Sunday, December 3, 2006

Parallels & Windows XP Activation Key


Anyone know how to deactivate a copy of Windows XP?
Using Apple's Boot Camp beta I installed Windows XP - things seemed to go well so I activated Windows XP. Then I saw that the latest beta of Parallels (3036) can access the Boot Camp partition of Windows XP. Parallels had to set up a separate configuration and profile of Windows XP in order to use the Boot Camp partition. It was working great, but I had to reactivate Windows XP. No problem there, however, when Parallels is accessing Windows XP on the Boot Camp partition the VM can't be saved - instead Windows XP has to be shut down when you exit Parallels. So, I created another Parallels VM and reinstalled Windows XP under Mac OS X. But, when it came time to activate this version it failed since I had just used the same key too many times. The last version I installed is great since the VM's state can be saved to disk and I don't have to wait for it to boot up. Obviously, the last version is the one I want to use.

Parallels Coherence
The new Coherence feature in Parallels is great. It makes it appear that Windows windows [sic] can run side-by-side with Mac OS X windows. I'm speculating here: but I'm thinking, to achieve this effect, Parallels simply has Windows XP run at almost full screen (the Taskbar is just above the Dock) and then it makes the Windows XP desktop window transparent. You can drag & drop and cut & paste between the two OS's too.

Parallels Installation Experience
Installing Windows XP via Parallels was simple and it worked like a charm. It's much easier to install Windows using Parallels than it is to install Windows natively on an Intel or AMD machine. Now I can fully enjoy Windows' pop-up windows on top of Windows' pop-up windows on top of pop-up balloons to constantly nag me.

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