[Mr Blue Sky]

As of a month or two ago, I have been running Windows Vista on my Intel iMac through Bootcamp and Parallels desktops. This was working fine, me tootling about on the sims 2 and mucking around with VB, until I got a message about a week ago in one of those Windows popup boxes that I seem to get quite a lot of:

You may be the victim of software counterfeiting.

Understandably, I wasn't too happy about this, mainly because after I thought I fixed it by repairing Windows, it also said that my licence key needed re-typing, and when I re-typed it, it said it was invalid. Then, my dad (nice guy that he is), typed it when I went to him for help. It accepted it, but then the next day it gave me the

You may be the victim of software counterfeiting.

message again. I got by, until today when I was happily mucking about in Vista (I didn't do anything to the OS itself). My mum came in, telling me to go to bed (the shame), and, as it was way past the time that we agreed should be my bedtime (I made sure that it wasn't too early) I obliged, putting Vista in sleep mode. Then I suddenly remembered that I was going to give a compilation to my friend, so I went back on to quickly do this - BUT it wouldn't come out of sleep mode, so I had to restart. I came back on but the first time I got an error about POWRPROF.dll, and the second time the desktop was entirely blank and all I could see was my cursor on the screen. So, I tried booting in safe mode, and I tried to get into BIOS to boot from the disc. I couldn't get into BIOS, and safe mode was blank too. I do need Windows for my applications because I only changed to OS X very recently (luckily, in October, Cider is scheduled to be out, lowering the barriers between Windows games and OS X)

Thank you, Mr Blue Sky.

This could be an essay. Maybe I should hand it in for Standard Grade...hmm...


====UPDATE====
I managed to boot from the installation disc and I ran System restore, but it didn't work... Also, it says it is a registry error - the registry is corrupted or missing, or something like that

[Aptmunich]

First off - it always helps to have a subject line that describes your problem if you want fast responses - I've changed your title for you.

Now to the issue: It looks as though your copy of Windows Vista is either really not genuine, or Microsoft is messing up and not correctly identifying it as genuine.

Either way it looks as though you might want to start from scratch at the moment. Start up in OS X and run Boot camp assistant. Join your two partitions together again and restart. Then run the assistant a second time and go through the installation of windows again.

[knightlie]

Just to add that (assuming your Windows is genuine) if you're getting registry errors then the registry may be corrupted. This would quite easily prevent Windows from booting.

I agree with Aptmunich, start from scratch.

[Mr Blue Sky]

Thanks Aptmunich for changing my title for me (I realised it was pathetic and then I couldn't change it ). My dad is looking at it, and manage to boot from the DVD. If that doesn't work then I will do as you suggested . I hope it works, because my most recent backup is a while back when I moved from my laptop to my mac. Oh well, best use that 160GB hard drive and see if it does any good . Thanks to you both, and I'll update if it works.

====UPDATE====
My dad is reinstalling as I type, with me off to get a hayfever pill... Do backups save your programs, or do you need to reinstall them?