XP Pro SP2 OEM on VMware Fusion?

[alexstanhope]

I just purchased VMware Fusion today via digital download and was very much looking forward to installing a genuine Windows XP Pro SP2 VM on my shiny new MacBook Pro.

The XP CD was unopened prior to my attempts to install it on the VM today, and was originally purchased along with parts for a PC I was going to build a while back. As such, it has never been used on any other computer.

However, every time I have tried to use it, I get "The Product Id is not valid" messages - will it be possible for me to use it with VMware at all, or will I have to try and find a full XP disc somewhere now? It seems like a pity as the disc I currently have is 100% genuine!

[admin]

Try pangchen's post in Utilizing OEM software[/url]

[alexstanhope]

Thanks for the speedy response to my initial post etung!

Reading through the thread you linked to, it looks like I'm in exactly the same boat as the person who initiated it - for example, my XP install disk "disappears" from the Mac desktop when VMware tries to run it...

However, I'm really not sure where the vmx files referred to in that post might actually "live" on my Mac - any guidance on this would be very much appreciated!

[admin]

The default location of non-Boot Camp virtual machines is ~/Documents/Virtual Machines/. You can check the location by looking at the Library window in Fusion and hovering over the one you're interested in - a tooltip should pop up with the complete path.

Fusion creates virtual machines as "bundles" - they're special directories that OS X pretends is a file. The .vmx file you want to edit lives in this bundle, so you need to tell OS X to show you the contents of the bundle. In the Finder, ctrl-click the bundle that you just located and select Show Package Contents.

Finally, use a text editor to edit the .vmx file. Be sure that the virtual machine is shut down and Fusion isn't running when you do this, you don't want to change it out from under them.

[alexstanhope]

Thanks for the help etung - I was able to edit the .vmx file successfully with your advice - but when I restarted VMware, the XP installer is still rejecting a perfectly good MS Product Key by the looks of things 😐

[admin]

Hmm, try editing ~/Library/Preferences /VMware Fusion/preferences (create it if it's not there); perhaps pangchen was confused about where it goes.