Windows 8 Pro won't activate

Just spent 2 hours on phone with 4 different Microsoft Support Techs.

Tried to upgrade from Windows 8 preview to windows 8 pro under Parallels 8. (not a Parallels problem)

Will not install media center etc. components to Windows 8 Preview. Keeps saying Windows 8 already installed and bad activation code.
2 of the 4 techs at MS acknowledged it is a known problem, due to a bad link. 5th Level 2 tech will call me tomorrow with "fix".

So if you're trying to upgrade from 8 release preview you may want to wait.

 

Windows 8 pro will not activate

Same problem here.
I entered the key on installing and during the setup. But once I go into the settings screen it seems windows 8 was not activated and on entering the code he doesn' t accept it anymore.

 

Having the same exact issue. I submitted a trouble ticket.

 

Same issue here!

 

Spent 10 hours (several hours needed for download due to slow servers) with Level 2 MS support on Sunday. We created a thumb drive clean install. Still didn't work. Support guy (who was very helpful and knowledgeable) had to get a different activation code from his supervisor. Also needed to delete old and create new VM.
Everything now works perfectly. They don't have much experience with Macs and Parallels but learned amazingly quick.
Good, rewarding, but very long experience.

 

Exact same problem here. Anyone else find a solution that works (apart from begging MS for a different key?). Thanks!

 

I have the same problem. Any solution from Parallels?

 

This what worked for me. I installed W8 via the BootCamp, then the Parallels 8 and later imported the bootcamp windows install. Once in parallels, I was able to activate W8 with the key. Prior to this, I tried to do a clean install of W8 via Parallels, but had the same issues as all of you.

 

Im having trouble too.

- Installed Windows 8 under boot camp then activated it.
- Installed parallels 8 and created a new VM and imported the Windows 8 from boot camp
- Now Windows 8 under parallels is asking for re-activation but says the previous key is used on another machine.

What have i done wrong?

Cheers

James

 

I did not activate the W8 under bootcamp. I activated the Windows once imported into Parallels. Thanks
P.S. One more thing, make sure you disconnect the floppy service and configure your ethernet card in the bridged mode.

 

OK so activation works in both parrallels and under bootcamp?

If so this means im gonna have fun today re-installing everything

Thanks for your quick reply

James

 

Honestly, once activated in parallels, I never used windows under bootcamp even though W8 runs much, much faster in BooCamp.

 

As it was stated in the first post:

Will wait for Microsoft support to fix it on their side

 

Same here

Is there a Microsoft bug ID or Parallels issue ID for this that we can track / subscribe to, in order to find the latest updates?

 

Potential fix / workaround?

I found a link in another thread to this article:

1. Open regedit by pressing Windows-q, entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
3. Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
4. Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.
5. Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.
6. Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.
7. Reboot Windows now.

I followed the steps listed, and rebooted. I didn't need to activate my copy of Windows Pro 8, it seems to have "unblocked the pipes" and straight after reboot I see "Windows is activated" in:
Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Windows Activation

 

Same issue here. Says the product key is already used by another PC

 

Fix for problem with edits and better instructions

For those of you still struggling with getting this to work properly, with a bit of searching and trial and error I finally got it to work. When I installed Parallels 8 and Windows 8 it seemed to work fine, until I had to update Windows and then realized it didn't activate properly when it was installed.

Ok, to clarify the earlier post by the user above is correct for the most part. Using my new Imac with Mountain Lion, and my newly installed Parallels 8, I thought it would work fine since I bought a full retail version of Windows 8.

I found it a bit confusing to navigate in Windows 8 within MacOS, but here we go a more detailed explanation and step by step to fix this problem.


1. Open regedit by pressing Windows-R <<< it's R (not Q as mentioned earlier, R stands for Run command). (which if you have an iMac means you hold down the COMMAND button and the letter -R) entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/


3. Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0

You do this by selecting the item "MediaBootInstall", click on it, and it will highlight, then you can type in '0' as the value, hexadecimal or decimal doesn't seem to matter.

4. Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.

Note: To get back to the Windows 8 start screen, you just hit "COMMAND" key on your iMac keyboard
Then yes, you just start typing "cmd" and on the screen you will see command prompt appear as an app icon


5. Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.

If you highlight the command prompt icon and then right click it, then at the bottom of the screen you will see the option to run as administrator.


6. Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.

Now you're almost there! If you then type at the command prompt: slmgr /rearm
and then hit enter, it should return you to the command prompt.

Exit out of the command prompt window.

7. Reboot Windows now.

You reboot in Parallels, by shutting down the Windows 8 VM. On your bottom left you will see the option to shut down and do that. If you did this correctly, the next time you open Parallels it will say Windows 8 click to start.


As noted above by the other user / member, if you already installed Parallels with your Windows Pro 8, then you don't need to do anything else, it should be already activated.

Go to:

Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Windows Activation

and you will see that it is properly activated. To find Control Panel, hit the COMMAND button again (which is equal to the Windows button) and then just start typing Control Panel and then it will show up.

Windows 8 is interesting in that you just start typing from the start screen to find the things you are looking for, so it's pretty intuitive, but it would have been nice to have at least a shortcut page so you have a chance to figure it out without googling all this information.

Hope this above information helps save someone else alot of time. I know that alot of the instructions out there are pretty vague, but I wanted to fill the gap by helping out.

Cheers,

 

^^ Worked for me! Thanks!!!

 

Does the workaround handle both cases?

Curious if anyone has tried the workaround described above and then launched directly from BootCamp? Everything still look activated there?

 

Thanks for the detailed workaround! we will document it!