How to remove Windows 10 virtual machine after hardware change

J

JohnS16

Junior Member
I have a Macbook Pro and have been running a Windows 10 virtual machine in Parallels 11. Last week I had to replace the motherboard of the Macbook, with the result that I now have to reactivate/reinstall Parallels and Windows 10. I succeeded in reactivating Parallels 11 without difficulty using the Product Key, but I have problems with Windows 10. The version I have on the machine will not boot. I was advised on a Microsoft community forum to reinstall Windows 10, and I succeeded in downloading a new version of Windows 10 using the old product key I had for my original Windows 7. That means that I now have two Windows 10 virtual machines running. But the new Windows 10 is not activated, and it seems that I cannot activate it until I have removed the unbootable Windows 10.

Can someone tell me how to do that, please? It is probably very simple, but I am not very "techy"!
 
Hi John, this problem might have occurred because an activation wizard cannot connect to a Key Management Service (KMS) host computer.
please follow this article to fix Windows 10 activation issue and let us know how it works.
 
Thanks PaulChris for your reply. But do I not need to get rid of the "old" unbootable Windows 10 before I try to activate the "new" Windows 10 I downloaded yesterday (and which appears as 10 1 in my system)?
 
JohnS16 said:
Thanks PaulChris for your reply. But do I not need to get rid of the "old" unbootable Windows 10 before I try to activate the "new" Windows 10 I downloaded yesterday (and which appears as 10 1 in my system)?
Click to expand...
Hi, it's up to you. If you don't need to use "old" Windows VM you can remove it and install new one without any issue.
 
Thanks, Maria, that's great. But I need help in removing it. As I said above, it is probably very easy, but I'm a bit thick :-) and cannot see what to do!
 
JohnS16 said:
Thanks PaulChris for your reply. But do I not need to get rid of the "old" unbootable Windows 10 before I try to activate the "new" Windows 10 I downloaded yesterday (and which appears as 10 1 in my system)?
Click to expand...
Following Maria's post I managed to delete the unwanted Windows 10 virtual machine. I have then tried to activate the newly downloaded Windows 10 virtual machine using the article that you pointed me to, but I cannot understand what I have to do, it is not very clear. One problem I have is that my Windows 10 screen does not have the command bar at the bottom with the Start button. So I have not been able to bring up the Run as Administrator command. Also, I do not understand what is meant by the "slmgr -ipk xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx" thing. Am I supposed to put the old Windows 7 activation key in that? But at the moment I vcannot even get that far. And the further Microsoft article that is linked to the Parallels one is far too complex for someone like me. It is for a developer rather than a user.
I confess I am getting very fed up with this, I have been trying to sort it out for 2 days without success, and I do not see why it should be so complicated.
 
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