Windows 10 Bootcamp VM can't validate!

To add salt to the wound, it's not even possible to enter another product key! I have various Genuine Windows 7 and 8 product keys, and I have tried entering them using 'slui.exe 3', but none of them work. All come up with the same error!

 

Do you have any notification stating the machine is not activated and will de-activate by any chance? Just wondering....

I noticed that sometimes I get the build number in the bottom right and other times not. Usually the build number indicates that the OS isnt activated. At the moment there is no sign of any activation issues (apart from when I actually try to activate)

I dont seem to get any countdown or warning yet that it will de-activate?

 

Funnily enough, since this morning, when I go to Settings, it doesn't say 'Windows is not activated.......' at the bottom of the window when it has previously.
Still, if I go to Settings>Update&Security>Activation, it still shows the error like in the screen shot I posted earlier in the thread, saying Activation error.
Also what is weird, is that I can change things in Settings>Your Account, which normally you cannot do if Windows is not activated.

 

Same here, fingers crossed it doesnt just de-activate itself in 30 days! Otherwise that will be annoying.

I wonder if its in some kind of limbo state (i.e. activated and not activated at the same time)? Wonder if Microsoft factored this in when designing the activation process!

I can see that the Product Key that is installed is the generic Microsoft one which I think is a volume license key (my legitimate key shows in Bootcamp for me)

 

Hmmm.... I thought all Windows 10 installs showed the generic key at the moment.
Well, let's see what happens in the next few days. Looks like their is some kind of limbo state, but I'm not holding my breath!

 

Regarding the first article in this thread , I am having the same issue.
The latest "cumulative Windows Update" patch did NOT fix it
Any news or hints ?

Cheers

 

Nope.

Parallels support have been somewhat absent on this one.....

 

Question for Parallels support: You have told us what to do but what are you doing about this problem? Have you contacted Microsoft about the problem? If not, why not?

 

I did call Microsoft. After a long wait (not surprising) I spoke to a nice Indian gentleman who, after consulting with is supervisor, promised that after 24 to 48 hours my installation will be activated automatically. I told him that it had already been a week but he assured me not to worry, to sit back and have a cup of coffee and that activation will happen automatically. I actually think he is correct and that MS will get this problem fixed with an update (they may have already since there was one last night). The only reason I am posting this is to save others a long phone wait to be told the same thing.

 

Just a few moments ago I decided to try the following:

Running BootCamp via Parallels10

Open command line "cmd" with admin rights
slvmgr.vbs /ato

And .. tataa ... now it's activated

 

Yep, I was told this several times by MS over the last 9-10 days, and I didn't believe them. However....... today it happened! The limbo period moved on to the validated period! BC and the VM both validated with the same key. There is still hope then!

 

I have the same issue, although only noticed it today when I booted from the Bootcamp partition directly today (Windows 10 when booted as a VM is activated ok). Found this thread, and so have left my boot from Bootcamp up and running for a while to see what happens. Hopefully it sorts itself out!

 

I have Win 10 as an upgrade from 7 on my bootcamp. The problem is that accessing it from Parallels triggers the activation. I don't think Parallels has a fix yet despite making me upgrade to version 10 (need it for El Capitan soon anyway), and Microsoft tech support is woefully underskilled. They are telling people to give it a few days and the problem should fix itself after I told them how I was using it. Eventually I asked the lady if she knew what Bootcamp or Parallels was, and after evading the answer she eventually admitted she had no idea.



I don't expect everyone to know everything at Level 1, but to provide tech support without understanding the problem first is very poor.

Parallels advertise Parallels 10 as supporting Windows 10 via Bootcamp. If this feature doesn't work (regardless of which vendor caused it) then refunds will be in order.

 

A: It is "slmgr.vbs /ato"
B: Error 0xC004C003 The activation server determined the specified activation key is blocked.
Still waiting for the magic activation to occur.
Warning to Parallels: People in here are going to be pretty angry if they are locked out of their fully licensed Windows 10 installations after 30 days.

 

People, as much as we want to bash Parallels here, technically they are correct. This isn't a Parallels issue. They released their product during the Win8.x install period and that worked fine with their product. *Since then* MS has changed how they license the OS. So in fact, it was MS who broke Parallels, not the other way around.

However, I may have a legal solution to this. The problem is it isn't pretty.

According to Microsoft's own documentation here (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install) if you start from a Win7 or Win8.x activated install and upgrade to Win10, then MS registers the *machine* as being activated. It isn't based on a key like before. That's why if you have upgraded and are using an activated version of Windows 10, you can then go back and wipe your hard drive, perform a clean install of Windows 10, press 'skip' when it asks for a key, but it will still auto-activate when it starts up. Again, see the MS link I posted for details. (It's down under the 'Clean install' section.)

