Hide Windows Taskbar is greyed out

34 users found this article helpful

Symptoms

Unable to hide the taskbar in Windows when the Virtual Machine is running in Coherence mode.

Show / Hide Windows Taskbar option is greyed out under View menu.

Cause

One of Parallels Tools components (prl_cc.exe, Parallels Control Center) hasn't been launched with Windows start or DesktopUtilities.dll was not loaded.

Resolution

  1. Reinstall Parallels Tools:

    • In Windows, right-click on Start Menu (bottom left of the screen) -> Apps & features (in Windows 7: Start Menu -> Control Panel ->  Programs & features)
    • Locate Parallels Tools in the list of installed programs.
    • Click Uninstall Button to uninstall Parallels Tools.
       
    • Once the uninstallation is complete, please, reboot your Windows virtual machine.
    • Once Windows is rebooted install Parallels Tools.

     

    If the issue still persists:

  2. Check that Parallels Tools are not blocked by an antivirus or firewall software installed in Windows (if any). Add Parallels Tools to the "white list" of your antivirus/ firewall.

  3. Make sure prl_cc.exe is started and works properly:

    • Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Parallels Tools and start prl_cc.exe (right-click on the file -> run as administrator).

    • Check that is was started by executing tasklist | findstr prl_cc.exe in command line:

      Go to Start -> in the search type in CMD -> start CMD (command line) -> type the following and hit Enter/Return:

      tasklist | findstr prl_cc.exe

      The output should look like this:

  4. Reboot your Virtual Machine and check the issue.

    If the issue still persists:

  5. Make sure that Parallels Control Center (prl_cc.exe) is loaded on Windows startup:

    • create a shortcut of the prl_cc.exe (located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Parallels Tools)
    • copy created shortcut to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup directory


 


Related articles:

Was this article helpful?

Tell us how we can improve it.