Hi People... Thanks to you guys I actually managed to get XP to boot using Parallels (after much hair pulling!) Just spent the last couple of hours installing Parallels and getting it to work with my boot camp installation of XP. It wasn't until I started reading on here that I realised it wasn't working because I had a USB hard drive plugged in!! Unplugged it, and hey Presto! I've also spent a bit of time trying to find out the score with XP activation.... I do have a legitimate copy that I bought (OEM version of XP home). When I booted my boot camp XP partition using parallels it said that significant hardware changes have been made - you must reactivate Windows. My question is this.... Can I just tell XP to go and activate via the internet, and hope it just works? Or do I need to call Microsoft to get another key? If I put a new key into XP using Parallels, will that effect XP if I want to boot into windows via Boot Camp? (i.e. each time I boot either using boot camp or parallels will it keep finding major hardware changes?) Can I boot into XP via both boot camp and Parallels without issue? Sorry.... loads of questions!! Your help would be greatly appreciated peeps.
Microsoft was preety good in re-activating a non-viable copy. Call them and tell them you made significant changes to the machine. They will give you a new code. It will absolutely not affect your bootcamp copy.
I'll second that. Give them a call and there won't be a problem. A nice woman did ask a couple of times if I was installing on the same machine, but I mentioned the bootcamp/parallels thing and all was well. John B.
Thanks for the info. guys.... Are you guys in the US? Does anyone have a number I can call in the UK?
A simple click on "contact us" on the GB Microsoft support site gives this info: http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support
Just call them. Tell them it is the same machine, and that it is the only computer XP is installed on. All should be fine.
