Windows 8 activation broken when upgrading to Parallels 10

I

IgnacioS

Bit poster
Hello All.

Since upgrading to Parallels 10 my Windows 8 original copy cannot be activated again.

I get the error 0xC004C008 when trying to use the original Windows key. This error seems to be related to the number of PCs using this key, however, I only use it in the VM.

I think it has something to do with the upgrade of Parallels.

Can someone please help me out?

Thank you!
 
Did you do anything to change the VM's virtual hardware? Maybe change the VM to one of the new profiles?
Pre-existing VMs should be left alone at what would likely be "Productivity (modified)", to avoid this problem.

This is purely going from memory, so it may not be correct.

Each version of Windows since XP that needs activation, has a 'hardware changes threshold'. Basically, once an amount of certain things get changed an activated machine is treated like a different machine and deactivated. Attempting to reactivate will throw up that error.

Essentially, part of the activation process creates a 'system signature', if the hardware differs too much from the time of activation, the signature doesn't match enough for Windows to accept that it is running on the same machine.

The solution is to call up Microsoft and reactivate over the phone.
 
Last edited:
I did nothing to change the hardware, other than upgrading from Parallels 9 to Parallels 10.

I followed your advice to activate MS Windows by calling Microsoft and it worked.

Thank you very much!
 
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