How to disable keyboard layout synchronisation between Mac and Windows virtual machine.

When switching the keyboard layout in macOS, the keyboard layout in the Windows virtual machine changes automatically, and vice versa.

By default, keyboard layout synchronization may be enabled between macOS and Windows in Parallels Desktop.

To disable this behavior, follow the steps below:

1. Shut down your virtual machine (Actions > Shut down). If it is in a suspended state, resume it and then shut down.

2. Open Terminal (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and execute the command below:

     sudo sed -i '' '/<KeyboardLayoutSync/,/<\/KeyboardLayoutSync>/s/<Enabled>[^<]*<\/Enabled>/<Enabled>0<\/Enabled>/g' "/path/to/YourVM.pvm/config.pvs"

        Replace /path/to/YourVM.pvm with the actual path to your virtual machine.

        Example with default Parallels path:

     sudo sed -i '' '/<KeyboardLayoutSync/,/<\/KeyboardLayoutSync>/s/<Enabled>[^<]*<\/Enabled>/<Enabled>0<\/Enabled>/g' "/Users/john/Parallels/Windows 11.pvm/config.pvs"

         (You will be prompted to input your password)

3. Run the virtual machine. Now, keyboard layouts are not synchronized and will not be changed automatically.
    

If you wish to re-enable the keyboard synchronisation, execute the command below in Terminal after replacing the path to your virtual machine:

sudo sed -i '' '/<KeyboardLayoutSync/,/<\/KeyboardLayoutSync>/s/<Enabled>[^<]*<\/Enabled>/<Enabled>1<\/Enabled>/g' "/path/to/YourVM.pvm/config.pvs"