MS Windows asking for Serial Number Again - Please help.

D

Direwolf

Junior Member
Greetings,

My wife just bought the latest MacBook Pro today and Parallel Desktop 3.0. After successfully installing Windows XP under Boot Camp, I went to install Parallel. I installed Paralell and asked it to use the Boot Camp for Win Xp. It was loading successfully until it asked for the serial number for WinXP again. Once I entered that number, it said it could not activate and is now giving me three days to activate. What do I do.

On another note, I noticed when PD loaded XP, the Windows Hardware Manager claiming it found new hardware. What should I do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
1. Since you just bought v3 get the free update to v4 and start fresh with that.

2. Read the User Guide on how to use a boot camp partition.

3. The instructions on reactivating windows are right there on the screen, you probably need to call MS. But only reactivate after Parallels Tools are installed (what are parallels tools? read the user guide), if you go back to boot camp it probably won't ask you for the activation code, that will reset the 3 days till you go to Parallels again.
 
Hi,

Okay, so as it turns out, I installed PD 3.0 and I used the Boot Camp Partition. When it loaded WinXP and asked for the activation key again, I managed to call MS and get it activated. Then, when the New Hardware Wizard found the VGA Controller and PCI Bridge Controller as Uknown Devices, I installed Parallel Tools. Everything seemed to be working. Whew.

However, once that was done, I installed MS Word XP in PD 3.0 in Windows. Everything seemed to work great, even though it asked for a second activation key for Office XP. I then rebooted with Win XP to see if the MS Word installation had taken place. Everything looked great. When I went to reboot into OS X and run Parallel, I got this strange error message from Parallel saying certain devices were not ready, and I would have to wait a few minutes. After waiting a few minutes, I still got the same error. So, I decided to reboot Boot Camp WinXP and then that's when the problems started. It didn't boot Win XP and took too long. I powered down.

Then I booted into OS X, tried to remove the Office XP disc to no avail - fortunately a Restart and Mouse Click forced teh disc to be ejected. I tried through Disk Util, but the Office XP disc was not mounted and appeared grayed-out. In all, I noticed sporadic behaviour from OS X and PD 3.0 once I got both of them working.

Once I got the disc ejected, I tried PD 3.0 again and it behaved strangely. I finally decided to uninstall it, remove the Boot Camp partition, and my Mac is back to normal. Everything works great.

My question is should I try again with 3.0 or should I try 4.0? I'm concerned that now that WinXp has been removed and I try to install it either with Boot Camp or PD, that the activation key will not work and I will have to fuss with MS again. Besides, what was with that "you'll have to wait a few minutes before PD can be run" error?

Any ideas? Any help is appreciated, please.

Thanks!
 
You better off starting fresh with PDM 4, it's the next version you'll get it for free since you just bought PDM 3, and the conversion from 3 to 4 is not smooth, so, start fresh with 4.

Windows Activation is just like that, is meant to scare you, trust me, I've had to phone MS a dozen times, it's a shitty process but you get used to it and they are obliged to give you the key as long as you say it's just for one physical machine and it's for the same machine you just changed your hardware if they ask you anything, but normally you get the automated process where you have to type in 8 groups of 6 digits (eek! I've done this 4 times already) each on your phone (using a cellphone with bluetooth headset or headphones is what works best for this).
Just remember, you have 3 days, so set your hardware preferences the way you want them to, install Parallels Tools and only then activate (changing memory settings, for instance, might trigger activation again) but don't let the activation scare block you from using Windows, you bought it you have every right to use it.
 
Hi Specimen,

So you're saying install Boot Camp and Win Xp. Activate Win XP. Install Office XP.

Reboot OS X

Then Install PD, PD Tools, for any unknown HW Wizard issues, install all my software and settings, then activate Win XP, Office XP?

Please confirm. This is my wife's first ever Mac experience, and so far, she's a little concerned. Please confirm.

Thanks, Specimen.
 
Yes, leave the activation for last.

Instead of one reboot, do 2 reboots to be sure a clean start works fine.

