Quick 'Thanks'; iSight success, activation key observation

First off - I've been a really happy Parallels user since last September. I use it each and every day, for most of the day, and I think it's the best piece of software I've ever used. I tend to avoid the beta versions, but today I upgraded from 1970 to 3150. This was a bit of an experiment, as I thought I might have activation key issues (I'm in the UK).

Turns out I don't - I bought the software from Parallels online, and so I guess I have a US key regardless of my location. So, I'm actually quite glad now that I never ordered the boxed version! Those of you having trouble (or worrying) about the activation key stuff - just buy the online version, forgo the box, and you'll get a key that will work with the betas.

Anyway, the main point of this is to say thanks to the team for getting the iSight to work. One of my bespoke applications uses a webcam and ever since I moved over to Parallels on the MBP, it's annoyed the hell out of me that I can't connect an old logitech webcam because it seems to crash the Mac itself. Finally, after having done many demonstration where the customer has to take it on trust that the camera works in my software, I can now show them the software neatly capturing camera images from the built-in iSight.


Talking of iSight, just in case anyone is having trouble making this work, here's what I did. I'm not saying thre's a quicker or better way, but this worked for me. The information can be found in the forum, but here we go, as clearly as I can;

1. Shut down your vitual machine. Don't suspend it, shut it down.
2. Back it up somewhere safe (this is what external USB/Firewire drives were invented for!)
3. Download the dmg for the bootcamp software from Apple.
4. Run it, so that it installs the bootcamp assistant in your (boot)/applications/utilities folder.
5. You can eject the bootcamp disk device from your desktop, and trash the dmg file too.
6. Run the bootcamp assistant. Follow the instructions along until it asks you about making an XP drivers disk. You want to let it do this - it will require a blank CDR.
7. After it has burned/verified the disk, you're done with bootcamp. Instead of continuing (you get some screen about partitioning at this point - yikes!!), just go to the menu and select the 'quit bootcamp assistant' option from the bottom of the main 'bootcamp assistant' menu.
8. That's it - you're done with that assistant now, so you could optionally drag it out of your folder and into the trash too (though I'd wait until you're sure you don't need it).
9. Alter your VM's configuration settings so that USB devices are not automatically connected. I'm not sure how important this is, but you can always change it again later so do it for now.
10. Fire up your virtual machine.
11. If you've upgraded from an earlier version of Parallels, cancel out of any wizards that mention new hardware (it sometimes nags me about the display adaptor). Install the Parallels Tools software too - you want to keep this at the same version as the Parallels system itself.
12. Now, finally, you can pop in your XP drivers CD, and run the installer on there. It will take a while to run, you will get a few pop-up prompts about unsigned drivers etc. Wade through it all. When it's finished, it will have made a folder (C:\PROGRAM FILES\MACINTOSH DRIVERS FOR WINDOWS XP 1.1.2) that contains lots of subfolders of drivers.
13. Navigate to the iSight subfolder (in the above folder) and right-click on 'iSight.inf'. Choose the 'install' option.
14. Now, in the Mac Parallels menu, go to 'devices\usb\built-in iSight' and click. Windows XP will tell you it has found new hardware, and after a few seconds it will be installed. If this stage reports an error installing the drivers, go to the iSight subfolder in the program files\mac drivers (etc) folder again, and repeat the bit with the iSight.inf file.
15. That should be it. Now you can fire up any application that just uses the basic windows API for talking to the default camera, and your iSight should be filling in the picture.

As a precaution against upsetting things, I make sure I'm not running anything that might access the iSight (like Skype or iChat) when I go to turn it on in Windows, and when I've done with it, I disconnect it (from the devices menu) before I close Windows and try to use it back on the Mac.

It now means I can go out and demo to my customers without having to gloss over the camera issue - so thank Parallels, you've made a little software developer very happy indeed!