Activation - Bootcamp and Fusion

[CKMac]

I have been trying to work with Parallels for some time and have been frustrated, and decided to try Fusion instead. To my dismay, the same thing stopping me from using Parallels is also a problem in Fusion - so I'm stuck.

What I'm trying to do is use both Boot Camp and Fusion on the same MacBook Pro, running Windows Vista. I have created a Boot Camp partition and it is up and running perfectly. I install Fusion and tell it to use my Boot Camp partition. All is well - except that when Windows is running under Fusion, it wants to be activated. When running under Boot Camp, it is fine. If I activate it in Fusion, then it needs to be reactivated under Boot Camp. Is it just impossible to do what I'm trying to do? It seems like all the necessary functionality is there, but the Activation thing is killing it.

So, after throwing good money after bad, I have deinstalled Fusion and it now sits on the shelf next to Parallels.

Is there any chance at all that this problem will get fixed? I can't believe I'm the only other person running this way. Has anyone overcome this problem? Will VMWare ever fix it?

[wdeboer]

Yes, Vista has problems activation wise. As far as I understand it Vista Bootcamp support is experimental in version 1.0 of VMWare Fusion. I would expect they will fix it in a later update, the main reason it's not supported was because Vista support Boot Camp came so late in the beta program and VMWare was unable to find a satisfying way to solve it.

[Mr_H1]

Microsoft made the lovely decision to only "allow" Vista to run in a virtualised machine if you've got Vista Ultimate. In all other versions, running the OS in a virtual machine is contrary to the end user licence agreement, and presumably activation will ultimately fail (assuming Microsoft can tell whether the OS is running in a virtual machine or not).

[admin]

As wdeboer said, Vista reactivation between Boot Camp and Fusion was not solved for 1.0, and is the major reason Boot Camp + Vista support is experimental. The developers are aware that people would like to do this. This issue was noted in the release notes and discussed on the forum in multiple threads, and you could have tried this on any of the betas/RC before purchasing.

[SMB1]

Only Home versions have this limitation in their EULA. Business, Enterprise and Ultimate are all vitualizable.

[Mr_H1]

OK, thanks for the clarification.

[flipdoubt]

When I ran the release candidate, Vista claimed it required activation when running in Fusion but the ticker never got below 3 days.

I have since uninstalled the release candidate as I waited for the Gold release. Since this is Day 0, we can't tell whether it ticks below 3 days on the Gold release. Any info from VMware on this?

[romman]

Only Home versions have this limitation in their

EULA. Business, Enterprise and Ultimate are all

vitualizable.

I have noticed the same thing. I was able to virtualize Vista business

[cherrala]

I installed the trial version of Fusion on my MacBook Pro that already has Bootcamp installed with Windows XP SP2 and ran into the same issue. If I booted Windows using Fusion it asked to be activated due to major changes in hardware. Then I tried booting with Bootcamp and got the same message. Is this something that is going to be fixed or is it a Windows licensing issue. I love the VMWare product but I do still need to run Windows in the Bootcamp environment due to some 3D CAD programs.

[getwired]

It's a Windows licensing issue.

[admin]

Did you install VMware Tools? Once you do this and activate up to once more in BootCamp / Fusion, XP should not ask you to reactivate any more.

[ericthered]

Not a knock on Fusion, but the MS Activation crap really pissed me off. Since I've "used up" my activations on various incarnations of my PC and then moving the install over to bootcamp when I finally took my windows box to the recycler, I have to call some poor call center slave in India. Took my over 2 hours on the phone last night getting through the BS but everything works great now.

[cherrala]

I did not install VMWare Tools, I will give that a try. Thanks.

[cherrala]

Thanks, that did the trick