Why is Windows 7 giving me a software counterfeiting error?

I have a legitimate copy of Windows 7 Ultimate installed via Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro. I also have Parallels 5 installed on my Mac OS X, which can boot up Bootcamp's partition of Windows 7.

I'm getting an error when I run Windows 7 on Parallels:

You may be a victim of software counterfeiting

It wants me to go online and resolve it. But I've already registered my copy of Windows 7 (I can't remember if I did it via Bootcamp or Parallels).

My question is: Does my single copy of Windows 7 only allow me to have it installed via Bootcamp or Parallels?

I only installed it once, and my copy of Parallels is booting my Bootcamp install. It's the same machine! I'm hoping I don't need to have 2 licenses of Windows 7 run it on my Macbook Pro!

Solution 1:

I was able to get my Macbook Pro to run the same licensed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate on both Bootcamp and Parallels 5 by activating it on both. I was having trouble running and activating it on my Parallels VM which ran the Bootcamp install. So what I did was change the MAC address of eth0 to match the one from Bootcamp.

Once I changed that, I called Microsoft and activated via their automated system, which generated a set of numbers/code for me.