Unable to Activate Windows 10 Pro in Parallels 16 on Mac OS Catalina/Big Sur

I purchased a Windows 10 Pro license from a 3rd party vendor (not MS) and have been completely unable to activate my copy of Windows 10 Pro. The vendor has had me try multiple licenses, and none of them work. We are at our wits' end. The message I get from Windows is that my license is invalid.

I have gone through the MS troubleshooter and it hasn't helped, and I have used Power Shell to manually remove and reinstall the license key, and I continue to get the same error. Since Parallels 16 mentioned being optimized for Big Sur, I even upgraded my Mac OS to that, even though I didn't really think it would help this problem. (It didn't).

I then came out to the Parallels site and saw a Parallels knowledge base file that seemed to be relevant to this issue, though it didn't mention what version of Parallels was affected and the error message it mentions is different from the one I am getting. It tells you to change your UAC settings to Always Notify, so I did that but still get the same message.

Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, what did you do resolve it? Thanks for any help/insight you can offer.

~ tbgg

 

Let us know if you have installed Windows 10 Pro in Parallels Desktop or a different edition.

 

My Windows is installed in Parallels Desktop 16 Pro. Version 16.1.2 (49151) if you want the exact version.

 

You have installed Windows in Parallels Desktop Pro that does not mean you have installed Windows 10 Pro. Open "RUN" in Windows and type "msinfo32" then check the OS Name is "Microsoft Windows 10 Pro" or something. Let us know if it is different.

 

With respect, sir. while your intent may have been to inquire about my version of Windows, grammatically speaking, you inquired about my version of Parallels. With "or a different edition" following directly after "Parallels desktop", it reads grammatically that you wanted to know about my Parallels Desktop version. If your intent was, as it seems instead, to inquire about my version of Windows, then your question has what in grammatical terms is known as a misplaced modifier, which in this case changed the meaning to something other than your intent. Had you written, "Let us know if you have installed Windows 10 Pro or a different edition in Parallels Desktop." then your grammatical meaning would have matched your intended meaning because "or a different edition" would have followed directly after Windows and not after Parallels Desktop.

I have Windows 10 Pro, just like I said. While I am not an expert in Parallels Desktop, I am a technical enough person not to make that kind of mistake.

 

We request you share the screenshot of the error you are getting when you try to activate and also the screenshot of "msinfo32" window displaying the OS name.