Ben Markson Posted January 14 Posted January 14 All to aware that my, circa 2008, machine running Windows XP must eventually die I decided to have a play with VirtualBox 7 running under Linux Mint. While its not been a wholly trivial experience I was amazed that I was eventually able to restore a Macrium Reflect image of my current machine into a VM. To all intents and purposes it looks and works identically to the original. The main difficulties I encountered were with the set up of USB and VHD storage devices which I still find a bit clunky (this is using the Guest Additions add-on). There is a single shortcoming. VirtualBox 7 doesn't support 3D Acceleration for XP. So, for example, flash works fine but WebGL is hopelessly slow. What VM software are others using for XP? Ben.
D.Draker Posted January 14 Posted January 14 12 hours ago, Ben Markson said: All to aware that my, circa 2008, machine running Windows XP must eventually die One thing is if you wish it die, Ben. Another, why not stock up on XP compatible parts? They could be found for free. Not that actually it's any of my business, just sayin'. VM requires a strong CPU with virtualisation, and it has lots of shortcomings, not only 3D Acceleration. 2
Ben Markson Posted January 15 Author Posted January 15 Thanks for the suggestion but I was interested in people's opinions about VMs. To be honest I'm surprised that there are not more people interested in using a VM for running XP. Oh well, Ben.
Multibooter Posted January 15 Posted January 15 52 minutes ago, Ben Markson said: To be honest I'm surprised that there are not more people interested in using a VM for running XP. Very interesting comment, but don't give up, your topic is definitely a great topic! I had test-installed MS Virtual PC 2007 v6.0.192 (32bit, SP1, 8May2008) in June 2024 on my ancient Inspiron 7500 laptop (700MHz, Pentium 3, SSE-only). I had wanted to compare the usefulness of Sandboxie to a Virtual PC, but then I gave up because creating an OK .vhd file with a good/clean opsys was a major time-consuming new project,
Ben Markson Posted January 15 Author Posted January 15 I went around in circles with VHD too. To get started I needed to get the Macrium Reflect image into a VHD file to do the restore. In the end I used Windows 7, which has good support for VHD files, to create and populate the VHD. I'm doing this on what was a W7 machine, now dual booting with Linus Mint 22. Ben.
Multibooter Posted January 15 Posted January 15 On 1/14/2025 at 5:54 PM, Ben Markson said: ... my, circa 2008, machine running Windows XP must eventually die I decided to have a play with VirtualBox 7 running under Linux Mint... Your topic may help to prepare for the inevitable end of Windows XP, nothing lives forever. Kurt_Aust prepared in 2014 a now-pinned topic "VirtualBox Windows 98se step by step" https://msfn.org/board/topic/170785-virtualbox-windows-98se-step-by-step/#comments foreboding the end of Windows 98. His outstanding how-to instructions for Win98 are now at https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=59559 Which other VM software did you consider, when you decided on VirtualBox? Why did you decide on v7? https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=104726&start=45
Ben Markson Posted January 16 Author Posted January 16 Thanks for the links. 12 hours ago, Multibooter said: Which other VM software did you consider, when you decided on VirtualBox? Why did you decide on v7? https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=104726&start=45 I'm afraid my choices are mainly down to a lack of skill. Creating a VM for XP wasn't my first objective. I wanted an OS that when necessity demands can run a truly up to date browser. I'm not a particular fan of Linux (I find its UI both incomplete and inconsistent) but I hate the newer incarnations of Windows. I think Linux Mint is probably the path of least resistance. It runs the latest Firefox browser. It also runs legacy browsers such as Basilisk and Firefox 52. As an after thought I wondered if it could run Windows XP. VirtualBox 7 is the default install under Mint's Software Manager (again, path of least resistance when you don't really know what you're doing). Outside running games (not a great concern for me) I'm really pleased. I have Office XP (including Outlook) running, I have an ancient version of Coral running. All things that run fine under XP but have become some kind of insane, cloud-based, mess under today's Windows. Ben. 1
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