Fix: Parallels iPhone Service won’t start

Here’s a quick tip to fix for those of you Mac users who are using Parallels 5 as the virtualization solution.

Support came back to me with the following steps to fix the problem. First, quit Parallels if it’s already running. Then go through the steps noted below.

1. Go to /Library/Parallels/
2. Right-click on “Parallels Service.app” -> Show Package Contents
3. Go to /Contents/PlugIns/
4. Right-click on “Parallels Network Start.app” -> Show Package Contents
5. Go to /Contents/MacOS/
6. Copy “prl_iphone_proxy” file.
7. Go to /Library/Parallels/
8. Right-click on “Parallels Service.app” -> Show Package Contents
9. Go to /Contents/PlugIns/
10. Right-click on “Parallels iPhone Proxy.app” -> Show Package Contents
11. Go to /Contents/MacOS/
12. Paste “prl_iphone_proxy” file.
13. Restart Parallels and enable the iPhone service!

Yup. That’s all it takes to get it running. I’d expect a patch/update to fix this problem once and for all… A missing file in the iPhone Proxy app isn’t quite a major technical issue isn’t it? I wondered how this got through QA for this release of Parallels 5.