Help with VMware Server.

P

P4Power

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
Messages
185
I have an odd situation that I need some help with. I created a Windows XP Pro x32 VM with VMware Server and then moved it to my notebook to finish working on it because I had to be out of town. So, I opened it up in VMware Player and installed what I needed along with Office 2010 Pro Plus from my TechNet subscription and activated it. Everything went fine until I returned home and moved the VM back to my server. Powered it up and entered the console. When I opened an Excel sheet the Office activator popped up and said it needed to reactivate because it detected hardware changes to my computer! In other words, it thinks I imaged the damn OS to another machine to bypass the activation process. I don't want to reactivate it because this is my last license for 2010. I thought the VM was unaware of the underlying hardware? I am at a loss here. If I run it in VMware Player on my notebook or desktop it does not ask for this reactivation, so what gives? I am not an expert on VMware products and virtualization. So I need the help of someone that knows these products well.

Thanks.
 
I would just call microsoft and explain it. just tell em you moved a virtual machine and it wont stay activated now.
 
If you are curious as to why this happened, the underlying hardware of a VM does change slightly between server and player. If I remember correctly, Windows triggers activation after 3 hardware component changes at once

So, a different USB controller, different CPU (CPU presented to the virtualised OS *is* the cpu in the host PC), and addition or removal of anything else such as network/audio.
 
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