs)

When you create or register a virtual machine, one of these profiles, depending on the guest operating system, will be assigned to the machine by default.

You can create your own profile and assign it to your virtual machines. To create your custom keyboard profile or edit the existing profiles, click the Edit profiles button. The dialog for editing profiles will appear.

To add a new profile, click the Add button . In the Choose base profile window, specify the new profile name and select the base profile from the list. After the profile is created, you can submit the changes by clicking OK , then return to the Keyboard pane of Parallels Desktop Preferences, select this new profile in the Profile list, and configure its shortcuts.

To remove one of the existing custom profiles, select this profile and click the Remove button .

To duplicate or rename one of the existing profiles, select this profile, click the button , and select the corresponding action from the menu.

Note: You can rename or remove your custom profiles only.

In this window, you can also assign profiles to your virtual machines.

To change a profile assigned to a virtual machine:

1. In the Assign profiles to your virtual machines table, select the virtual machine.
2. In the Profile column, click the corresponding profile field to open the list of available profiles and choose the profile you want to assign to this virtual machine.
3. Click OK to submit the changes.

Restoring Default Settings

The Restore Defaults button enables you to restore the default settings for all options available in this pane.

Locking Parallels Desktop Preferences

If you want to prevent Parallels Desktop Preferences from further unauthorized changes, click the Lock icon at the bottom of the window. The next time anybody wants to change the settings in any pane of Parallels Desktop Preferences, an administrator's password will be required.