why upgrade

Hi

I am confused becuase I am running Windows 8 on my Mac using Parallels 7 ( not 8) just fine.

So what does the upgrade to P8 actually give me ?

 

mostly, a lighter wallet.

i'm still on 7 and running win 8 as well without major issue. the new "features" do not make the upgrade appealing to me.

most of the new features seem to be aimed at better support for mountain lion.
- having your windows applications show up in launchpad
- using dictation in windows if your mac supports it
- windows alerts show up in mountain lion notification area
- support for retina display, if your mac has one.

 

I dont have retina so I will stay with P7

Thanks

 

Can I use Window 8 iso update

Just activated my trial PD7. Newegg now had PD7 and a flash drive for free using their $25 rebate. Mine last week was $5, no flash drive using $20 rebate.

I already have windows 7 in BOOTCAMP and ||Parallels version, My Boot Camp, with the PD7. To install these I used a windows 7 update iso from the BootCamp Wizard. My friend made the iso for me from a windows 7 ultimate update disk I bought. Then I activated by CMD "Run as administrator" regedit press Enter HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/ and Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0. Then from the command prompt run slmgr /rearm and reboot windows. Direct activation would not work and I did not want to go through installing a previous windows OS and activating from within. This procedure now allowed the update Microsoft Product Key that would not work to now work for this clean install. No need to update from a previous install of windows.

Next I installed using a PD7 a ||Parallels "My Boot Camp". It needed activation as well. Luckily I had a second copy of windows 7 ultimate disk. I use this number directly to activate the vm copy of BOOTCAMP.

I now want to add a downloaded copy of windows 8 update iso, that I will use a flash drive to transfer from my HP standalone windows 7 machine to my new 2012 mac mini. I will use the procedure in kb.parallels.com/4729 to install it as an additional vm in PD7. Since the update key will not work in PD7 "Windows Product Key", I will uncheck "This version requires a product key". I want to keey my original windows 7 and PD7 window 7 vm intact and use window 8 vm for testing purposes.

Has anybody tried the above registry cmd options to activate windows 8 update from within PD7? I am pretty sure I read that this registry change procedure works on native window 8 PC's clean install using update windows 8 iso. This update 8 iso is only $40 for prior window 7 OS's or $15 if you have a recent window 7 machine. I have a copy of XP that I could use but not sure update will work for it PD7 window 8 installs, and do not want to go through all vm hassle if it does work to get to a clean copy of windows 8. The standalone window's 8 install disk/iso that I know will work is definitely way more money!

A second questions? If you can help as to how to run CMD as an administrator in windows 8, it will save me searching the web for it.

Sorry for the long post.

 

Using Windows 8 update iso for Clean install

I found a link in another thread to this article:

The comments in that article said you could use the $40 or $15 update versions to do a clean install of windows 8 in parallels.

Since I installed an HTPC recently with native window 7 on an HP I3 desktop, I used the coupon code Microsoft sent me in the coupon code field of the $40 offer to adjust the price to $15. I selected the option to save Windows 8 as an iso for later install. I did not use the option to burn this as a dvd. I did all this from my HP I3 native windows 7 machine, I then use a flash drive to copy the windows 8.iso and product key pasted in in windows 7 notepad as a text file to my mac mini.

0. I followed the kb.parallels.com/4729 for installing a virtual machine on a Mac. I used the PD7 version of parallels. Note: I uncheck the "this version requires a product key". Some of the other screen shot had slightly changed as well. I went for all the defaults with this exception and one other exception. The other exception was later I checked "Customize settings before installation". This allowed me in the process to select 2 CPU's and 4 GB of memory. I am using late 2012 mac-mini I7 2.3 GHZ with 16 GB of memory.

If your like me you will need to google how open regedit in Windows 8, run cmd as an administrator in Windows 8, reboot in Windows 8, and use the Control Panel in Windows 8. Note: I used Ctrl+Shift+Enter for "cmd" from the Search field as Enter only gives you Normal start of the "cmd" window. On my apple keyboard I actually used return where directions said enter.

1. Open regedit, entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
3. Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
4. Run cmd as an administrator. This is where I needed Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
5. Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit Enter.
6.. Reboot Windows now.
7. Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Windows Activation and enter your key.