parsonm

As requested, here are the details of the MS VM. It is Windows Virtual PC and the file version from vmwindow.exe is 6.1.7601.17514. It is running in Windows 7 Home Premium SP1. The PC is from PC Specialist in the UK and is built using standard ( not tailored) components. I had to start again with the load as the previous allocation of disk space was insufficient. I have now allocated a max of 20480MB.

First of all, may I say a big thank you for all of your responses. Although I may not have responded directly to certain points I have been reading them all and trying to piece together all the information to have a better understanding of what is going on. Last night I started from basics again. Created a new virtual disc using the MS VM with 1024 Meg of RAM and 3072 Meg of disc space. I then went through the install of the virtual XP using my Win 98 boot disc and the XP SP2 Upgrade disc and it loaded! I don't think I did anything different other than using the SP2 disc rather than my SP3 slipstreamed one - but it worked. I need to now understand how the virtual XP works to make the most of it. If anyone can point me to a helpful guide, it will be appreciated as I obviously need to load some antivirus and the SP3 plus anything else and at the moment I can't see how to do it. I haven't loaded the integration package and that is something else I need to find out how to do. Thanks again for all your help.

I see. I hadn't realised the significance of what was being said. Reading the various sources of info around on installing XP on newer systems, my understanding is that XP doesn't have ACHI drivers built in and that is what I was trying to achieve. As that wasn't working, I had changed the MB options to run IDE but from what is being said here, that will not make any difference as the VM (Win 7) acts as the interface. Is this correct?

When I first tried to install the XP package using the SP2, I had a STOP error but at the time my hard drives were set to AHCI. In addition I now have running two PATA drives using SATA/PATA convertors. (Ports 6 and 7 on the MB), which I now have set to IDE. MB is ASUS F2A85-M. I will try this and see what happens.

OK, I wasn't aware that I couldn't slipstream XP SP2 to SP3 with Win 7 as the host. I will now try to install using the SP2 disk but with all the recommendations made in these forums. As a thought, could I just slipstream the ASUS drivers (to include the ACHI) into a new disk SP2 or will that not work either?

I can't get my XP software to load in to the virtual machine once the VHD has been created.(2 meg RAM, 5G virtual hard disk) The XP install all appears to go ok until the next stage after all the files have been copied across from the CD. Basically it stops and locks up with nil reponse. Has anyone have any tips or help that can resolve this. I am running win 7 home professional on a desktop PC with an ASUS F2A85-M MB, an AMD A8-5600K APU at 3600Mhz and 1x4Meg 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM. The PC has a SATA drive in slot 1, the DVD burner in 5 and 2 Seagate parallel ATA drives on 6 and 7 runnning with serial/parallel convertors. On the MB OnChip SATA channel is enabled and set to AHCI. However, SATA ports 5,6 and 7 are set IDE. I did originally use the main SATA hard drive for the virtual disc but when this didn't work I used one of the PATA drives with no difference. One suggestion is that the OnChip SATA channel should be disabled but I don't know what the repercussions are in changing this on a running system. Any help appreciated.

The host operating system is Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, which means I cannot run the MS XP mode, but I understand I can run my own version of XP. It is a new PC and has only run Win 7. The previous operating system is MS Win 98. I have downloaded and run the MS virtual machine for Win 7 and this appears to be OK. I have set the disc size to a max of 5 Meg and the RAM to 2 Meg. ( The desktop PC has 1x4Meg DDR3). Once the virtual drive has been configured, at the relevant point I insert the slipstreamed XP SP3 disc, the PC reads it, confirms SP3 and then asks for the original WIN 98 disc. I change these over and then after reading it, asks for the XP disk back. The software then says it is copying all the files over presumeably to the hard drive and you see them being read and the progress bar moves all the way along. Once it has finished that it then says Windows is starting and just stops. The blue screen either locks up and disappears or I get the black screen which is also unresponsive. The reason I slipstreamed the original SP2 disc is that I got a STOP error when using it and I read online that I should only use SP3. I have used the MS routine to confirm the MB is configured to run the virtual machine. My original post was asking if it possible to use nLite to slipstream an Upgrade XP disc with an original disc (in this case Win 98), or round the other way, so that I only have to have one disc and reduce any chance of errors.

I have slip streamed my XP SP2 to SP3, with additional relevant MS updates and also the drivers for my ASUS F2A85-M MB using nLite. However, my disc is the Upgrade version and to use it, I have to use my Win 98 disc as the boot disc. Anybody know how I can upgrade my XP SP3 to a bootable disc using the info from the 98 disc - can nLite do this? The reason for doing this is that I am trying to run my XP software as a vitual package within MS Virtual Machine. However, it keeps failing at the "Starting Windows" stage - it just stops and I end up with the black screen and no response. The integration features are not blacked out but they do not load either. I am just trying to remove as many potential ares for error as possible.