Can an AC Mac Dongle run AC on Windows?

[rm]

I am running AC 12 on the Mac OS. If I run Windows on my Mac via VMware Fusion, can I load AC 12 on Windows on that same machine and use my Mac dongle run AC on the Windows side of things.

WHY on earth would you want to do that you are thinking, I would be too. Since GS seems determined to completely ignore making the hooks into Google Object Warehouse for the Mac, I thought I would run AC on Windows just to get library objects from Google Warehouse. This of course assumes that AC Windows objects work on AC for the Mac.

Thanks for your insight or suggestions.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Hi Robert,

Yes, the same dongle runs on Mac or Windows; there is no difference.

To run from within your VM, you will have to temporarily assign the keyplug to your VM via the Fusion menu system. I run Parallels, so don't know the Fusion commands - Matthew or someone else can help if you cannot find it. (In Parallels, you just go to the Devices menu, USB and tick the checkmark to have the device re-assigned to the virtual machine.)

Note that you can NOT run AC on BOTH your Mac side and Windows VM at the same time! The keyplug will be associated with one OS or the other. When you are ready to work on Mac AC again, you'll have to use the Fusion command to release the dongle back to Mac OS.

Cheers,
Karl

PS This device assignment thing is no different than when you plug in a thumb drive or other external hard drive, etc, for example. Depending on your installation, you'll be prompted for whether you want it associated with Mac OS, or with your Windows VM. But, you can use the VM menus to switch the device back and forth.

[rm]

Hey Karl!

Thank you for the clear explanation - as usual! Sounds like it should be no big deal short of loading AC on the same machine for each OS.

Thanks for replying so quickly!

[Anonymous]

I'm using Parallels pretty much exclusively lately, but key switching was much the same in Fusion.