Prevent Parallels creating Windows application folders in the Dock

Posted August 13th, 2010 in OSX

When Parallels starts a Windows Virtual Machine it creates a folder in the dock containing Windows Applications. I run my Parallels Virtual Machines in windowed mode so prefer these folders not to be created at all. This post shows how to prevent Parallels from creating the Windows Applications folder in the dock on Mac OS X.

With Parallels already running, open up the Virtual Machine and select "Virtual Machine" then "Configure" from the menu. Then click the "Options" button and select "Shared Applications"

The resulting dialog is shown in the screnshot below with the options and shared applications options highlighed with a red box.

Either uncheck "Share Windows applications with Mac OS X" to disable all the sharing options, or just "Show Windows applications folder in Dock". Also optionally uncheck the "Share Mac OS X applications with Windows" if you don't want this sharing done as well.

Note that you can chnage these options while the VM is running; it will automatically remove the Windows Applications folder from the dock for you.