Biohead Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 So, I have an aluminium Macbook, with an SSD (Two 64Gb partitions, Lion and Win 7 X64). At my University, we have an MSDNAA agreement that my course can get software, including Windows 7 (so it is all legit). So I installed Win 7 to it's partition a while back (When Lion was released), and all was activated. I left it that way for a while and only used bootcamp (despite having VMWare Fusion 3 installed). I've gone out and bought VMware Fusion 4 now, activated it on the bootcamp partition and then tried to activate again. Activation Failed... I figured it was because I'd already activated once over the internet not too long ago so tried the automatic phone method. That also failed. Odd. Installed Jellybean key finder to see what key i'd used (We get two from Uni) only to discover it showed "BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB". Rebooted into the bootcamp partition, thinking it was how VMWare worked with activation... that is no longer activated either and shows BBBBB in jellybean too. A while back, I had a similar predicament where my bootcamp install was activated, but the VM machine wasn't. Although the VM wash't activated, the bootcamp partition itself remained activated when booting to it. This was on SL and VMware 3 though. I made an image as soon as I got my Win 7 partition installed, which I'm now in the process of restoring, but has anyone seen this before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seizure1990 Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 I can't give any real advice, but I do know that any college which has the MSDNAA program should have a representative or something who you can speak to about problems with licensing and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierce28 Posted September 16, 2011 Share Posted September 16, 2011 My uni has MSDNAA as well, and this happens. Just look up the key you used before at the MSDNAA site, and you should be set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohead Posted September 17, 2011 Author Share Posted September 17, 2011 Didn't think about that. Thanks I would like to know why or how it's changed the product key to "bbbbb" though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted September 17, 2011 Share Posted September 17, 2011 B for Black-listed ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biohead Posted September 19, 2011 Author Share Posted September 19, 2011 Just had a thought, I didn't use my holo disc to install this. I downloaded an up to date SP1 iso through unofficial means, as mine is SP0, and I remember standard x64 holo discs don't get on well with the Mac EFI. Both my backups suffer from the key fault, and jellybean lists install media as "Volume". It's got to be that. Just downloading a fresh iso from AA now, then I'll do the efi booting work myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MS Bob 11 Posted September 19, 2011 Share Posted September 19, 2011 BBBBB-BBBBB.... is normal for volume license editions of Windows 7/Vista which don't store the key encoded in the registry. In fact, you can prevent your retail Windows key from being stolen or disclosed by running "slmgr.vbs /cpky" from an elevated cmd prompt to clear the product key from the registry. It will then show as BBBBB and slmgr.vbs can be used to view only the last part of the product key in case you need to know which product key you are using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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