Hello- I recently installed Windows 7 on a Boot Camp partition and am using the recently updated release of Boot Camp (3.1). After I installed Win 7, I didn't activate it yet because I wanted to install Parallels Desktop 5 first. I think I read somewhere (can't seem to find it again) to ensure that activation of Windows is done using Parallels Tools so that Windows can be booted from either BC or PD without it asking you to reactivate. I had this problem with WinXP way back when I was using PD v.1. And I didn't upgrade until now. I just want to make sure the procedure is the same or if it's different with the newer versions of...well, everything. Does anyone have an answer and be willing to help me out? Thank you. Cris Macbook (2,1) Snow Leopard Windows 7 Ultimate Parallels Desktop 5
I surely hope that someone who knows, unambiguously, will respond to your issue. A straight and accurate answer would help me quite a bit too. I have lost and reestablished activation several times now, and fortunately (this may help you) the phone activation and reactivation by Microsoft is very easy and so far has been given with no questions except, "Have you installed this on more than one computer?" - answer, "no." tomas
Thanks, tomasr. I'll keep that in mind. Out of curiosity did you activate first through PD Tools or Boot Camp?
I first activated Win7 through BC, then installed and booted through PD. I'm not sure if that boot was with PD Tools installed, however - I was not sure of what I was doing. After a few weeks I got my first "remark" from MS re:need to activate. That was before the BC update to 3.1, and before PD's update. In that era, I tried reactivating through PD (Tools was installed). That worked for a while, as long as I stayed in PD - when I attempted to boot through BC, activation was broken, via both channels. I decided to request reactivation through one or the other, and use Win only through that one channel. I decided to stay in PD, until both BC and PD fully supported Win7. That was the way I was using Win7 for a few successful weeks, using only PD, and it worked well that way. When both offered new updates (BC 3.1 and this latest build of PD 5.0.9310), I though all was solved and I would be able to boot Win7 either way. I installed both updates, and then booted through BC. Again, this cause deactivation both in BC and in PD. So, I now have reactivated though BC, am using Win7 only in BC, and am trying to find out (before risking yet one more deactivation) if Parallels will ever be usable with BC.
