Entering Product Keys into Virtual Machines

I create virtual machines every day.  I have a set of product keys that I use from my MSDN subscription and I hate playing the visual copy typing game (ok I am a lousy typist). It turns out that I had overlooked a nice little feature in VMConnect that makes this VERY easy.

If you open up VMConnect console to a virtual machine, you will see an option on the menu called Clipboard. The first option is Type Clipboard Text. This nice little time saver allows you to highlight a string of text on the host and then have it pasted into the VM at the current cursor position.

To copy a product ID into a setup dialog, copy the product ID and the hyphens from a notepad file or other location on the host, place your cursor within the borders of the VM (or click inside the VM if you do not have integration components loaded), click into the product ID box, and press CTRL-V. The feature types the contents of the clipboard text.

Short, simple, easy to use.