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steveinva · Jun 11, 2006 , 12:30 PM

I had a great experience installing Boot Camp and XP on my Intel MBP...but i only have 1 problem..can anyone answer this for me?

well i have a dell laptop inspiron 5160...and yea..i never use it anymore since i have a MBP of course...but when i installed boot camp i used my Dell's window's xp sp2 cd to install it on my MBP..everything went fine...windows runs perfectly and nothing is wrong with it(im actually in firefox right now)...but the only problem i have is, when i try to activate my windows with the product activation key...i type in the one thats located on the bottom of my dell laptop..and it doesnt work...what do i need to do?..because the only windows product key that i have is the one on the bottom of my dell..so can anyone help me?

cms · Jun 11, 2006 , 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Inimical

I had a great experience installing Boot Camp and XP on my Intel MBP...but i only have 1 problem..can anyone answer this for me?

well i have a dell laptop inspiron 5160...and yea..i never use it anymore since i have a MBP of course...but when i installed boot camp i used my Dell's window's xp sp2 cd to install it on my MBP..everything went fine...windows runs perfectly and nothing is wrong with it(im actually in firefox right now)...but the only problem i have is, when i try to activate my windows with the product activation key...i type in the one thats located on the bottom of my dell laptop..and it doesnt work...what do i need to do?..because the only windows product key that i have is the one on the bottom of my dell..so can anyone help me?

This is because that copy of Windows is already registered as "belonging" to your old Dell and is linked to the Dell's BIOS. Your MBP BIOS is obviously different, so what you have done is seen as being an illegal install of software already "owned" by a specific machine.

What you really ought to do, of course, is buy a legitimate version of Windows XP to install on your MBP.

But you could try calling Microsoft tech support and blagging your way through by saying that you've done a clean install on your Dell (NOT installed it on your MBP) and it no longer recognises the activation key. If you're lucky, they may give you a new activation key. It does happen, in completely legitimate circumstances, so they may believe just you!

steveinva · Jun 11, 2006 , 12:51 PM

hmm alright thanks for the help..i think ima try calling microsoft tech support like u said just to see if i can do it haha...if not then i guess i'll buy me a new XP disk

thanks alot thoughh for the help

ghporter · Jun 11, 2006 , 06:50 PM

Look elsewhere in this forum for where to get a legitimate XP disc; it's easy and nowhere near as expensive as it could be. If you're a college student, you may be able to get a copy for VERY LITTLE through your school. My campus bookstore has XP for $18-but only for students, and only ONE PER CUSTOMER.

steveinva · Jun 12, 2006 , 01:02 AM

^wow thanks i never even thought about that..im in college so hopefully i can find one for around $18 hah

farggousq · Jun 12, 2006 , 08:17 PM

Ok, i cant figure this out. I have installed Boot Camp, partitiond the drive got my drivers, and installed windows. I have a fresh copy of XP SP2. After the drive is formatted and it installs, and the computer restarts, it says window cannot load because the file C

windows\system32\hal.dll is corrupted or missing. i have redone the install, reformatted the partiton, even destryed it and redone from scratch, but that file is still jacked. And i dont know DOS well enough to manually load the file on to the drive.

Any help you can throw my way will be greatly appreciated.

ghporter · Jun 14, 2006 , 11:38 AM

Have you made double sure that you have a GOOD, VALID, NON-OEM XP disc? I usually burn a copy of my official discs so I can keep the original nice and safe, but sometimes I go through three or even four blank CDs before I get a usable copy-something to do with the encoding on the official disc or something else, I don't know.

jamez bond · Jul 6, 2006 , 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by fhoubi

I had some minor issues: 1) you must be admin, otherwise bootcamp will not recnogize the windows cd 2) I had a fatal error when booting from the windows partition during the install, trying again solved the problem.

Otherwise.. my only reason to run Windows: Autodesk Inventor 10 full trial version SCREAMING:

Yahoo!

I was going to get a Macbook and run Inventor Series (Ver. 11 now) occasionally... I work with it, and use it from home/on travel from time to time...
Does it work well? anyone tried with a Macbook, since this has reduced graphics capabilities...?

fhoubi · Jul 6, 2006 , 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by jamez bond

Does it work well?

It flies. IV opens within 3.5 seconds, even when starting for the first time. No graphic glitches at all, at full hardware support, even when IV does not support or recommend Radeon graphics officially. I got trained on hardware 10 times slow as this! If I remembered correctly the gocart assembly opens in less than 10 seconds on the iMac... Unless you are building assemblies with more than 1000+ parts, I THINK the MacBook would be just fine...

jamez bond · Jul 6, 2006 , 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by fhoubi

It flies. IV opens within 3.5 seconds, even when starting for the first time. No graphic glitches at all, at full hardware support, even when IV does not support or recommend Radeon graphics officially. I got trained on hardware 10 times slow as this! If I remembered correctly the gocart assembly opens in less than 10 seconds on the iMac... Unless you are building assemblies with more than 1000+ parts, I THINK the MacBook would be just fine...

Ok, well, I just have to try it out on the Macbook then I guess... I am really wondering how the built-in graphics would work.
Thanks!

