Starting a VM on a different PC gives me an application tying to activate again

[fabio_dalfonso]

Hi,

I use artisteer for web templating and today I moved my VM on a different PC and discovered that the software is trying to activate again.

As the VM is restarted on the original PC the software reads the activation data and starts regularly. So there is actually something that is not same between the two situations, while I always thought that VMware isolates completely the VM from the underlying PC.

Any idea about this? In this way I loose the ability to move the VM, and this makes the issue big.

Hopefully there is a solution. The VM is an XP and the hosts are both Win7. The only difference is that the second (both ultimate) is italian and the original (together with the VM) is english.

I note this as I see some mix in the languages in the VM.

Thanks in advance.

Fabio D'Alfonso

[WoodyZ]

No, the Guest is not completely isolated and what you're seeing is quite normal and expected.  The Guest OS see a different CPU and also the MAC Address for the Network Adapter if you choose "I copied it" vs. "I moved it" when prompted.

As far as the situation with the software you're using that's not a VMware issue and is between you and the Artisteer software manufacture.  If you can ascertain how the application stores its activation information you might be able to capture it and restore it based on the two different Hosts.  As an example with Windows XP running on a Mac on the Boot Camp partition and the Boot Camp partition being run as a Virtual Machine the WPA Database is captured under each environment and swapped back and forth managed by VMware Tools.  This is a legitimate workaround because that singular install of the OS is only being run on one physical machine and only one occurrence at a time, either natively or as a VM.  To do something similar in your situation may violate the EULA of the product so I'm not going to provide any of the technical details of how to accomplish the task.

[fabio_dalfonso]

Hi,

thanks.

I understand is not an issue with VMware, more with usage of some software with VMware. Only I have never experienced such issues and was not thinking about the CPU contribution to the hardware identification from some programs.

This makes me a problem as I cannot rely on VM for portabilty , with some application.

Thanks

Fabio D'Alfonso