Last call for XP . . .
If anyone is thinking of installing XP on a hard drive, now is the time, for as Micro$haft is fond of reminding us, XP support ends March 8. That means it will be very difficult to auto-update a fresh XP with the hundreds of updates it's accumulated since its last release -- 206, by my count, the last time I installed it.
Unfortunately, even if you have a retail XP license, it's basically impossible to install XP on a new Windows 8 machine without nuking Windows 8, as the file system has changed to the point where it can't be done without wiping and reformatting the hard drive. And if you're going to do that what's the point of getting a new computer?
Anyway I found a workaround I'd recommend to anyone needing to run vintage software on a new PC, namely, an Oracle emulator called VM VirtualBox, downloadable here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html?ssSourceSiteId=otnjp
I tried the "Virtual XP" that comes with Windows 7 but for several reasons I could never get it working in any useful way. This one on the other hand is quick and easy and works perfectly, so if you've got an XP disk and license lying around, this is a way to get some use out of it. Best part: it's FREE!
= new reply since forum marked as read
If it works for you good on ya, but in 30 days you might be in for a little surprise. 
DOS WP versions won't run on 7 or 8 without an emulator that runs, you guessed it, XP. They do run on Vista but poorly. And if you need to read docs you need Orifice. I don't like it either but who'll stop the rain?
The point is that this thing doesn't just run XP on the same drive as Windows 8, it runs it as a scalable window in Windows 8, in this case full screen, which is handy. Here's another sight I thought I'd never see:
p.s. yes, that's WP 5.1, which last saw the light of a retail store in 1989 I believe, with its date macro still dutifully dating docs . . . .
Unfortunately, even if you have a retail XP license, it's basically impossible to install XP on a new Windows 8 machine without nuking Windows 8, as the file system has changed to the point where it can't be done without wiping and reformatting the hard drive.
Driver manufacturers have all but stopped supporting legacy OSes. The two major OS producers -- Apple and M$ -- pretty much have locked-down agreements with the OEMs. A lot of them won't even support Linux, and why would they, when the hobbyist hackers installing a FREE system on their computer aren't paying Intel, Broadcom, Foxconn, etc. anything?
This is why Hackintoshes are hit-or-miss: Apple makes most of its own hardware, and what it doesn't, requires the OEMs to "modify" in such a way as the devices would be "exclusive" to a Mac (and not just any old Intel system). Microsoft is not an OEM. That's why Windows machines cost so much less: you're not buying the whole package (system and machine all-in-one), you're buying the computer with a "license" to use Windows -- and ONLY whatever version of Windows is "compatible" with that particular setup.
By the way, it's not the file system that makes getting rid of Windows 8 such a PITA. It's the BIOS, or the firmware -- the specialized set of hardcoded instructions that tell the motherboard to boot up into the system. Microsoft now has its own "proprietary" firmware, called EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface), which apparently you can only disable (and go into "legacy" BIOS mode) through Windows 8 itself. It's not as easy as just "wiping the hard drive" or even swiping the old hard drive for a new one. You can wipe the hard drive 100 times or instal 100 new ones over and over again. Without configuring the EFI, your install disc won't even boot. Even still, there's a chance that the driver manufacturer may have stopped supporting 7 and no longer provides a driver download on its website. Which could be because they too "modified" the chip to only support EFI and 8 and not anything below it.
That said, I too have had mixed results using "XP Mode" in Windows 7. The only thing I like about it is that programs you install into XP Mode show up in the Start menu as regular programs, and you can "pin" them to the Taskbar, just as though you'd installed them normally in your 7 system. But as it turns out, VirtualBox offers a similar option, called Seamless Mode (VMWare calls it "Unity Mode"
. VirtualBox is not only "free as in beer" (no cost) but "free as in speech" -- hence open-source, and has a version for Linux. Which means that if you do decide to take the plunge and install Linux on your PC, you can still run pretty much any version of Windows within the operating system itself! (P.S.: If you've got enough RAM on your physical machine, this guy has shown that it is possible to have a Hackintosh VM.)
This one on the other hand is quick and easy and works perfectly, so if you've got an XP disk and license lying around, this is a way to get some use out of it. Best part: it's FREE!
Hah, well... I have plenty of XP discs lying around...
...but they're from a dealer in Sweden I'm probably not allowed to mention here.
At this point, I'm calling XP "abandonware" so I don't really care what the "official" agreement says.
Far as I'm concerned, if the only other place you can get a copy is on eBay, then M$ and the DMCA cartels can kiss my
I wouldn't recommend it. So you're stuck using F6 to load disk drivers when XP installs. But it only loads drivers off an internal floppy and a USB floppy drive won't work because it hasn't loaded the drivers. And so on.
p.s. I was thinking of GPT vs MBR file system.
