Windows XP from existing hardware based machine under Hyper-V possible?

Almighty1 · Nov 20, 2023

Is it possible to actually take a physical HDD that runs Windows XP Pro 32bit w/Service Pack 3 and then create a virtual file and run it under Hyper-V from the virtual file?

Ghot · Nov 20, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Is it possible to actually take a physical HDD that runs Windows XP Pro 32bit w/Service Pack 3 and then create a virtual file and run it under Hyper-V from the virtual file?

Obviously a job for... @jimbo45

LeLibran · Nov 20, 2023

Disk2vhd from Microsoft Sysinternals is a possibility, but you will probably need to reactivate after building the Virtual Machine. If you have the HDD, it shouldn't be much of a problem to extract the activation key, and the telephone activation service will have to be used as the XP Activation Server(s) have been closed down.

Almighty1 · Nov 20, 2023

LeLibran said:
Disk2vhd from Microsoft Sysinternals is a possibility, but you will probably need to reactivate after building the Virtual Machine. If you have the HDD, it shouldn't be much of a problem to extract the activation key, and the telephone activation service will have to be used as the XP Activation Server(s) have been closed down.

I don't even know where the actual media is for Windows XP since it's probably still in the 2009 moving boxes when I moved. I am planning on migrating that physical machine to Windows 11 on a newer machine so with it running in a VM, I can use the start menu and the system tray to see what I want and not want on the Windows 11 host. How does one extract the activation key?

LeLibran · Nov 20, 2023

The easiest way to extract the Windows XP Product Key from a working installation is to use one of the many free Key Finder utilities available e.g,

Wise Windows Key Finder which is 'portable', so no installation is required, just run the standalone exe on the working system to get the Product Key information.

Or, start a new Administrator Command Prompt tab on Windows XP. Check that the command prompt shows C:\WINDOWS\system32> and enter the following command:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Press the RETURN Key and the Product Key should be reported.

Almighty1 · Nov 20, 2023

Thanks @LeLibran, I forgot about the key finders and thanks for instructions on how to do it from the command prompt.

MisterEd · Nov 21, 2023

I reinstalled Windows XP Pro on two old computers last year. Telephone activation did not work. I had to call Microsoft tech support for assistance. With their help I was able to activate Windows on both computers.

BTW, a while back someone on www.xpforums.com posted about a way to activate Window XP using an offline hack. I don't recommend this for normal Windows XP installations but make an exception for virtual machines. If anyone is interested check xpforums and search for "offline activation". If the moderator disagrees about discussing this they might want to remove this from my post.

Almighty1 · Nov 21, 2023

Thanks @MisterEd, didn't realize there were still XP discussion forums available. I am not on a retail license but my XP was installed as part of a Volume License Key so I don't remember if it actually required the standard activation or not.

Is xpforums.com actually part of the various versions of windows forums like this one since it has a similar naming?

MisterEd · Nov 21, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Thanks @MisterEd, didn't realize there were still XP discussion forums available. I am not on a retail license but my XP was installed as part of a Volume License Key so I don't remember if it actually required the standard activation or not.

Unlike current versions of Windows, Windows XP has to be activated within 30 days. If it isn't you are stopped at login and can't can't continue until you activate it.

I gave up on one a few months ago that I had installed using VMware Workstation Player but forgot to activate it within 30 days. Here is what I saw when I tried to log in. I couldn't get past the activation screen.

I just installed Windows XP Pro again using Hyper-V. During the setup I used a valid Windows XP Pro key I had. I activated it using the "offline activation" method I mentioned in a previous post. Here is what the VM looks like.

jimbo45 · Nov 21, 2023

LeLibran said:
The easiest way to extract the Windows XP Product Key from a working installation is to use one of the many free Key Finder utilities available e.g,

Wise Windows Key Finder which is 'portable', so no installation is required, just run the standalone exe on the working system to get the Product Key information.

Or, start a new Administrator Command Prompt tab on Windows XP. Check that the command prompt shows C:\WINDOWS\system32> and enter the following command:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Press the RETURN Key and the Product Key should be reported.

Hi there
I used that command also to find the product key of a current Win 11 Pro install.

