I want to image my old XP and to run on my macbook - can't activate

I am using an extremely old windows xp machine to do some contract development work and the wireless keeps
disconnecting and the machine is just generally really slow. I have used Parallels Transporter Agent to migrate it over to my macbook pro. But when I try to run it in Parallels on my macbook it asks for an activation key. I tried using the one that was used for the original machine, but it did not work.

Is there any way to make this work? (I've read through a lot of the forums, but nothing I've found has helped.)

I'm looking into getting a new windows machine, but I would want to migrate this XP image over to the new machine, too. It has so much pre-configured software on it I just want to keep it as is so I can keep working.

Thanks for any advice.

 

I ran it and didn't get anything that said "GENUINE" (not sure if that's what you meant). I did get:

Windows XP OEMBIOS Test v1.1/375/126
F: Dell Inc OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=B6F0EEFD
F: Dell Inc OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=63875D1F
The above OEMBIOS set(s) should reactivate Windows XP on this system.
... etc...

Then I cross-referenced those results with the OEMBIOS list - I only found the first one (B6F0EEFD). Do I need them both?

 

Wait, now I'm confused - and this will probably be a stupid question - Should I be running this on the original win xp machine? (the dell) Shouldn't I be determining the bios on the mac? (where I want to virtualize it)?

If I'm supposed to be running these tools on the mac how do I do that? (since my virtual machine won't launch until I activate it)

 

Ok. Here's what I have done so far:

I can't run anything from the virtual machine on the mac because it wants me to activate it first. I have tried repeatedly to start in safe mode - and I believe I have done everything correctly - but it just won't let me. It always runs this "Updating your virtual machine" thing and then promptly takes me to the activation screen, from which I can't get out. I have made sure there are no hot keys mapped to F8 and I have F8 as the primary function so I don't have to hold down 'fn' to make F8 work. I sit there tap tapping the F8 key while it boots and it has no effect.

I was able to select the boot order in the virtual machine, and by doing that I was able to boot off a usb stick with the scripts on it. So I was able to run the scripts on my mac - I was able to get the correct OEMBIOS info, and yes, it was GENUINE. (I get that now, duh.)

So from that I was able to identify the right files I needed to run the OEMCHANGER script - however I believe I need to run that from within windows, correct? And I can't boot up into windows because I can't get into safe mode. Grrr.

So, I'm wondering - now that I know the correct files to use, can run the changer on the original machine and then create my virtual image pre-activated for the mac? But then I would have to run the changer again to put it back to its original state... and I'm not sure if that is possible. Is this feasible? Or is there something else I could try? Or am I just SOL?

Another option would be to run VMWare in my windows boot camp partition.

Thank you.

 

Good, that's exactly what I want to try. I have one concern: When I initially ran the OEMBIOS checker on my Dell machine it came up with two listings (see below) but when I looked for the sets that would contain them I only found one of them (B6F0EEFD). Do I need them both to reactivate? Or just one?

Windows XP OEMBIOS Test v1.1/375/126
F: Dell Inc OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=B6F0EEFD
F: Dell Inc OEMBIOS.CAT CRC32=63875D1F

I only found the first one (B6F0EEFD).

 

Also, is it necessary to restart after running the changer (before I export the image)?

Thanks

 

Thank you! Thank you very much.