Well folks, I’m definitely getting there because I’ve had a breakthrough this morning. I went through logs, but wasn’t able to see where the install created the default account. However, once I did get Narrator running on my VM, the DOS command prompt saved the day. Here’s what I did:
1. Bring up the Windows search using the Command key (which behaves as the Windows key in the default configuration. 2. Press Shift+F10 and choose run as Administrator. 3. Now type the command “who am I” altogether no spaces and press Enter. 4. In my case, the username that came up was the word “user”. 5. So now that I know my username, to change the password to something you know, type, without the quotes, “net user user <new password” and press return. 6. You should get a message saying that the command was successful. Now, when you restart the VM, you would be able to respond with a correct password and log back in. I went ahead and logged into my MS account and set up signing in with Windows Hello, but there are a number of different options you can get to by going into settings. To get to settings, just invoke the search like before, then type Settings. Thanks, Kelly, about the tip on Sharp Keys. I’ll take a look at that next. Before I go, though, I thought I remember hearing somewhere that there’s a setting where you can reduce Mac OS keys not interfering with your VM. If any of you have done that, could you let me know? Also, has anyone used PRLCTL or PRLSRVCTL from in Terminal? If so, how have you done that? Thanks, Pete From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Kelly Ford Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 2:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Parallels Questions Hi, The way I solve the second problem is to use a program called Sharp Keys. You can then assign a different key to act as caps lock in Windows. I assign the accent key. You can find Sharp Keys in the Windows store or as a stand alone download. Grab that, run it and then say assign new key and reassign the key. I believe on the password, the default password is whatever your Mac password is by default but am not 100% certain. Kelly On Mar 21, 2026, at 4:57 PM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: Update on this: I’ve got a working VM up and running complete with Narrator. I’m dealing with two interesting issues right now: First, I’d like to be able to login using my MS account, but in order to do that I need the current Windows password, and I don’t know what that is. During the install, VO chatted extensively most of the time, but I did hear what sounded like a message telling me what the username and password is. I had Braille going too, but couldn’t scroll back fast enough to find that line. I was hoping I could find a log of the installation, but haven’t found that as yet but will keep looking. Second, and this is something that’s been brought up before but I don’t have that thread any longer, the VO keys and Windows keys are colliding, and I thought I remembered hearing how to fix this but don’t remember from before. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks, Pete From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Dennis Long Sent: Friday, March 20, 2026 3:37 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: Parallels Questions Please make sure your message is at the top of the message. From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Phil Halton Sent: Friday, March 20, 2026 4:23 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: Parallels Questions Sent from my IPhone On Mar 20, 2026, at 11:33 AM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: Hi, everyone, I had tried Parallels a while back but could never get it to work satisfactorily, so was able to get a refund within the 30-day trial. Kelly’s announcement about the script he had developed was intriguing enough for me that I decided to re-purchase Parallels desktop to give it a try. As you probably know, there are two versions of Parallels Desktop, Standard and Professional. With the promotion they have going on now, there was only like a $20 US difference, but I decided to do Standard rather than Pro anyway for starters. In his announcement, Kelly talked about opening a terminal window to do all the work, but it turns out that the script won’t go all the way through if you have the Standard edition, you do need the Pro version because of command-line commands to Parallel that are only available in the Pro version. Bottom line is to make sure you get the Pro version, as the script does indeed work extremely well. Nice job, Kelly! Now that I have a VM up, I do have some very basic questions about getting things going. It looks like by default the VM starts in convergence mode, and I know how to get it into full screen mode, CMD+ CTRL +F, but I’m not sure how to configure the keyboard initially to at least get Narrator started so I can do some initial exploring. When I first asked about Parallels, some of you did suggest some keyboard add-ons and/or modifications, but I can’t find those e-mails right now. So if anyone has a moment, can you give me some pointers? Thanks, inn advance, for any help, Pete De Vasto -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor. You can reach mark at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/macvisionaries/04c801dcb87e%24e65718d0%24b3054a70%24%40gmail.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/macvisionaries/04c801dcb87e%24e65718d0%24b3054a70%24%40gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . hi Pete, I’ve been teetering on the edge of buying parallels myself but talk to myself out of it. Keep us abreast of how things work out for you because there are many of us here we would probably like to take the plunge and get a Windows VM up and running. Thanks and good luck. -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. 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