So, after writing about some of the basics of using XP as a VM, hoping I might give anyone interested ideas to explore, I went off exploring myself. The big takeaway is that XP is, if not dead, dying in the VM world. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was wrong to suggest using XP.
VM Host software emulates most of the physical components making up a PC in software. When you install an OS like Windows on a real PC, setup looks for and installs the needed drivers, either included with the setup files or in Microsoft’s databases. Installing that same OS in a VM however, specialized drivers that the VM Host uses are not available. The 3 main VM Hosts, Hyper-V, VMware, and VirtualBox, provide a package of OS specific add-ons or extensions [what they’re called varies] that include those drivers along with software to improve the overall usability of the VM. Hyper-V and VMware no longer provide those add-ons for XP, while VirtualBox is now removing some of the drivers used by XP – it’s unknown whether or when they’ll remove more, but it doesn’t look promising. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to run XP in a VM, but that the usability will be reduced to the point where you don’t want to.
While VirtualBox does still provide XP support, as of their latest version they’ve dropped 3D emulation. You’re also forced to use the VBoxVGA [emulated] graphics controller, which VirtualBox is going to do away with in the future – it’s no longer possible to use VBoxVGA with Win7-10 [they now all use VBoxSVGA instead]. [Using an actual hardware GPU in a VM at home, rather than on a specialized server, is terribly difficult [if possible], but the VBox graphics controller’s limited 3D features are enough to work with many less demanding games.] If you use Linux or Win7 for the host OS, you could probably get away with running older versions of VirtualBox, but if you’re running Win10 it’s not a great idea – every new version of win10 seems to take an update or two before V/Box works properly again,
To check out XP on the Hyper-V in Win10 1909 I booted into my copy of Win10 that has Hyper-V enabled – you can’t have it enabled & run V/Box – installed the bits to run a VM, created a new VM using one of my V/Box XP VMs, and got it running. And that’s about all I can say. Networking was a PITA to get working [all trial and error], and there are no xp-specific additions or tools like VMWare or V/Box. I found an older copy of those tools online, but it didn’t do much of anything for XP, e.g. no graphics driver. It was also a pain to use, requiring for example a hot key combo to get your mouse back once you clicked in the VM’s window.
To check out VMware I installed the latest free Player and imported an XP VM I had exported from V/Box. After finding and downloading an older copy of their add-ons or tools that still [allegedly] had XP support, I found that they didn’t have much for XP in the way of drivers, and I kept getting errors trying to install both current and older packages. I Googled on those errors, founds lots of different potential fixes [seems that sort of thing is common], but I didn’t see a great reason to devote the time to pursue them, one at a time, when XP-specific driver support was missing anyway. Using the VMware Player was easier, and the results were better than with Hyper-V, though uninstalling the VMware Player, unlike Hyper-V, left a few folders behind that I had to hunt down and delete.
If XP’s out, all 3 VM hosts should work with win7, but I’m hesitant about Hyper-V, fearing that Microsoft might throw up more roadblocks to using a Win7 Guest. None of the 3 allow the sort of integration using Remote Desktop that you get in Win7’s Virtual PC & XP Mode, & while Win7’s Virtual PC is a download you install, it’s an update to Win7 that would probably be impossible to add to Win10. All 3 VM hosts will let you use remote desktop, but by itself RDP doesn’t provide that Win7 XP Mode level of integration. They do let you come a little bit closer to that experience though.
Hyper-V will allow you to create a text file with the .rdp extension that launches an app or game in the VM from a shortcut, starting the VM & then the app/game. V/Box has a seamless mode, that you turn on/off individually for each VM. Using seamless mode, a 32-bit Win7 or Win10 VM running on a 64-bit Win10 host doesn’t work so well for me. If you have the host Win10 taskbar set to Auto-Hide, in seamless mode a 64-bit Win7 VM puts its Taskbar, including its Start Button & Menu where you’d normally see it, while you can still access any windows on the Win10 desktop, which appears unchanged. Any apps you start in that VM appear as if they’re running natively. A 64-bit Win10 VM in seamless mode covers your desktop, as if you were simply running the VM full-screen, but without any window borders or the menu bar across the top of the window. VMware has a Unity mode similar to the seamless mode in VirtualBox, but with the advantage that you can create shortcuts to any of the VM’s installed apps/games on the host Windows desktop – clicking the shortcut starts the VM, then the app or game running in that VM. V/Box makes it easy to create a shortcut to a VM on your desktop, but that’s it.
howtogeek[.]com/171145/use-virtualboxs-seamless-mode-or-vmwares-unity-mode-to-seamlessly-run-programs-from-a-virtual-machine/
