Activation Nightmare

[decker12]

MacBook Pro, Bootcamp 1.3, Windows XP SP2.

I have Parallels, and I'm not too happy with it. Head over to the Parallels forums, I have the same problems as most other people with the product.

A friend sent me the link to VMware Fusion. Neat, a Parallels replacement, I'll give the demo a try.

Installed the demo, fired up VMWare, it booted up my Bootcamp partition fine, first time.

Wait, what's this? My hardware has changed and now I have 3 days to reactivate Windows XP?

Nah, forget it, I'm not about to call Bangalore again and wait on hold for 2 hours trying to explain that I have a Mac, I'm trying to activate Windows in a virtualized environment, blah blah blah.

Sorry VMWare, I'll just wait for you guys to figure out the Bootcamp activation problem that seems to constantly elude the Parallels folks as well. Close, uninstall, see ya in 6 months.

So I fire back up Parallels, and low and behold, I have 3 days to activate again!

I reboot into Bootcamp using the Option key, and you guess it, 3 day to activate again?

So... how can I fix this and get my Windows system back all Activated and ready to go, just like it was before I installed the VMware demo?

[Jimbode]

Ther should be no activation issues wit XP. The steps are:

1. Activate from booting Boot Camp

2. Start Boot Camp with Fusion

3. Install VMware Tools

4. Activate from within Fusion

5. No more activation issues

Unfortunately I'm not sure what happens when you throw Parallels into the equation...

[marcusaurelius]

Fusion Release Notes mentions this :

http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/releasenotes_fusion.html#issues

- VMware Fusion supports Boot Camp partitions running Windows XP, and provides experimental support for Boot Camp partitions running Windows Vista.

Note that with Boot Camp partitions running Windows Vista, you must reactivate Windows each time you switch between your Boot Camp partition and virtual machine.

Also the "Converting a Parallels Virtual Machine to run in Fusion" document (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/fusion_vm_from_parallels.pdf) covers this on pgs. 1 ("Limitations of this technique" section), and 11 ("Powering On the New Virtual Machine for the First Time" section) :

- If your copy of Windows was not licensed with a volume‐license key, you might need to reactivate it when it is booted up inside VMware Fusion.

\- If Windows asks you to reactivate, decline the opportunity to do so for now. It will be much easier to reactivate when VMware Tools has been installed.[/i]

[decker12]

Thanks for the links, however I'm still a bit confused as to my recovery process.. so let me recap my situation:

A couple of months ago, XP had already been activated from booting Boot Camp.

Just an hour ago, I installed VMware, started up XP inside of VMware, logged into my account, saw the Activation box, and shut down Windows. I was inside of VMware for all of 1 minute, I didn't install the VMware tools or anything of that matter. As soon as I saw the Activation warning box pop up I knew something wasn't cool and bailed out the demo experience as fast as I could.

Now, as stared above, I restart my Bootcamp using the option key, and now it's asking me to reactivate windows (within 3 days!). VMWare demo at this point shouldn't even be a factor. Opening up Parallels provides the same error.

So, I just need to get Windows back to the activated, happy, ready to use stage that it was at before I installed this VMWare Fusion demo.

I have previously done this dance with Microsoft, my Macbook Pro, and Parallels, and I'm pretty sure I'm only allowed a certain number of "reactivations" via the Microsoft phone system in a certain period of months. As of right now, the only thing that's changed on my XP system is pre-VMware demo, it was activated and ready to go, and now no matter how I try to boot into it, it's asking me to reactivate.

[justflybob]

decker12,

Well, maybe it's just me, as I have gone through this process perhaps a dozen times in the past three months....

but, did you attempt to reactivate through the Activate Windows tool that pops up once SP2 in installed?

Granted, doing the Bangalore thing is a royal pain, but of my last three activations, two where by phone. I simply read off the numbers to the automated system and I was done. It took perhaps five minutes, and no annoying language barriers.

The last time I was able to activate just through my internet connection. So, I believe at least in my case that the program appears to have "learned" that I am in a VM product on another platform.

