Parallels with Vista Home Premium - I know, I know...

[DrivinWest]

OK, so we all know that Microsoft doesn't want anything but the high-end versions of Vista running virtualized and their EULA says as much. From a purely academic perspective I'm wondering if it is technically, not legally, possible to do what I'm hoping to do:

1) Install Vista Home Premium with Boot Camp
2) Install the latest Parallels
3) Virtualize the Vista Home Premium install via Parallels for whenever I don't feel like rebooting and don't need the full power of a native Vista install.

I think I read that Parallels won't let you select a Vista Home install for virtualization from within the custom machine setup (but haven't since been able to find the post that says as much).

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[zauriel]

OK, so we all know that Microsoft doesn't want anything but the high-end versions of Vista running virtualized and their EULA says as much. From a purely academic perspective I'm wondering if it is technically, not legally, possible to do what I'm hoping to do:

1) Install Vista Home Premium with Boot Camp
2) Install the latest Parallels
3) Virtualize the Vista Home Premium install via Parallels for whenever I don't feel like rebooting and don't need the full power of a native Vista install.

I think I read that Parallels won't let you select a Vista Home install for virtualization from within the custom machine setup (but haven't since been able to find the post that says as much).

Any help is much appreciated!

It is possible to virtualize Vista HP from your Boot Camp partition with Parallels. I've done it. However, be aware that because of the "hardware change" that it detects, It will tell you that Windows needs to be activated. If you try to activate it, it will tell you that the product key is already in use, that you need to buy another one, etc.

If you hop back on over to your regular Boot Camp partition, you don't get that problem. But eventually, I believe your Parallels version of Vista will cease to function properly when you don't activate it. Now, if you were to somehow call the Microsoft peeps and make up a BS story that gets them to give you another product key ('cause they certainly wouldn't do it if you told them you were trying to virtualize Vista HP), it might work. Maybe. I'm not sure how changing the product key in the VM would affect the actual Boot Camp version if you were to go use it again.

 

[Bern]

It's a bummer isn't it. I didn't know you couldn't use Home Premium with Parallels and of course got Parallels 3.0 and Home Premium. Oh well I'll stick with what's most reliable for me then... Bootcamp.

 

[M@lew]

Yeah....that and it runs pretty crummy.

 

[markjewiss]

I didn't know you couldn't use Home Premium with Parallels and of course got Parallels 3.0 and Home Premium.

Can you install that version of Vista if you don't tell Parallels that it's Windows... if you install Vista as a virtual machine, but go down the 'other operating system' route, you may be able to get it to work.

Mark.

 

[Shadow]

Now, if you were to somehow call the Microsoft peeps and make up a BS story that gets them to give you another product key ('cause they certainly wouldn't do it if you told them you were trying to virtualize Vista HP), it might work.

This does work, I've done it with XP Home. Infact, I just installed XP in Parallels so I need to go call them now

 

[Bern]

Yeah....that and it runs pretty crummy.

Parallels 3.0 runs crummy???

I know Vista Home Premium runs really well on my MBP.

 

[M@lew]

Parallels 3.0 runs crummy???

I know Vista Home Premium runs really well on my MBP.

Parallels 3 with Vista runs crummy. With XP it's fine.

 

[Nermal]

I think I read that Parallels won't let you select a Vista Home install for virtualization from within the custom machine setup (but haven't since been able to find the post that says as much).

I don't see how that would be possible as all editions share the same media (it's the product key that differs).

Nevertheless, the licence doesn't allow virtualisation so you'll either need to upgrade to a "bigger" one or use Boot Camp.