Activating Windows XP in Parallels

[loydmanred]

When I run Windows in Parallels, it tells me that I have X amount of days to activate Windows. When I try to enter the Product Key, it tells me that it's invalid. The Key worked fine when I rebooted the machine in Windows, but once I run Windows in Parallels, it keeps telling me that it's invalid.

Am I going to need two Product Keys in order to get Parallels to work?

 

[teknics]

Because windows sets its product key on hardware settings it notices an extreme difference between your os x setup and your desktop pc setup. Therefore it requires you to call by phone.

Simple process, call, repeat 9 groups of numbers to a computer and go from there, youll probably need to talk to a rep if you dont qualify, and they'll help you thru getting you reactivated, free BTW.

kevin.

 

[eread]

What I did to minimise the difference in hardware between bootcamp and PD (3 at least, seems ok in 4 too) is to make sure the MAC address of the Virtual Network Card is the same as the MAC address of the physical network card.

This is one of the triggers, and doing that meant switching between Parallels and Boot Camp didn't trigger the "your hardware has changed too much" thing.

Last night, upgrading to PD4 tripped up the Windows Activation wizard. I tried to do it online, and it said "you'll have to call by phone because you've made too many changes". When I set the PD4 network card MAC address to be the same as the physical MAC address, it let me activate online (I think because the hardware was similar enough my PD3 setup to fly under the radar).

If you are doing a fresh install, definately do what did. If you are upgrading PD3 -> PD4, it is probably less important that the virtual MAC address match the hardware and more important that it matches the PD3 setup (so hardware change triggers are minimised).

Let us know how you go.

 

[jmanos3]

I can confirm that setting the MAC address can help in possibly avoiding the need to reactivate Windows.

I recently upgrade from PD3 to PD4. I noticed that PD4 was regenerating MAC address during the VM conversion process. This caused reactivation requests. I then re-did the VM conversion process ensuring that the MAC address was what it was originally in PD3 and no reactivation request was initiated.