Give it a whirl! "-)

[Harliv]

Now that you are this far in your probably have to go through the activation. The best thing to do would be to follow the instructions and activate it from within VMware. Once you do that everything should be fine and you will not need to activate again.

[decker12]

Well, I remember during the whole Parallels / Bootcamp issue I wasn't able to use the Internet to quickly activate the XP, and I had to call them and do it via their automated system. It wasn't that hard to do and worked fine.

Is it known if I am allowed only a certain number of re-activations in a certain time period? If not, then no worries, I'll call and redo my activation, and I'll try out Bootcamp and give VMware it's 30 day demo.

I am just concerned that I can only reactivate a certain number of times, and on day 12 of my VMware demo I'll find some dealbreaker that Parallels can do by Vmware can't. Then I'll go and uninstall VMware, fire up Parallels, it'll yell at me for activation again, I'll call and they'll tell me tough cookies. Then, I'll have to go buy another copy of Windows XP, all to get back to the point that I was at an hour ago before I installed VMware.

[jonoslack]

I don't believe there is any limit to the number of activations.

You just have to convince them that it's all on the same machine (I've done it at least 4 0r 5 times in the conversion between Parallels and VMware Fusion.

All I can say to help you is that it's worth the effort - after a year struggling to make Parallels useful, Fusion is faster, stable - a joy in fact.

best wishes

jonathan slack

[decker12]

Great, thanks, I will certainly give it a try! I'll follow the activation order listed above and hopefully the thing will work out the first time.

[decker12]

THanks again guys, the activation stuff worked like a charm. Strangely, I was able to Internet Activate on the Bootcamp side, but I had to call to activate in the VMware side.

So far so good, looking forward to continuing my evaluation!

[theRocket]

I followed the advice given by Pat Lee in the sticky 1.0 Release announcement at the top of the forum (http://www.vmware.com/community/ann.jspa?annID=390) to uninstall VMTools added from beta versions and reinstall again for "the best performance".

This caused me to experience this activation issue, which does not seem quite worth it. The internet activation failed, so now I am making a phone call. After finally getting over all the other beta issues (VPN, USB, screens, etc.), the last thing I want to do is troubleshoot this program anymore!

Just a warning.

[theRocket]

Let me retract that previous statement one notch. After the first round of "Install VMTools", my Internet activation failed. My mouse driver and Unity settings were not working properly so I tried "Update VMTools" again. This time all was okay. I had to do the Internet activation, but it succeeded.

[timodell]

There is a limit to the number of times that you can reload Windows XP. I have experienced it twice now. I loaded XP n[/i] times (how many I don't know) into Parallels and now into VMWare Fusion. Had to call the Indian office and have them reactivate my OEM XP which I purchased when I bought my MacBook Pro and Parallels 2 last year in December. Since then I have had to call the Indian office twice to reactive. And if I reinstall in several times in either WMWare or Parallels I will probably have to do the same. Only reason I have XP is that Oracle hasn't created a Oracle 10gR2 version of there database for the Mac Intel. Once that happens, I am blasting VMWare and Parallels off my machine. Find that Parallels 3.0 is much faster than the VMWare Fusion release. Have had to reboot my mac, turn off programs (QuickSilver, specifically) to keep the DVD from spinning like a mad top (and it locked up my entire machine, the install using all my processor time). The RC1 release worked far better that the 1.0 release for me. In fact, I think that the 1.0 release went backward in functionality instead of forward.

[VTMac]

As another datapoint, I've found exactly the opposite - also running Parallels and Fusion for the purpose of Oracle. BTW, I'm running both 10g and 9i in both Windows and Redhat VMs. Fusion is lightyears ahead of Parallels in terms of stability, performance, and resource consumption.

[timodell]

Opposite to what? Not having to reactivate XP? Stability? etc. As to Oracle, I am using Oracle XE but want to use JDeveloper/SQL Developer from the Mac side and only have the database running in the VM. I have got it working with XP under Parallels, never got it to work with Linux under either VMWare or Paralles. If I could get the database to talk to the VM under either product, then I would not have to have XP.

As to the reactivation, I have had to reactivate twice, even before I ever owned a Mac.