@Almighty1

For cloning a physical XP to a VM using a Windows HOST could be a problem since the Virtual HDD's need an XP driver. Note that only USB2 also is supported and unless you visit one of those hobbyist XP sites you won't find a sata driver --you'll need an ide driver. As for sound you can emulate something like soundblaster - depending on your physical machine's hardware and the virtual machine HOST system you are running.

Also you will need some sort of disk cloning utility -- to copy the real disk image to the VM. Macrium won't work on XP -- Norton Ghost might if you can find an old copy or if you can learn to use the bootable GPARTED Image (download the iso).

I had tried in the past with things like disk2vhd and usually got nowhere with it --computer freeze, no mouse etc. Incidentally that also requires the vhd to be in one contiguous data file not split into a lot of "little files". On a Linux Host it's quite simple with KVM ad you can download from the fedora site the virtio windows drivers which include drivers for XP.

I had an ISO from the old technet system which I installed as a VM and the serial number activated without issue.

If you need Internet Firefox SE still works. You might also have to enable various bits of "defunct" network options to get sharing to work. It's all dooable though. Office 2010 keys from Technet also still activate.

If you need some old iso's the Internet archive site is a good repository but if using those check that they are "untouched2 before using.

cheers
jimbo

Almighty1 · Nov 21, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
I used that command also to find the product key of a current Win 11 Pro install.

@Almighty1

For cloning a physical XP to a VM using a Windows HOST could be a problem since the Virtual HDD's need an XP driver. Note that only USB2 also is supported and unless you visit one of those hobbyist XP sites you won't find a sata driver --you'll need an ide driver. As for sound you can emulate something like soundblaster - depending on your physical machine's hardware and the virtual machine HOST system you are running.

Also you will need some sort of disk cloning utility -- to copy the real disk image to the VM. Macrium won't work on XP -- Norton Ghost might if you can find an old copy or if you can learn to use the bootable GPARTED Image (download the iso).

I had tried in the past with things like disk2vhd and usually got nowhere with it --computer freeze, no mouse etc. Incidentally that also requires the vhd to be in one contiguous data file not split into a lot of "little files". On a Linux Host it's quite simple with KVM ad you can download from the fedora site the virtio windows drivers which include drivers for XP.

I had an ISO from the old technet system which I installed as a VM and the serial number activated without issue.

If you need Internet Firefox SE still works. You might also have to enable various bits of "defunct" network options to get sharing to work. It's all dooable though. Office 2010 keys from Technet also still activate.

If you need some old iso's the Internet archive site is a good repository but if using those check that they are "untouched2 before using.

cheers
jimbo

@MisterEd - Thanks for the pointers about the activation. I remember I cloned the HDD back in the 2000's when I literally changed all the hardware including the motherboard, video card and even SCSI controller and I never had to re-activate but ofcourse I am running on a Volume License Key which is probably why.

@jimbo45 - I really only need it more for the visual and not the sound as basically I will be using the XP's start menu as well as the system tray as a guide to see what things to install on the Windows 10/11 host and at the end, the only thing running on the XP side would be WinFax Pro as that does not support anything later than XP 32 bit and I will probably just send faxes using PDF files from the XP side. My XP actually uses a Parallel ATA/EIDE 250GB HDD and not SATA. So the sound part isn't important as usually I never use the sound on a computer 99% of the time.

I kept thinking the disk cloning part was supposed to be the easiest but it seems like that is the challenging part.

Was just reading this thread:

Clone Windows XP system to new age computer, Virtual or physical

Hey, guys. We have some older systems at work that run some of our processes. The computers are all XP service pack 2 and 3 and their hardware from that era as well. I'd *like* to clone them to a virtual machine on a new computer, in lue of hardware failure. However, I haven't found a good way to...

linustechtips.com

johnlgalt · Nov 21, 2023

Almighty1 said:
I don't even know where the actual media is for Windows XP since it's probably still in the 2009 moving boxes when I moved. I am planning on migrating that physical machine to Windows 11 on a newer machine so with it running in a VM, I can use the start menu and the system tray to see what I want and not want on the Windows 11 host. How does one extract the activation key?

