Windows 10 Bootcamp VM can't validate!

I spoke too soon. Windows activated both during native boot and within Parallels. That was the good news. Programs that I depend on would not open in Windows. These include Citrix Receiver and Dragon Medical Practice Edition. This happened in Bootcamp, in Parallels, and the new virtual machine. I was using Parallels 11. Rolled this back to version 10 and the problem continued.

 

Keep me updated as I too am having the same issue. MS helpline was not very helpful.

 

Seriously folks,.....Windows is activated in Bootcamp, but not in Parallels 11 running a VM. At some point,...will my Windows 10 stop working in the VM? Is there a time limit? The reason I ask is that I now have a "pop-up" on my desktop stating "Activate Windows".

Parallels Mod,...can you comment on this?

 

Same problem here. I had Windows 8.1 running on Bootcamp and Parallels 10 no problem.
I did not do an upgrade, but installed Windows 10 from a fresh copy. Bootcamp no problem, it is activated. In parallels it's not though.
This makes Parallels really useless to me. Where do we request a refund?

 

Same here. It would be nice if there's a solution for a combined BC/VM other than buying an additional Windows 10 license.

Not doing due diligence and checking here before upgrading to Windows 10 cost me a lot of time. Reverting back to an activated Windows 8 BC/VM setup was educational, to put it mildly. Among other things, I learned that Windows 10 in BC can't successfully restore the previous version of Windows and that Boot Camp Assistant failed to delete the Windows install.

 

I have done some investigation in to this issue and thought I would pass on some of my findings and successes. I have successful activated a bootcamp partition and a vm with hard drive connect to the bootcamp although activating one causes the other be become deactivated. When switching bootcamp and bootcamp VM (or vice versa)the OS first comes up deactivated but within a couple of minutes becomes activated. I have also found that if internet access is required for this to happen.

I have switched between both 5 times successfully. So far this seems to be workable. I also have made some progress as to what a windows activation is actually tied to. I have found that after an update from win7/win8.1 to window 10 the activation is tied to the physical machine. I believe Microsoft is using the bios GUID and manufacture information as part of the machine identifier. which can be seen in windows by the command "wmic csproduct" in windows. This GUID is set by the manufacture and is unique for for each machine.

I have tested this by replacing the hard drive in a machine and loading windows 10 skipping both requests for a activation key. Within minutes of restart of a completed installation the machine came up activated (requires internet access). Another discovery I have made is that each VM you create gets a unique GUID. It is in the config.pvs file in the vm,s bundle as the "VmUuid", "SourceVmUuid" xml tags. To change it you may edit this file when the vm is not running and deleted from parallels (save source when deleting) and open with parallels after editing. I have found you need to also edit the config.pvs.backup file to match. I have tested that Microsoft is using this by changing this GUID in a activated vm and after changing the machine came up deactivated and would not activate. Based on my tests and findings I don't believe a single instance of windows 10 can be activated on more then one machine at a time with out saving off info for each activation and restoring with each unique machine. But once Microsoft has a record of the initial activation of a machine and its GUID activation seems to occur automatically as long as internet access is available.

With this Knowledge this is how i setup my current configuration.

1. Create a Bootcamp partition and install of Win7/Win8.1 and upgrade to Win10. Once this is activated microsoft should have a record of your physical hardware and it unique GUID.

2. Create a Parallels VM and install of Win7/Win8.1 and upgrade to Win10. Once this is activated microsoft should have a record of this vm and it unique GUID.

3. Shutdown the vm you created in step 2.

4. Open configuration for the vm created in step 2 and go to the hardware tab and delete the hard drive(you may want to keep a copy of this vm before doing this). Now use the + to add a new hard drive. Select bootcamp as the type then select the bootcamp partition. click ok configure the desired mem etc... and start the vm.
Since the this VM and its GUID are all ready registered with Microsoft It should activate automatically.

Issues

I do not know if there any limitation on the number of activation for each unique machine. I suspected there is but i think it resets after a period of time. Perhaps this is why some people have experienced a need to wait 24 to 48 hours for activation to occur. The only test for this is to use it. I personally don't change back and forth that often and I believe this will work for me.
PS

I believe the only differences that Microsoft can detect in a parallels VM is the GUID as the hardware is the same for all vm created. This would mean that you could create a new vm and set it,s GUID to one that has been registered and get automatic activation but I have not tested this. I also do not know the implications of having more then one vm with the same GUID. I would suspect that parallels might uses then uniquely identify the VM's.

Hope this helps let me know if you have any questions

 

Came back to check on this thread. So still no go for anyone and no updates from Parallels? No good paying for an update at this point either then? Parallels is pretty much useless if you can't boot Windows 10 from Bootcamp in a VM - this is the whole reason I bought a copy.

 

Very Impressive !!! I wish you were working for Parallels. It seems that you completely understand what is happening here. I hope they figure this out soon.
Without Windows 10 being validated,...will it "shut-down" after a period of time?

