I'd like to virtualize & host my entire WinXP computer on Win8.1 - Help.
Does anyone know anything about virtualizing an entire WinXP machine and hosting it under Win8.1? I just got a powerhouse of a new computer, and I'm looking for a *temporary* way to keep all the apps and drivers I will lose when I fully commit to the Win 8.1 machine. Over time I will be replacing WinXP apps that will not run under Win 8.1 -- but I need to get the new machine working efficiently pretty quickly, and I don't want to suddenly lose all the capability I've built up over many years in my Win XP computer. I believe that the new computer's 16 GB RAM, 4 GHz eight hyper-threaded cores & 2 TB drive (+ SSD helper drive) will actually support this (obscure reference follows) checkers-playing-dog, even if it wins very few games. I got the idea of virtualizing my WinXP computer here: http://tinyurl.com/Virtualize-Windows-XP-computer or: http://www.infopackets.com/news/9473/how-copy-programs-windows-xp-windows-8 I was encouraged when I found this: "Intel and AMD have ... developed virtualization extensions to the x86 architecture. ... Either will allow a virtual machine ... to run an unmodified guest operating system *without* *incurring* *significant* emulation *performance* *penalties*." I would not use the WinXP browsers or email to help mitigate its security risks. Any recommendations, experiences, gotchas, links, etc. about virtualizing and hosting an entire WinXP machine would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, - Hal Lane ######################## # hallane@earthlink.net ######################## --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com
Hal asked:
Does anyone know anything about virtualizing an entire WinXP machine and hosting it under Win8.1?
I don't know much about this, but would think it is possible. Some of the gotchas are listed in the links you provided. Here are two: 1. XP has a more hardware dependent configuration than later Windows versions, and it might not work on your virtual machine "hardware". Alternatively you could install a fresh version of XP, and try to migrate your old setup. 2. Microsoft counts the virtual machine as a new installation. If you are decommissioning the old XP machine, Microsoft might let you use the old serial. In my case the old XP machine is home-built, and I installed an OEM version of XP. My understanding is you can't reuse an OEM serial of Windows, but I haven't tried. Why I care is I have my Fractint build environment on an old XP machine. I would love to move the old XP machine into a virtual machine. I might not be able to for the two reasons cited, although I haven't yet tried. The old machine works fine. I have had several experiences of upgrading motherboards with various versions of Windows, and have always managed to overcome both these caveats. Microsoft has a procedure for revalidating an OS serial that is more tedious and annoying than difficult. It involves typing in a lot of numbers. No actual human being is involved. On a related subject, I posted a day or two ago that I had problems installing DOSBox under Fedora (there was some funny keyboard mapping that prevented my typing in any but alphanumeric characters). I just want to report that I tried the same thing with Linux Mint, and in about 5 minutes had DOSBox installed and Fractint running. No problems that I could see.
I am running Win XP under Oracle VM aka Virtualbox (Fedora, Ubuntu, Windows 7 and Mint17) It does require you to enter a valid WinXP license for it to validate on the install. It will install from both an true OEM disk and/or a vendor OEM reinstall disk (in my case Dell Optiplex series), and a stand alone Microsoft Win XP disk (never tied to any kind of machine) After the XP has validated once there in no further communication with the Microsoft validation server For XP the OS is not tied to the serial number burned into the motherboard / processor (as it is with Windows 7 or Window 8.1) Microsoft is still maintaining the validation server (as of Dec 2014) as they are still supporting the Win XP Embedded version (used on ATMs and other devices) I have also run Win XP under VMWare and XenServer (the open source Citrix product) There is no problem moving the WinXP virtual machine from host to host (you just export the final configured machine as an appliance) You may have to adjust machine config settings (the Network Interface is the most common thing you have to change) Per www.virtualbox.org : Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number ofguest operating systems <https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes>including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6 and 3.x), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD. I believe that there are issues using Win 8.1 as a host OS but there are number of people in the forums that are working on that environment as a host. There is an article in PCWORLD http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058329/review-virtualbox-4-3-goes-touchy-fee... That talks about VirtualBox and Win 8.1 I have never tried to virtualize an existing machine as a guest under VirtualBox (but it might be possible) It is possible to do this under VMWare (but it is not a pure open source environment) VMWare does have a version of their software that is free to use for some non commercial purposes. I recommend building a clean virtual machine by installing a fresh copy of Win XP then adding all the other software you want / need. If you want to really try and convert an existing hardware based machine into a virtual machine take a look at this product: http://www.vmware.com/products/converter (Free to Download) On 02/03/2015 10:07 AM, Timothy Wegner wrote:
Hal asked:
Does anyone know anything about virtualizing an entire WinXP machine and hosting it under Win8.1? I don't know much about this, but would think it is possible. Some of the gotchas are listed in the links you provided. Here are two:
1. XP has a more hardware dependent configuration than later Windows versions, and it might not work on your virtual machine "hardware". Alternatively you could install a fresh version of XP, and try to migrate your old setup.