As far as being her first mac experience the thing that is ironically going not so well is the Windows part of her experience, I'm sure the Mac part (besides Parallels but that's related to Windows) is all going fine. :)
 
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Do two reboots into Boot Camp Win XP after Boot Camp install or two reboots into OSX after PD is installed? Please confirm.

And, you're right. The Mac Part is super slick.

Best, DW

Specimen said:
Yes, leave the activation for last.

Instead of one reboot, do 2 reboots to be sure a clean start works fine.

As far as being her first mac experience the thing that is ironically going not so well is the Windows part of her experience, I'm sure the Mac part (besides Parallels but that's related to Windows) is all going fine. :)
Click to expand...
 
2 reboots in Boot Camp to check it's all working in BC. Do 2 in Parallels to check it all works in Parallels.

The 1st reboot is after the last installation/modification, let it boot see if it's all working, don't modify anything, then you can reboot into OSX. This 2 reboots are important because there are apps and installation routines that set tasks to run on the next boot, the next boot should be the same environment as before. Of course, no one ever tells this anywhere because it's not an issue most of the times and people apparently haven't really thought this thru.
 
The Final Details

Looks like Specimen has given you the word, but I'll summarize here in case he missed anything:

1. Install Bootcamp with Windows XP.
2. Install Parallels, following the (somewhat messy and difficult to follow) instructions for setting up a Bootcamp install as a Virtual Machine in Parallels.
3. When you boot up the machine in Parallels for the first time, just hang out and WAIT while the tools install. It takes a long time. Don't release the mouse or keyboard... just let it saw away. Eventually, the keyboard will start to work. You can use the keyboard to select your user and get Windows to load all the way. Then the Parallels tools will finish. This part can be tricky.
4. You will be asked to reactivate Windows. Say yes. The Windows Activator will say you can't. Click the "Telephone" option. Call the number. When asked (you'll be asked twice) reassure the computer that you are installing Windows XP on "ONE" computer. You'll get a code that you can type into the Activation window.

I've had to do all this three or four times, as I made the mistake of opening the Configure window for my virtual machine, which currently has a bug causing the hard drive not to be recognized.

Carry on,
d
 
PD 4.0 works!

Wow, everything seems to work now! I installed Boot Camp with Win XP. Rebooted Twice, everything worked. Then I installed PD, then installed Parallel Tools and everything worked.

I rebooted OS X three times, and it still worked and then I rebooted into Boot Camp and then into OS X and it worked again! Wow! Thanks, everyone, for your help!

I did make a mistake along the way, where I deleted the Virtual Machine Config, so I had to create a new one. When I did, I didn't re-install Paralell Tools, because it seemed to have done it by itself. But whenever PD booted, during the Win XP boot-up it would say PT not installed, but when it got the Win XP Desktop, that message would disappear. Thought it was installed, but that method caused problems. No matter, I deleted that, went into Boot Camp to deleted Parallel Tools (Add Remove). When I went back into OS X, PD created My BootCamp, and did the tools from scratch, and everything works great!

So, you really have to make sure PD Tools are in, even if that means selecting Reinstalll PD Tools.


Now, the only thing left to do is re-activate Windows XP and Office XP in PD 4.0. That is right, right? I still can't believe it works no problem.

By the way, is the default 512 MB RAM setting sufficient or should it be higher? Our MacBook Pro has 4 GB RAM.

Also, would you recommend installing all Win XP software, change system settings, in Bootcamp, then using it PD 4.0 or can we install software/change settings in PD 4.0?

Finally, in BootCamp, is it recommended I do Windows Updates? Right now I'm at Win XP SP 2, no updates. Any advice would be appreciated.

Best,

DW
 
If you have 4GiB give at least 1GiB to Windows, it will make your life easier, when Windows doesn't have enough memory it pages the memory to the hardrive, now, having two Operating Systems using the same drive at the same time makes things considerably slower when it comes to disk access.

Generally it's advised to install updates in Boot Camp, this is because anything that can involve changing/upgrading hardware drivers or the way Windows talks to the hardware should be done in BC first. This is specially true for Service Packs and in particularly for SP3.

SP3 is a tricky one, you should 1st run Apple Software Update first in Boot Camp to update the Boot Camp drivers, although newer macs probably already come with BC 2.1, it will 'suggest' you to install Quicktime, iTunes and Safari but you don't need to unless you want to.