Bolero421 · Jul 10, 2006 , 06:27 PM

I installed XP on my Macbook today. The actual install was flawless. However, preparing a working, bootable XP disk was a rather trying affair that involved slipstreaming and modifying an upgrade disk to do a full install (the details of which I will not go into here due to the questionable legality of said process) and burning multiple copies until I got it right, which took roughly three hours.

Anyhow, it was well worth it. Connecting to my Airport wireless networks was a bit of an ordeal until I figured out that I needed to use 13-character WEP passwords, then I was able to get on the internet without further problems (except for having to use IE, ugh!). I managed to emulate right-clicking by using AutoHotKey.

Of course, the only reason I need XP is for my science labs this fall / later on. That partition will sit gathering dust for the next couple of months.

ghporter · Jul 10, 2006 , 07:28 PM

Bolero, producing a good install disc can be a challenge with a normal install disc. An "upgrade disc" must have presented some VERY interesting experiences.

But upgrade to WPA for wireless security-WEP is like locking a submarine with a screen door. Really.

corbkidd · Jul 12, 2006 , 08:42 AM

I got through the Bootcamp install no worries, and have since removed it in favor of parallels. The removal of bootcamp appears to have gone normally. When I boot my MBP now I quickly see the the folder with question mark icon then it boots OS X as normal. As such it kind of seems to take a bit longer to post, and I don't remember this prior to installing bootcamp. To me it seems like its searching for a boot partition (maybe the reference to the old Windows one) not finding one first check, and then moving on to the OS X.

Any ideas how to get this to boot like out of box (straight into OSX)?

Thanks,

CK

Bolero421 · Jul 12, 2006 , 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by corbkidd

I got through the Bootcamp install no worries, and have since removed it in favor of parallels. The removal of bootcamp appears to have gone normally. When I boot my MBP now I quickly see the the folder with question mark icon then it boots OS X as normal. As such it kind of seems to take a bit longer to post, and I don't remember this prior to installing bootcamp. To me it seems like its searching for a boot partition (maybe the reference to the old Windows one) not finding one first check, and then moving on to the OS X.

Any ideas how to get this to boot like out of box (straight into OSX)?

Thanks,

CK

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and check to make sure your OSX partitions is selected as the default boot volume.

PabloTX · Jul 12, 2006 , 12:04 PM

No problems with the installation and everything seems fine on my 20" iMac.

Now to go back and re-partition to give me more than 5Gb (Windows can't read the Mac disk) so that I've got room for my TivoToGo shows.

corbkidd · Jul 13, 2006 , 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by Bolero421

Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and check to make sure your OSX partitions is selected as the default boot volume.

That seemed to do it. It is kind of wierd because I looked at that setting and the Mac OS X was the only item in the window besides Network Startup, so I just assumed it was set. Apparently there was some former reference to the Windows partition and reselecting it sorted it out.

Thanks for the help.

CK

b1NARY73 · Jul 19, 2006 , 10:17 PM

Hi All, I have a Linksys router and an Airport extreme, when I try to connect to both in XP pro with WPA PSK enabled, I cannot connect... turn off security, and it works fine. I have tries the $ sign in the start of my password to no avail.... I also have an actual PC laptop that will not connect eithier.... but my wife's Dell E1505 connects without hesitation...? Any insight would be greatly appeciated!

ghporter · Jul 20, 2006 , 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by b1NARY73

Hi All, I have a Linksys router and an Airport extreme, when I try to connect to both in XP pro with WPA PSK enabled, I cannot connect... turn off security, and it works fine. I have tries the $ sign in the start of my password to no avail.... I also have an actual PC laptop that will not connect eithier.... but my wife's Dell E1505 connects without hesitation...? Any insight would be greatly appeciated!

I just updated my wireless network passphrase today (about half an hour ago, in fact). I was setting up my son's new E1505 so I figured it was as good a time as any. (I also use a Linksys WAP54G access point.) I simply had to enter the new passphrase in my wife's iBook and the E1505 and they were good to go. But my older Dell Inspiron 8200 didn't work so quickly. I had to go into the wireless card's setup (NOT the "available networks" pane), find my home network, and change the passphrase there. Once I did that, viola!

inkhead · Aug 9, 2006 , 10:22 PM

The absolutel WORSE thing about bootcamp, is every SINGLE time it resets the clock when you go back to OS X, screws up apps when you jump times and dates like that.

ghporter · Aug 10, 2006 , 07:37 AM

inkhead, please read the forum: the clock issue is a very simple one. Windows expects the hardware real time clock to show local time, while OS X (and most Linux flavors) expect it to show GMT (or Universal time if you prefer). Boot Camp doesn't reset the clock-you have to do that manually or set Windows to change it automatically. Or you could just tell Windows that you're in London and not worry about it at all.

There's a poorly supported and undocumented Registry hack that might help.

Code:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal

Set this key's value to "1" and XP should interpret your Mac's hardware clock correctly. There are a few problems with using this hack, as detailed in this article, where I got the hack, but they shouldn't be a big deal in your case.

onlykaria · Aug 16, 2006 , 02:43 AM

i have not been able to install, i like paralelles but its got too many problems.

i would sooo rather have bootcamp running.

i try to partition and it tells me that the disk can not be verified. ran disk utility from the dvd install disk and the computer like i would say 10 times each over the past 2 months it always comes out prefect but boot camp says otherwise, posted a thread about it, here and at 3 other forums.

no one seems to know why its doing that or how to fix it.