# Parallels and Total Spaces

**URL:** <https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/parallels-and-total-spaces/7246>\
**Category:** TotalSpaces\
**Tags:** question, support\
**Created:** [May 23, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/parallels-and-total-spaces/7246 "2019-05-23T17:10:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![doc911](https://discuss.binaryage.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@doc911](https://discuss.binaryage.com/u/doc911)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/parallels-and-total-spaces/7246/1 "2019-05-23T17:10:24Z")

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When I launch a Parallels virtual machine (VM) with MacOS, the VM takes over the CMD-Tab and CTRL+arrow commands, basically deactivating TotalSpaces on my system. This does not happen when I use VMWare Fusion. Is there a setting in either TotalSpaces or Parallels to get VMs in Parallels to behave in the same way as VMs in Fusion?

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**Author:** ![Jeff\_Porten](https://discuss.binaryage.com/user_avatar/discuss.binaryage.com/jeff_porten/32/2765_2.png) [@Jeff\_Porten](https://discuss.binaryage.com/u/Jeff_Porten)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/parallels-and-total-spaces/7246/2 "2019-07-30T21:30:44Z")

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Interesting! I’ve been having bizarre troubles with TotalSpaces becoming unresponsive to keyboard commands, and hadn’t thought to connect it to Parallels, which I run intermittently.

Won’t have time to come back to this for a while, but a possible fix: if you can figure out the menu mappings to keyboard commands in either app, you can change them in System Preferences \> Keyboard \> Shortcuts \> App Shortcuts. If that doesn’t work, as Plan B I would set up a launcher app (I use Quicksilver, but there are plenty) to intercept Command-Tab and Control-Arrows to run scripts, and then have the scripts do different things depending on whether Parallels is running and/or frontmost. (AppleScript can target keys to particular applications.)