I have XP Home installed in VMware. It has been a few weeks since I have run it. I decided to run it and I get am the message. "This copy of Windows must be activated...". I choose yes to activate it. I then get the activation box that says it is already activated. I had activated it when I first installed in months ago. I have never had a problem until now. It won't let me log in. Is there a way to fix it without having to setup a new virtual machine and reinstalling my games and software? I have not made any changes to the VM and I am running it on the same host machine. I have the virtual drives installed on a USB hard drive. The only changes I made was that I move the drive to a different port on my hub. Also, I updated to the newest version of VMware, but I did not run the VM at the time to make sure it was still working. I restored to the previous version of VMware, but it did not fix it? Has anyone seen this problem and know what caused it? Is there a simple fix? Thanks.
Unfortunately I do not know the answer, but you should really use snapshots (or at least copy the VMDK file).
Did you try to log into safe mode in the VM? This is not your exact situation but it could help: https://moodjbow.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/how-to-rearm-and-change-activation-key-on-windows/