2. Microsoft counts the virtual machine as a new installation. If you are decommissioning the old XP machine, Microsoft might let you use the old serial. In my case the old XP machine is home-built, and I installed an OEM version of XP. My understanding is you can't reuse an OEM serial of Windows, but I haven't tried.
Why I care is I have my Fractint build environment on an old XP machine. I would love to move the old XP machine into a virtual machine. I might not be able to for the two reasons cited, although I haven't yet tried. The old machine works fine.
I have had several experiences of upgrading motherboards with various versions of Windows, and have always managed to overcome both these caveats. Microsoft has a procedure for revalidating an OS serial that is more tedious and annoying than difficult. It involves typing in a lot of numbers. No actual human being is involved.
On a related subject, I posted a day or two ago that I had problems installing DOSBox under Fedora (there was some funny keyboard mapping that prevented my typing in any but alphanumeric characters). I just want to report that I tried the same thing with Linux Mint, and in about 5 minutes had DOSBox installed and Fractint running. No problems that I could see.
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-- -David David W Riccio (907) 780-6122 www.lemoncreekdigital.com (Check Website office hours, location, etc)
Look for a variation of Windows XP called TinyXP. Doesn't require or use Windows license validation. On 02/03/2015 09:55 AM, David W Riccio wrote:
I am running Win XP under Oracle VM aka Virtualbox (Fedora, Ubuntu, Windows 7 and Mint17) It does require you to enter a valid WinXP license for it to validate on the install. It will install from both an true OEM disk and/or a vendor OEM reinstall disk (in my case Dell Optiplex series), and a stand alone Microsoft Win XP disk (never tied to any kind of machine)
-- David W. Jones gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://dancingtreefrog.com
Am 03.02.2015 um 20:07 schrieb Timothy Wegner:
2. Microsoft counts the virtual machine as a new installation. If you are decommissioning the old XP machine, Microsoft might let you use the old serial. In my case the old XP machine is home-built, and I installed an OEM version of XP. My understanding is you can't reuse an OEM serial of Windows, but I haven't tried. If you use the Microsoft Virtual Machine for XP they supply a new serial for XP Pro that is used automatically. But I dont recommend to use Microsoft VM as it is very slow and has only a virtual graphic card. XP Dos in this environment is a bad joke. A fast Bootstick is the best and simplest solution, read my "Hot tip", it can also be used as SSD. Albrecht
On 02/03/2015 08:10 AM, Hal Lane wrote:
Does anyone know anything about virtualizing an entire WinXP machine and hosting it under Win8.1?
I just got a powerhouse of a new computer, and I'm looking for a *temporary* way to keep all the apps and drivers I will lose when I fully commit to the Win 8.1 machine.
Over time I will be replacing WinXP apps that will not run under Win 8.1 -- but I need to get the new machine working efficiently pretty quickly,
Good luck! Just changing from the efficient, familiar Windows XP UI to the Windows 8 UI will cost you many Efficiency Points. -- David W. Jones gnome@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community http://dancingtreefrog.com
On a happier note, I have been testing Windows 10 (which will be available as free upgrade when it ships) So far it seems to have most of the things I miss in Windows 7 back again. Your new machine should run just fine with it. It seems to be a lot more efficient that either Win 8.1 or Win 7 on the same hardware (a nice surprise) And I agree Win 8.1 UI is very steep learning curve. I would look into getting an OEM copy of Win 7 and running that instead. PCWorld site has a nice couple of articles about running Win XP on Win 8.1 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058329/review-virtualbox-4-3-goes-touchy-fee... On 02/03/2015 11:20 PM, david wrote:
On 02/03/2015 08:10 AM, Hal Lane wrote:
Does anyone know anything about virtualizing an entire WinXP machine and hosting it under Win8.1?
I just got a powerhouse of a new computer, and I'm looking for a *temporary* way to keep all the apps and drivers I will lose when I fully commit to the Win 8.1 machine.
Over time I will be replacing WinXP apps that will not run under Win 8.1 -- but I need to get the new machine working efficiently pretty quickly,
Good luck! Just changing from the efficient, familiar Windows XP UI to the Windows 8 UI will cost you many Efficiency Points.
-- -David David W Riccio (907) 780-6122 www.lemoncreekdigital.com (Check Website office hours, location, etc)
participants (5)
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david -
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Hal Lane -
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Timothy Wegner