Vista - Cloning Virtual Machines -- How To Change The License Key

I am trying to setup a number of virtual XP Pro SP3 machines in Virtual PC
running on Vista Ultimate. I built the first machine and would like to
clone it. It is my understanding that each virtual machine requires it's
own license key. I have a number of XP Pro license keys for testing.

I created a copy of the first virtual XP Pro SP3 machine by duplicating the
..vmc and the .vhd files. I then modified the cloned .vmc to point to the
cloned .vhd file. I can start the cloned machine. How do I change the
license key of the cloned machine?

A web search turned up a method that requires changing the registry value
at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current
Version\WPAEvents
ODBETimer
and then running: %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe /a
When I do that it just says the system is activated.

How do I inactive the second virtual machine so I can enter a different
license key and activate it with the new key?

"saberman" <sabMSDN@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BEF842B0-D843-45A5-BFF5-329AEDF9527D@xxxxxxThat will not be the only problem you face. If you clone the .vmc file it
will be identical in every way. If you put them on the same network,
networking will fail because they all have the same MAC address for the NIC.

A better idea is to copy just the .vhd file, rename it then create a new
vm using the renamed .vhd file.

It's the same issue as if you cloned a real machine. You need to run
sysprep, or an equivalent sid-changing utility, before copying the .vhd
file. Sysprep removes the sid and the license, and prepares the "machine"
(the .vhd file) to be copied. The first time you start each copy, it will go
through a mini-setup and prompt you for the license key. It also assigns
that copy a unique sid. If your VM's are going to be joined to a domain, you
do the join after starting the copied .vhd. If you don't run sysprep and
then initialize each copy independently, all the VM's have the same sid.

"saberman" <sabMSDN@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BEF842B0-D843-45A5-BFF5-329AEDF9527D@xxxxxx

"Bill Grant" <not.available@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eMyc1vFJJHA.3548@xxxxxx
The only network problem I had was that I forgot to change the machine name
for the second VM and it complained about a duplicate name. Once I changed
that it appeared to work fine. I have both VMs running and they can each
see the network and each other. I just checked the two .vmc files and it
appears the ethernet_card_address is different. I did not do that so it is
possible that Virtual PC found the duplicate addresses and fixed one.