XP Mode in Windows 8 or ... Forward to the Past |
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Published 2012-12-26 http://www.wolfwillow.com/Computing/Win8-XPMODE/Win8-XPMODE.php Introduction Although Windows 8 offers generally excellent compatibility with legacy applications there may be important exceptions. Under Windows 7 "Pro" and higher there was the free windows Virtual PC with XP Mode, providing a Win XP Professional (64 bit) environment in which you could run applications that Win 7 would not. Windows 8 makes available a virtualization environment (Hyper-V) that unfortunately does not support XP Mode. Furthermore, the old Virtual PC and XP Mode will not install under any circumstance. All you get is a nasty message saying the installation cannot be run. The following links are a good way to get started when developing a solution: http://winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-tip-virtualize-hyperv-143521 http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12183/how-to-run-xp-mode-in-virtualbox-on-windows-7/ There's nothing really specific to Win 8 in these except for a partial answer found at the first link. In this article I try to point out a few pitfalls and potential problems, then conclude with what has so far proved a complete solution to obtaining an XP virtual environment under Windows 8. How to Create a Virtual XP Environment in Windows 8 Please note there are some downloads involved. You may find a download fails to start or you are mis-directed by a download link (the VMLite site especially). The fix is to delete all cookies and, perhaps, to use Internet Explorer only. Before commencing work of this nature it is always a good idea to create a System Restore Point and backup your system either by cloning the system residence drive or using Windows 8 Control Panel/Recovery.
First Things First You must find or create an image file of the XP system as generated by XP Mode when you installed it under Win 7. This file is named ... Windows XP Mode Base.vhd ... and is found in \Program Files\Windows XP Mode. This assumes you have a pre-existing Windows 7 hard drive or SSD that had XP Mode installed. If you don't you are in a tough spot. The only way I can think of to get this .vhd file in that case is to purchase a copy of Win 7, install it to a drive, boot up from that, then download and install XPMode. It depends how desperate you are. A copy of Win 7 really doesn't cost that much so the main downer is the time this all takes. You could conceivably get a copy of the .vhd file from someone else but this would almost certainly be illegal. According to MS the license for XP Mode comes with the OS so if you do not have your own copy of Win 7 Pro you might be a criminal. If you had Win 7 and installed XP Mode there I see no harm being done to MS's interests. Their own support site would seem to confirm that. After all, you have paid so why should they care (just don't install a total of more copies of XP Mode than you have Win 7 licenses)?
The first link from above talks about Oracle's Virtual Box which you will find here: ... and the article later referenced at that link describes a "sort of" solution. If you want to skip consideration of the "sort of" solution and go directly to the full solution, click HERE. Be sure, however, to do everything in First Things First.
The "Sort Of" Solution This is presented only for completeness, because you will find it at the first reference link. The instructions for getting this set up are somewhat out of date if you choose the new version 4 together with its extension pack. After installation the process is pretty straightforward despite the obsolete instructions and I won't go into details. Anyone doing this is probably a geek anyway. Note the following:
You should now be good to go apart from all the Win XP setup (and don't forget a virus checker. MSSE still works with XP and it's free). I don't know if XP can join a Win 8 HOMEGROUP but I use the WORKGROUP protocol for all my machines so XP can easily join and communicate with Win 8 units. So why is this a "sort of" solution? XP will want to validate and you won't have an XP license code. Bummer. After 30 days you are dead in the water. This solution is useful only if you have a few "one of" things you want to do in XP.
The Full Solution The second link from above describes running XP with Virtual Box and the VMLite plugin. They do this only in Win 7 but I thought why not try in Win 8? It works. This solution avoids the license validation problem. Following are some things to watch for and do.
Everything works. VMLight has an excellent graphics interface so your XP text and images look like native mode. It's fast and flexible. Network setup was a snap using Workgroups. It remains to test all the options available in this environment but the defaults are so well chosen you might find you don't need anything else. 4006 |
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