Problem Installing Windows

[adidasin305]

Hi evreyone, I am new here, and i've been searching and searching and going to the apple store and other places to try and figure out this problem. I've been trying to get vista installed to my mac with fusion for over 2 months now and finally this is my last resort.

My problem is I keep getting the error message "to use the product key you entered, start the installation from your existing version of Windows."

I went and deleted any old virtual machines, and even went through my files and made sure there was no file that had to do with windows or virtual machines that might be interfering.

(that is what the guy at computer village told me to check, he wanted to charge $90 to do it himself) But I still cant get it to work! suggestions please??

I appreciate any help!

Thank you

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

My problem is I keep getting the error message "to use the product key you entered, start the installation from your existing version of Windows."

From the sound of the message I'd say your using a Upgrade Version of Windows Vista not a Full Retail Install attempting to installing it on a machine that does not have a existing OS installed and if that is the case then licensing/legal issues aside the only suggestion I can make that used to work when Vista first came out however I do not know if it still does with later releases like an SP1/SP2 version is to have a look at the following and see where you can get from there.

How to Clean Install Windows Vista with Upgrade Media

BTW I really do not see the as a Fusion issue per se although not enough fact have been presented to rule it out completely.

[adidasin305]

wow thats exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Youre right and I diddnt even realize, I got this vista from a friend who bought it by accident and I didnt see that it was an upgrade.

One more newbie quesion woodyz, what is a good amount of hard drive memory and ram to allocate to the virtual machine given that I wont be using it very heavily?

Is there some sort of secret recipe to running windows efficiently?

[WoodyZ]

I'm sure there are a few secret recipes out there however it really all depends on what physical resources the Host has available and what is going to be running in the Virtual Machine and then if there will be concurrent/simultaneous heavy usage of both the Host and Guest and not knowing anything about the Host or what you intend to install or run in the Guest I'm not going to waste time with different scenarios however I'd start by taking the defaults set by Fusion for a Windows Vista Virtual Machine and increase the amount of RAM and Hard Disk size as needed.

[adidasin305]

awesome, im going to install it right now and post my result