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Boot Camp and WINDOWS 8

I bought a new iMac in December 2012. I bought the 64 bit version of Win 8 thinking that I could use Bootcamp, but when the new iMac's came out in 2012 Apple did not have drivers for WIN 8 so my Boot Camp partition was basically useless. I bought Parallels and installed WIN 8 there and it works fine, but of course it is a virtual machine. Apple apparently now has full driver support for WIN 8 so I installed the drivers via a flash drive. That worked but I can't activate WIN 8 with the product key code. I am guessing that Microsoft won't allow the same WIN 8 on both Parallels and Boot Camp. My guess is that Microsoft thinks that I am trying to install the same copy of WIN 8 on two different computers, and in a way, Parallels and Boot Camp may be considered two different computers even though they are on the same iMac. Is there anyway to get around this? Do I have to purchase ANOTHER copy of Windows to use on my Boot Camp partition? And if so, which version of Windows would be best for Boot Camp at this time?


Thanks in advance for any advice.


Tom

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), MacBook Pro / iPad / iPad Mini

Posted on Feb 1, 2014 5:06 PM

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Posted on Feb 1, 2014 10:46 PM

Many people have activated Windows in a Bootcamp partition and on a virtual machine, both with the same product key (presumably as the hardware is the same).

You can activate it using the online service answering "1" to the question about how many computers you are using it on.

One or the other system may need to be activated that way twice.

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Question marked as Best reply

Feb 1, 2014 10:46 PM in response to Thomas Sokol

Many people have activated Windows in a Bootcamp partition and on a virtual machine, both with the same product key (presumably as the hardware is the same).

You can activate it using the online service answering "1" to the question about how many computers you are using it on.

One or the other system may need to be activated that way twice.

Feb 2, 2014 9:50 AM in response to Number88

I finally got a good tech support dude on the phone. I allowed him to have remote access to my iMac. He got into my Win 8 installation that I have on my Boot Camp partion. He did a LOT of changes to the WIN 8 registry and even used the MS-DOS command prompt (I have not used that in YEARS!) Finally I have WIN 8 Pro on both Parallels and Boot Camp. I guess you could say I am now a happy camper!


My only problem now (and it is not a big issue, but I might post it in another thread) is that I use an Apple wired USB extended keyboard, and the number keys on the extreme right of the keyboard do not work.

Boot Camp and WINDOWS 8

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