Keyboard and Mouse Preferences

In the Keyboard & Mouse 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 the shortcuts below for editing 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 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's no keys or key combinations that enable you to 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 dilog 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, return to the Keyboard and Mouse 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.

Emulating a mouse right-click

To emulate a mouse right-click for a mouse that does not have the right key, go to the Mouse tab of the Keyboard & Mouse pane and choose one of the following:

• Select the To right-click check box and specify the key combination that will be used to emulate a mouse right-click in the virtual machine, or
• Select the Click and hold the mouse button check box and configure the time interval when this option will come into effect by moving the slider in the necessary direction between Short Delay and Long Delay.

To submit the changes, click OK, otherwise, click Cancel.

Restoring default settings

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

Please send us your feedback on this help page