After doing my first steps with computer virtualization and getting Windows 95 to run under a Windowx XP host system on my old computer and after buying a new computer with Windows Vista installed the next logical step for me was to try getting Windows XP running under my Windows Vista system.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 turned out not to be a solution for that since it doesn’t run under Windows Vista, as I mentioned here. Thus I headed to vmware.com and installed free Vmware Server. This software allows not only to run any of the many available virtual appliances available out there, it also allows to build your own. Those available virtual applicances usually are based on free linux operating systems. Since Windows is a proprietary operating system you need to build your own virtual appliance using your own Windows license.
Thus my first step to take was to actually build myself a Windows XP installation CD since the Windows XP license I own is an OEM license for my old computer which did not come with a native installation CD; only some recovery CDs are available for my old computer.
“How to Create a Bootable Windows XP Setup Disk on a Preinstalled / Preloaded Windows System“ by Christopher Heng was a valuable read and procedure for me to get myself that CD.
After creating a new guest operating system with VMWare Server ( and configuring it to use the right CD drive of my computer ) I was able to boot it up with this new CD and get me XP installed. And after approx. 45-60 minutes – it took some time to prepare the 80 GByte hard disk I had specified for this guest system – my Windows XP virtual system went live.
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| Windows XP running on Windows Vista |
The only initial problem I saw was that no audio was available on my virtual Windows XP computer. Thanks to this article “Enabling Audio in VMware Server” by Mohammad Azimi I learned how to add additional items to my virtual computer ( an audio device in this case of course ) and thus getting it to play sounds and music.
Done. I have a Windows XP now running on my Windows Vista computer. And as soon as Vista starts to be too annoying I simply fire up XP ( or turn on my old computer which is still sitting there under my desk ).
July 16, 2008 at 2:43 pm
[...] tips around a virtual Windows 95 July 16, 2008 — amagard After I have set up a virtual Windows XP on my Vista box I also was attempting to get a Windows 95 image to run on my Vista using Vmware Server. Here are a [...]
July 26, 2008 at 6:51 am
hi
Thanks for ur gr8 stuff but need smalll help i am not abe to acess internet thru virtual pc(windows xp) can u please help me ………..
thanks
kumar.s
July 27, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hi kumar,
with Windows XP I actually did not have any problems to get internet access. In case of Windows 95 I had to add TCP/IP protocol manually, as I described here.
Please check: do you have TCP/IP protocol installed. ? Also you should verify whether the ethernet adapter is enabled in your virtual machine.