Using the ALT key in Windows with Parallels

I need Windows for my development environment on my Mac. I use Alt-U and Alt-S a lot in this software. I can't do this on my Mac. Is there a way to send the Alt key presses to the virtual machine?

Alt-U shows the Accessibility Utility Manager. Pressing Alt-S just types an "s". At work on Windows XP, neither of these behaviors happen.

Solution 1:

Disable the option for switching alt and cmd. The mapping should be: alt=option, cmd=windows.

Solution 2:

I was able to get the desired effect by holding down the ctrl+alt keys, then releasing just the ctrl key to use the alt function.

Hurrah! No editing keyboard preferences required. Hope this helps someone else too.

Solution 3:

For me the solution is to use the right Alt not the left Alt on the keyboard. For unknown reasons that does the trick.

Solution 4:

Go in to preferences on Parallels and add mappings individually for each letter combo of alt and a letter. alta maps to alta, altb maps to altb etc for all key combos that involve alt. Time consuming but it appears to work so far.