That's also why then rebooting into Mac and launching that same partition as a VM is not activated. The OS sees it's been moved to a new machine/hardware config, one that *hasn't* been activated yet, and says as much.

So how do we get around that? While booted natively into Boot Camp, get yourself to the point of having a valid, activated version of Windows 10. MS will register that hardware configuration for auto-activation.

Now wipe the partition and reinstall Win7/8x (told you it wasn't pretty!) Activate and run all updates.

Now, boot back into the mac, create a VM from the Boot Camp partition (now running Win7/8x) and re-run the Win10 upgrade. This time MS will activate Windows for the VM version of the hardware.

Now in *THEORY* when you reboot back into Boot Camp natively, you'll be back to a Win10 install on a machine that MS recognizes as being valid and it *should* activate/still be activated because of that, but caveat emptor: I haven't yet tested this. Again though, you have legally activated both 'machines' (native and via the VM) so it should work.

So who want's to be a guinea pig here?

Like I said, it ain't pretty, but blame Microsoft. What they've made up for with a great OS, they've really screwed up with this activation nonsense let alone forcing us to use a MS login and ditch local accounts completely to get to the cool stuff. (Why couldn't it be like Win8 where you could choose to log into apps but still keep your local machine login is beyond me, but I digress.)

Side Note: I spent literally seven hours on the phone with Microsoft's Level II support (and have a case # to prove it) and their official stance is "Boot Camp on a Mac is not a supported configuration." They aren't even talking a VM via Parallels. They say they don't support Boot Camp at all. I argued in that configuration, it's no different than any other intel machine, but they never relented until I was practically screaming at the guy and was escalated to his manager, then his manager after that (i.e. Level II + 2) and this was all because the Win10 upgrade was flat-out failing. (Turns out that was because you have to run all updates *before* doing the upgrade. Why, I have no idea.)
On the flip-side, also spending two hours on the phone with an Apple Level II tech (which was much faster and cordial, of course) ironically they too say "Apple doesn't yet officially support Windows 10 via Boot Camp." Unofficially of course it works fine if you use the Win10 64-bit ISO, but that's another topic for another day.

The point is technically the HW manufacturer and the OS manufacturer are both saying this isn't a supported configuration, and that's even before we get to the realm of VMs. So... if you've upgraded, that's more on you, but it definitely is not on Parallels. (Granted, more should be told/warned about exactly that, and MS saying they support anything that runs Win7/Win8x contradicts that, but that is what the 2nd-level manager of Level II support is saying.)

 

I agree that MS introduced this bug not Parallels however it is up to Parallels to work with MS to fix it not each of us individually. It would be like Windows 10 not working on your new Dell computer and Dell telling you to call Microsoft to fix the problem.

 

But that's exactly what Dell should do! Think about it... if Dell is saying they don't yet support Win10 and you install it anyway, especially with MS saying they *do* support *all machines* running an activated install of Win7/8x. How can that possibly be Dell's fault? Did Parallels ever claim to support Windows 10 on a shared boot camp partition? You made the assumption that they would. But the truth is Microsoft blocked that capability, not Parallels.

But even then MS is technically still right. If you upgraded/activated to Win10 on Boot Camp natively, then native Boot Camp is what MS sees as the valid, activated hardware. When you reboot into a VM, as far as the OS is concerned, it's a different machine. It's akin to having two separate machines that you're walking a hard drive back and forth between which is *not* a supported license scheme for Windows. You're blaming the guy who made the HD tray that makes it easy to switch from one machine to the other. You're not acknowledging that, according to MS, not Parallels, you are in fact using two machines with a single installation.

That's why I suggested the reinstallation of Win7/8x on the non-activated side and performing the upgrade to Win10 again. From the perspective of MS, you just upgraded a second machine from Win7/8x to Win10 which is both valid and legal.

In short, you need to stop thinking of the VM as Parallel's fault. Just because *you* know they are using the same physical hardware, to the installed OS, *Microsoft*, the maker of the product that's complaining doesn't see it that way. And again, that's the case of *every* VM-capable product that can make a VM from a native-bootable partition. If they are trying to run Windows 10, they will all have that issue.

