Hi, I'm planning to buy Parallels to run Windows Seven, but i've heard of an issue which could make it unusable to me. I heard that the activation key you get from MSDN Academic Alliance (most of universities around the world use this) is dependant of the hardware profile on which you install windows. This would cause that the key gets revoked if you install Windows Seven on Bootcamp and use this partition for your Parralels virtual machine. In other words, you would be able to use Windows Seven either on Bootcamp or on Parallels, but not both. I've read this topic : How to: Resolve trouble between Parallels and Windows under Boot Camp, which adresses the same kind of issue but concerning Windows XP and Vista. So my question is : is it possible to avoid those activation key issues when running Windows Seven under Parralels and Bootcamp, and if it is, how is it done ? Thanks !
I would like to know the same thing. Well actually, I have an answer for you. I activated fine under Boot Camp, then booted into Parallels. Installed ParallelsTools, Windows complained that I had 3 days to re-activate (said something about changing the hardware profile on their servers), which indicated to me that, if I had gone through with it, as soon as I booted back into Boot Camp, it would have forced me to reactivate again. I dunno if there's any way around this, but it kinda makes Parallels w/ Win7 useless (if you're using Boot Camp).
From what I understand, you need to activate after Parallels Tools is installed. After that point, it should keep its activation code in both Boot Camp and Parallels. Note that if you activate too many times over a short period, you might need to use Microsoft's phone system to activate, but it will let you do that as long as you tell it that you have installed Windows only on 1 PC. It takes about 6 minutes to use the phone service.
Hmm, so if I do that, it will be activated under both Parallels -and- Boot Camp? i.e. if I activate it now under Parallels, it won't force me to re-activate again when I go back to Boot Camp, even though the "hardware" technically changed?
That's why you need to have Parallels Tools installed. It preserves the Windows 7 activation code created in the virtual machine so that Windows doesn't keep reporting significant hardware changes when you go back and forth between Parallels and Boot Camp.
This sounds good. But is different from my experience using Office 2007 on Windows XP. Every time I switch from bootcamp <=> parallels starting Windows XP, and open an Office application, it wants to re-activate. Even though I have parallels tools installed. The Windows XP I use does not need activation at all, so I don't have problems with that. But now I will be upgrading to Windows 7 and that will need to use the MAK activation. I hope you are right, and that I will have to activate just twice (once in bootcamp and once in parallels). And NOT everytime I switch bootcamp <=> parallels
