I'm currently running Parallels Desktop 3.0 on my Mac Pro 2.66 Quad. Back in June, I set up Parallels to use my Boot Camp partition (with Windows XP). That whole process went fine and I have never had any issues either starting up with Boot Camp or using the Boot Camp partition as a VM under Parallels.
Ok, so NOW, I would like to add a second VM to my setup, this time installing Windows XP to a hard drive image, so that I will essentially have two XP machines available within Parallels (the first being my Boot Camp partition as before, and the second being this new disc image based VM I'm looking to create).
Note: I have two different copies of XP, with two separate serial numbers. The first one is Windows XP SP2 (installed on my Boot Camp partition), and the second copy (which I'm planning to install to the drive image) is Windows XP SP2 Corporate.
My concern (and the reason for this post) is that installing the second XP to the new virtual drive image will somehow mess up my original Boot Camp install. I've read a few posts where installing a second copy of XP on the same computer will cause the first copy to no longer be authenticated (or vice versa). From what I gather this has something to do with the way in which XP searches the host machine either during installation or startup (or both) for multiple copies of itself. If it finds a second copy, it either won't install/boot, or will disable the first one, or cause it to need to be re-authenticated.
Is this correct? And if so, is this true even when the second copy is a different version (Standard vs. Corporate) and using a different serial? I can't afford to have my Boot Camp partition become de-activated, even for a short time. (I've also made a Winclone in case of an emergency, but I'd rather not go there!)
Anyway, it seems like this should work fine, but my fear is after installing the second copy of XP, I'll try to go into Boot Camp and it will no longer work for some reason, either due to authentication issues, or something else in the process of installing the new VM that will carry over to the Boot Camp partition and screw it up. Is this founded, or am I just being paranoid?
Is there a basic process or some guidelines to follow to make sure this goes smoothly?
Last edited: Dec 18, 2007