After that you can, still in Boot Camp, do Windows/Microsoft Update and install SP3. Do the double reboot thing and boot into OSX and start Parallels, if it's all fine now, you can now activate.

Most software can be installed using Parallels and it will work fine in BC, because most software don't require anything 'special' hardware related. But you're always safe if you do it in BC instead. I confess that sometimes I even do Windows Update thru Parallels when the updates it requires are strictly software related.
 
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I like Specimen's answers.

For anything memory-intensive, however, I tend to boot into Bootcamp. So the 512MB in the virtual machine is enough for me. For now. :-) I only have 2GB of RAM.

I also tend to take the safe course--> doing all software installations and Windows updates while booted into Bootcamp. but Specimen is right... for a lot of things, Parallels really can handle it.

QUESTION: Now that everything is working, can I just use the Configure window to increase the RAM, or would I have to recreate the Virtual Machine for that?

-d
 
Great advice.

I read: Do all installing in BootCamp. That's my feeling, too.


As for going into Config for Virtual Machine:

Yeah, that's my question, too. If I go to PD Config for My BootCamp, will that screw up my installation. I read somewhere that as soon as you select Config for your Virtual Machine, it messes things up. All I want to do is change the 512 MB RAM setting to 1024 MB RAM setting. But if doing that means the Hard Disk will get screwed up when I save, and that will mean reinstalling and reactivating the WindowsXP Virtual Machine, forget it.

Everything works now and I don't want to mess it up. 512 MB RAM will be enough if I can't change it without messing up my Virtual Machine.
 
Changing RAM in PDM Vm configuration doesn't mess anything, it's perfectly safe installation wise, the only problem, is that it might trigger activation (it's like adding a stick of RAM to the machine in real terms, so Windows gets suspicious) that's why I said, you have 3 days so do activation last. But there's no problem with reactivating, I've done activation a dozen times, mostly because I changed RAM settings.
 
Speciman,

Then why have I heard of all these problems with people going into VM Configuration? Once they go in, do something and save, they begin to get VM Hardware errors. What is that related to?

I've worked so hard to get everything to work, I don't want any more problems. :)
 
Well, it shouldn't give you any trouble, but I'm speaking from PDM3 experience, unless that's a specific bug with PDM4, in that case, if you've heard such experiences leave it the way it is.

May I suggest the use of Winclone, it's a free and reliable app that let's you clone and restore NTFS partitions (your Boot Camp Windows installations), it saves your whole Windows in a .dmg file, if things get messed up, you can restore it back how it was before (I've personally done this successfully more than once, that's why I say it's reliable), so if you get reactivation requests because you changed your RAM, you changed back to how it was before but the reactivation doesn't go away, you don't want to reactivate, restore your Windows to how it was.

PS: It's SpecimEn not SpecimAn (or Spaceman.. or Spiceman..) :P :)
 
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Yes, there is a bug in the Configuration window in Parallels Desktop 4.0 for the Mac. I haven't seen it written up officially, but I've encountered it several times myself. You can open the Configuration window and do nothing and still create the bug. (if you click "Ok")

What happens is this: the path to the drive in the config.pvs file gets corrupted, overwritten with a different path. Then your virtual machine won't be able to find "Hard Drive 1".

Fixing that problem is pretty simple, for a nerd: Open /Users/<username>/Documents/Parallels/<machinename>.pvm/config.pvs with TextEdit and replace the value of the <SystemName> attribute of the <Hdd> element to the full path to your virtual drive (mine is /Users/douglas/Documents/Parallels/BootcampXP.pvm/Hitachi Blah Blah.hdd)). The correct path points to the .hdd file inside your .pvm file.

If you get hit by the bug, making that change may be intimidating. But if you make a safe copy of your config.pvs file, you should be okay. I would like it if someone on the Parallels team would write up a detailed guide to doing that, with screenshots. I don't have time right now. (Frankly, I'd rather they just fixed the bug and announced an update.)

SUMMARY: if you are concerned, and everything is working smoothly for you, you may be smart to wait for the next Parallels software update before fiddling with your Configuration settings.
 
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