Resolved Eek! Parallels, Bootcamp, & Windows Oh My!

[ivey]

I've been a Mac user forever.

I am about to graduate from graphic design school and needed an upgrade.

I purchased a beautiful 27" iMac from eBay. It works wonderfully, looks brand new, and came in the original box.

I went with this PARTICULAR computer because it had Parallels, Bootcamp, & Windows 7 & 8 installed.

I've never had any of that on my mac, but there are a couple of things I've wanted to be able to do on my old laptop that I couldn't and was excited to get the opportunity.

Anyways, it all worked (or worked to the extent of my knowledge) for about 3 days. Then it said I needed to activate windows. I wasn't concerned because I have the original boxes for the parallels and windows 8. But it won't accept either key. I emailed the guy who sold it to me and he sent me another key which also didn't work.

Not only do I need help fixing all this stuff and getting it running again, but I also don't completely understand what it all does.

Will someone who knows about all of this stuff give me the lowdown and help me to fix it please?

Thank y'all so much!

 

[whiteonline]

Sorry to tell you, but it appears you may have been scammed. One cannot magically come up with a new activation keys that are legit.
Send an email, again letting the seller know it didnt work. Be sure to send all these communications via ebay messages (not private email). If he/she fails to provide an acceptable solution (return/refund, credit for you to purchase licenses, etc...), work with ebay and paypal to lodge a complaint to recover your money.
Of course, give the person the benefit of the doubt. Smiles get you further than threats.

For what it's worth, Parallels is a virtual machine software. It allows for Windows (and other operating systems) to run as a program inside of your Mac while booted in OS X.

Good luck.

 

[jwjsr]

Microsoft support may activate it for u

 

[MJL]

I would not be too quick suggesting the OP has been scammed

If you boot into bootcamp and next use parallels and then use bootcamp again and repeat that several times then the windows license stops working since it thinks it are two different installations.

If (as you mention) you have the orginal box and license key then give Microsoft a call and reactivate.

If your license is an OEM then Microsoft may be a bit difficult about reactivating, just tell them that you had it installed inside a virtual machine on the same computer but now want to run it natively. They cannot (will not) argue with that.

 

[ivey]

Resolved

Thanks for the replies.

I want to make it very clear that even without the parallels software this computer was a great buy and is exceeding all of my expectations. The Mac OS works fine as does all the other programs. Buying a computer second hand (if you do your research) is no less risky than buying a used car.

Anyways, I figured it out. Apparently when you use an OS from Bootcamp in Parallels you always have to reactivate it. There are more ways to do this than through the product code. There's an automated number you can call that verifies your software is genuine through an extremely lengthy pair of codes. I called the number and now Windows 7 works fine.

I don't understand bootcamp but don't really care to. I have the windows OS running coherence and it's quite seamless.

As for Windows 8 I just reinstalled it and now it works fine. Like I said, I have all the original boxes, keys, and disks for all of the software on this computer.