If you've been driving across a bridge every day, then suddenly someone breaks the bridge, you don't yell at the car manufacturer saying how they need to now work with the broken bridge. You fix the bridge. This is on MS, not Parallels, VMware, VirtualBox or anyone else. Technically it's on you too, as the user, for not properly understanding that from the OS perspective, a VM is considered a separate machine from booting natively and MS did say they were locking Windows 10 activations to the hardware instead of the former key-based activations.

 

Yes. That is exactly what they did. Windows 10 support is a feature of Parallels 10 and the ability to use a Bootcamp partition is a long time advertised feature. No assumptions required on our part.
http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/pd/bootcamp/

Users should not be expected to run down incompatibility issues between MS and Parallels. This is what we are paying Parallels to do for us. Up until now with this major problem, Parallels has been able to do this well. For some reason they don't want to take responsibility to help solve the problem with MS.

 

Parallels advertise Windows 10 with bootcamp capability (including direct emails that caused me to pay for the v9 to v10 upgrade). I agree that Microsoft made the change but Parallels needs to substantiate their own claims. Look here: http://www.parallels.com/uk/landingpage/pd/bootcamp/ "Boot Camp works better with Parallels Desktop 10® for Mac" and a Compatible with Windows 10 logo.

Your workaround probably won't work. I have Win 10 installed over Win 7 on bootcamp and activated. When I reboot to OS X and access Win 10 via Parallels it deactivates. Booting back to bootcamp gets me back to an activated Win 10.

 

It's because it's not their responsibility! They (Parallels) do exactly what they said they do on the OSes they say they support. Look at the page you linked to. Even there Windows 10 is not in the list of supported OSes. (Actually, Windows 8x isn't either on that page but is elsewhere.)

Also, take a look at the product page for Parallels Desktop. And I quote...

"Support for running a wide array of operating systems including OS X Mavericks, Windows 8.1 & 7, Linux and Google Chrome means you can do just about anything on your Mac."

Even there Windows 10 is not listed.

But let's look at this from a different perspective. Taking 'who's responsible' argument completely off the table, what can Parallels--or any other VM company for that matter--possibly do? They can't clone the hardware to make the VM look like it matches the physical hardware because by nature of it being virtualized hardware, it isn't, and MS links activation to the hardware, not a product key. So how are VM companies supposed to get around the *new* limit that Microsoft added?

There is nothing that a VM product can do because Windows, not the VM product, activates and licenses based on what hardware it sees, and Windows unfortunately but rightfully sees them as two different machines and therefore requires two different activations. Microsoft has to authorize those 'two' machines, not Parallels or anyone else.

For what it's worth, the native-partition-vs-partition-vm doesn't just cause problems with Windows either. Some software that is locked to the hardware has the same issue and will run on one side but not the other because it too has built its own activation around hardware. Would you blame Parallels for that? Of course not. You'd call the software vendor who implemented the hardware-based lock. That's also why some companies go to external hardware keys. You can install it as many times as you want but only the one that currently has the hardware key can run. In this case, the host hardware is that hardware key and every time you reboot from one side to the other, you're changing the hardware key.

Simply put, Microsoft has to add the proper support for VMs based on bootable partitions. In other words, Microsoft has to add the ability to license the same disk install to multiple hardware profiles. If they do, Parallels and every other VM that can use bootable partitions will start working. Until then, there is nothing *anyone other than Microsoft* can do.

I hate to be blunt, but like myself, the short version is you and I were lured by Microsoft's offer for a free Win10 upgrade, but we didn't do our due diligence to make sure that it would work in our preferred configuration, sharing a disk between two machines, one physical and one virtual. Had we read and understood the changes in Windows licensing, this wouldn't be an issue, but we didn't. We went forth and upgraded with reckless abandon and got burned in the process. Yes, it sucks it broke our using our Boot Camp partition in a VM, but no one forced us to upgrade either. If anything, Microsoft enticing us with this should be more at fault. They should have said this would break use on VMs using shared partitions. Sure, maybe Parallels too should have called that out, but there's not much Parallels can do when you're inside Windows running an upgrade.

Just gotta swallow the bitter, bitter pill and realize Microsoft screwed things up here, no one else, and only they can fix it since they alone control licensing and activation of Windows. After all, they could add back in the phone activation, or a different way to license the install, couldn't they? They were the ones who took it out.

Again, using my bridge example, if a city closes a broken bridge, you don't go to all the car manufacturers yelling at them to work with a now-closed bridge. What... would you go to every car vendor and complain? You have to yell at the city to open/fix the bridge. Just like you and I, Parallels too (and VMware, and VirtualBox, et al.) are all victims of this change that Microsoft made.

Don't know how else to explain this. If you still don't agree I'll guess we'll just have to disagree.