No wifi with Parallels and Windows 7

[SnowmanSimon]

I cant connect to the school network through my mac. They made me buy windows 7 and I installed through parallels 7. Now I dont have wireless on the windows side. Any suggestions?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

You basically bridge your host network connection, be it wired or wireless to the VM. So if you have to use a wireless connection to get to your school network, the Mac has to first get onto it, and then you bridge that connection over to your Windows installation..

See: Parallels Desktop Help, Advanced Topics->Hardware Settings->Network Adapter

 

[SnowmanSimon]

Is it possible to connect through windows? I really dont want to have to do a bootcamp install. Anyone know if its possible to install windows on bootcamp after you have a parallels install and have the 2 windows installs work as the same one?

 

[chscag]

It doesn't work that way. You have to first install Windows 7 via the Boot Camp Assistant and then tell Parallels to use the Boot Camp installation as a virtual machine. And did you follow through on the directions you were given in the previous post?

 

[vansmith]

To be honest, I find it difficult that a school doesn't support Macs given Apple's large user base in education. What school do you go to? They must have a help page and I'm willing to bet that they have connection instructions for the Mac.

I only say this because connecting this way is much easier than installing Windows just to get online.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Also understand that in any virtual environment, you are basically getting virtual devices to interface to..so for example, within the VM you get a generic audio device which maps up to whatever is appropriate on the host machine..now as far as networking is concerned, you get a very generic network interface that has the greatest amount of support and you just bridge or NAT to the host machine's network connectivity so that your VM also has network ability..

If you join the wireless network on the Mac and then bridge/NAT that connection the VM and in turn Windows 7, what's the issue with that method? Either way you have to join the network..

 

[chscag]

To be honest, I find it difficult that a school doesn't support Macs given Apple's large user base in education. What school do you go to? They must have a help page and I'm willing to bet that they have connection instructions for the Mac.

I totally agree. Even our local community college here in Fort Worth has a number of help pages and documents that address the Mac. Apple devices are very popular on most campuses.

 

[SnowmanSimon]

I have been to the IT department and talked with the 'boss' as well as the tech guys. They keep telling me the requirements were windows 7. Without it my AutoCAD and Office wont work and I cant get on the network. I repeatedly told them I have a MAC version of CAD and Office and all I was looking for was an internet connection while at school. They also have printers on the network but I can print at home. So in the end they told me windows 7 was a requirement and they dont support MAC. So I needed to buy windows 7 just for internet access at school. They have a system where a .exe file is loaded onto your machine and runs something to connect to the machine to the network. So I picked up a copy of windows 7 hoping I could run it in parallels to get on the network but from the sounds of it the only way it works is the host (OSX lion) has to connect to the network and then the VM (win 7) piggy backs on that connection. Looks like I will have to break down and install a bootcamp copy then reinstall the parallels copy to run off the boot camp copy. This kinda sucks.