Slightly Different Windows 10 Activation problem.

[JK43232]

Hello All,

I have combed through the threads here and the articles in the Knowledge Base.  Although I have found many posts that are similar to my issue, none that directly address this particular case.  I will also add that back in 2014 I had no issue getting Windows 7 to activate in a Boot Camp partition AND in a VM running the Boot Camp partition, so I am not completely clueless, I think . . . .

Here is how it went down.

I have a 2014 Retina MBP with and SSD drive.  I am running OS X 10.11.6 and Windows 10

Purchased a copy of Windows 10 Home X64.

Did a number of test install with and without Boot Camp Assistant to see how installing Windows 10 affected the partition table and how it played with a CoreStorage Volume created when installing Windows 10, and again how it plays when reverting that CoreStorage volume back to an HFS+ volume.

At the time I was NOT aware that Windows 10 will AUTOMATICALLY activate in some (or ALL??) cases.  Something I find very troubling.  In any event, without my noticing, at some point it activated without my realizing during one of the test installs.

Once I was done "testing" Windows 10 installs I did a final install.  When I went to activate that install I got the "We can't activate Windows on this device as the product you entered has already been used on a different device  Error code: 0x004C008."  I then used the "Activate by Phone" route, gave them the "Installation ID" and received a "Confirmation ID" in return, entered that and now have an activated install of Windows 10 on the Boot Camp partition.

I installed Fusion 8.5.3 and used the "Create a Boot Camp virtual machine" to run from the Boot Camp partition in a VM.  Fusion automatically installed the VMware Tools at the same time.

Now when I run the Boot Camp partition in the VM I once again get the "We can't activate Windows on this device as the product you entered has already been used on a different device  Error code: 0x004C008."

I am not clear on exactly how the the "Activate by Phone" - Installation ID and - Confirmation ID work.  Do I need to enter that same Confirmation ID when running that Boot Camp partition from a VM???

Any insight or assistance would be greatly appreciated

John

[hyan]

Hi JK43232,

Welcome at Fusion community~!

One thing should be clarified before answer your question, running Boot Camp as a VM will change hardware information which was recorded in the Boot Camp Partition, because VM is using some virtual devices instead of physical devices, so Boot Camp OS will ask to re-activate the system for hardware changing when you switch using Boot Camp from physical to virtual mode. And, this also will happen when you back to physical from virtual mode.

For avoiding this repeated activation, Fusion will save the activated information into the Boot Camp partition, it includes 2 parts, one is obtained under physical mode, another under virtual mode. So, you must activate the Boot Camp under both mode, so that Fusion could help you to activate system automatically without connect to MS server.

Back to your question, yes, you have to activate your Boot Camp twice (under physical and virtual mode) and make sure the activation is valid. If hit the activation issue, you should contact with MS.

Hope this could help, thanks.

Harry