 

I'm in the same boat. I thought Parallels 11 would fix this but apparently not. In bootcamp, Windows is activated and OneDrive works fine. Running in Parallels, it's not activated, updates don't work, and most crippingly OneDrive also does not work. Am I the only one who can't get OneDrive to work w/ the unactivated scenario?

I've upgraded and clean installed several times and neither way fixed this.

 

After filing a report with Parallels with all the technical information about this issue, I received a call from an employee verifying that they know of this issue and the engineers are working on this problem. I feel a little more confident that they are interested in resolving the "Validate" issues that are currently existing. FYI.

 

Just saying I am having the same Windows 10 problem as everybody else here (for me, the native side is validated).
BUT... I also have a problem with Office 2013, for the very same reason.

Had an MS tech look into it and he seemed competent. At the same said I should wait it out.

 

And now... I had an MS tech solve the Office 2013 problem for me. Guess what? Now the VM side works (took HOURS on the phone and allowing remote assistance). But the native side no longer does. *sigh*

 

Problem solved.

I am now confident that the issue lies with the upgrade version of Windows 10 and Hardware ID of the system. Windows 10 Upgrade cannot be dual-activated, as is required to run it under any VM as well as "native" Boot Camp. You need a retail version - which will set you back some 275 euros...

My problem has been solved after I purchased a retail version of Windows 10 Pro.
Under "native" Boot Camp, I replaced the upgrade-related key with the retail key, using the "Change product key" button on Win10 'Settings - Update & Security - Activation'.

I then proceeded to launch "My Boot Camp" under Parallels. In Windows, I opened admin Command Prompt.
By entering "slui 4" a dialog opened to utilise the Microsoft Phone Activation, giving correct phone number via country selection. (Note this would'n work with Upgrade Win10 - the "Settings" dialog would simply hang.)

The Phone activation proceeded succesfully - and Windows 10 is now activated both under Boot Camp as well as Parallels "My Boot Camp".

See this discussion: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...e/578d0b7f-57e4-4893-b9d1-6cfac0d6290a?page=1

"Q: What happens if I change the hardware configuration of my Windows 10 device?
A: If the hardware configuration of your Windows 10 device changes significantly (e.g. motherboard change) Windows may require re-activation on the device. This is the same experience as prior versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1). The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation."

Especially note:
" The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation."

This is exactly what happens when Boot Camp installation of Windows is to be activated under Parallels after Boot Camp activation - or vice versa. The "hardware" - and thus the hardware ID - is changed, causing Windows to lose activation and Free Upgrade cannot be activated for two hardware configurations with different Hardware IDs.

I have submitted this information back to Parallels Support, on Ticket [Parallels #2156958]

 

Dear JukkaL,

thanks so much for sharing your insight. Seems that going back to Win7/8 then doing the free upgrade on the "other side" should then also work,
as someone pointed out earlier?

Anyway -- have you got any experience here with Office 2013 ? This is also a problem for me as I cannot seem to activate both sides (native and
VM) for Office 2013 as well.

Thanks,
Enver

 

Hi EnverH,
Unfortunately I do not have any experience with Office 2013. We use Office365, that seem to work fine on both sides.
Anyone else care to contribute?

 

I went through the pain of installing Win7 (same version and key as on BootCamp partition before I had it updated to Windows 10) to the VM, only I had the VM use a HDD file instead of the real partition. RAM, CPU, network card... all the same compared to the non-activated version. So this activated Win10 for me. I switched back to the BootCamp partition - it gives me a few seconds of "Product ID: not available" then tells me Win10 was activated. All right then... gonna delete the temp HDD file. What a hoop to jump through.

 

I have the same issue since upgrading my Bootcamp partition to Windows 10. The Bootcamp partition is activated but the VM that uses the bootcamp partition won't activate and I am pointed to get another copy of Windows when I try to activate it. I have read through the processes and solutions posed by JukkaL and JohnB6 but both of these are effectively using a second licence to enable the VM to work. Is there any method that enables the VM to also be activated without the use of a 2nd Windows 7/8.1 licence or purchase of a new copy of Windows 10?

 

RogerB2, you need to use a 2nd partition where you install and activate Windows 7 again (old license!) then upgrade this Windows 7 to Windows 10. No need to purchase a second Windows 7 key. I am talking of the tech requirements here - no idea what Microsoft deems legal and what not.

 

Hi EnverH, please can you expand, I already have a Bootcamp partition with Windows 10 working and activated but when in OS X the bootcamp based VM won't activate. Do you mean that I re-use the same Windows 8.1 installation media and licence key to create a VM on the Mac and then upgrade that to Windows 10, and it will then allow the Bootcamp based VM to activate?

 

Hello,

Just to say that I had the same problem : Bootcamp activated but not the VM.

I used the microsoft support to find help. I was in a webchat with a guy from the support. I described my problem and he just asked me my Win 7 key and generate a new one for my VM (10 minutes to solve my problem).

Also when you are in the configuration panel if you click "change key" the window of the configuration panel might freeze. To bypass that you have to do :

start > run > slui 3 and paste the new key in the windows that's showed up.
Now both are activated.

Hope it helps.