You can get old official Microsoft .ISOs from archive.org - it's how I built my XP, Vista, 7 and 8.1 VMs. Unless you need the actual OS as installed on a machine, start from scratch, it'll be a lot faster. I even used my old Technet XP keys for my VMs and activated via phone activation (using my cell phone number, which then allowed me to do it via a link sent to text, and use a page that I could paste to and copy from.

Bree · Nov 21, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Is it possible to actually take a physical HDD that runs Windows XP Pro 32bit w/Service Pack 3 and then create a virtual file and run it under Hyper-V from the virtual file?

Yes, it is. At least, it was when I tried it three years years ago (while the free upgrade from W7 to W10 was still available)

Bree said:
My XP machine was less fortunate than yours, it had installed software I wanted to keep but the only remaining working hardware was its (IDE) hard drive. I put the HDD in an expansion adapter and took a Macrium Reflect image of it, then booted a Hyper-V VM from a Macrium recovery ISO and restored the image to it.

My purpose was to upgrade it from XP to Windows 10 keeping files and apps, which you can do, but in stages. First XP > Vista, then Vista to W7, and finally W7 to W10.

(from my post #7 in this thread)

How to convert actual XP PC with apps and files into XP VM on Win 10? - Windows 10 Help Forums

My old XP machine (still running) has apps and files going back to 2008, including 10GB of emails, and I'd like to convert it into a Virtual Machine on my Win 10 Pro 64-bit (currently version 1909). So the XP will always be there when I need to get someth

www.tenforums.com

And I've been keeping that 32-bit Windows 10 with its MS Office 2003 updated (as a VM) to this day. Last week I finally found it a home on a real machine, an old Acer AOD270 netbook of mine.

Almighty1 · Nov 22, 2023

johnlgalt said:
You can get old official Microsoft .ISOs from archive.org - it's how I built my XP, Vista, 7 and 8.1 VMs. Unless you need the actual OS as installed on a machine, start from scratch, it'll be a lot faster. I even used my old Technet XP keys for my VMs and activated via phone activation (using my cell phone number, which then allowed me to do it via a link sent to text, and use a page that I could paste to and copy from.

Thanks, the thing is I am trying to first migrate the existing machine from a real to virtual machine first and then see what apps using the XP Start Menu as a guide on the Windows 11 host machine as well as copy data such as images, and other stuff on my desktop and other directories over to the Windows 11 side. Only thing at the end that will remain on the XP VM is WinFax Pro as that is the only thing that won't run on anything newer than XP. But in any case, does the Volume License Keys require a certain .ISO to work as I know there is OEM and Retail versions of the ISO which does not wok with the VLK.

@Bree - Thanks for the pointers except in my case, I can't really upgrade the XP machine itself as the entire reason even need the XP under a VM is for running WinFax Pro. For other things, I can probably just take screenshots of the system tray as well as the different folders for the start menu for all users, my own user and then use that as reference. I can probably clone the HDD to a second identical WD 250GB PATA HDD and then use that instead of messing with the original drive so should anything go wrong, I will still be able to start all over again.

MisterEd · Nov 22, 2023

I haven't used Hyper-V as much as some other VM programs. After I created the Windows XP Pro VM I realized I needed to copy something from the Windows 11 host to its C: drive. I finally succeeded by doing the following:

Mount Windows XP virtual hard disk

Locate folder containing Windows XP virtual machine
Open directory Virtual Hard Disks
I right-clicked on Windows XP Pro.vhdx and selected Mount
It opened as a new drive, Drive 2 (E:), on my Windows 11 computer
I dragged and dropped the files I wanted to that drive

Dismount Windows XP virtual hard disk

Open Disk Management
Right-click on Drive 2 and selected Detach VHD

Note the virtual hard disk had to be dismounted after I mounted it or the Windows XP virtual machine would not boot. I am sure there is an easier way to transfer files between the virtual machine and the host but this suffices for now.

Almighty1 · Nov 22, 2023

Thanks @MisterEd - The mounting is similar to mounting a ISO image but never knew the unmounting requires going to Disk Management.

MisterEd · Nov 22, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Thanks @MisterEd - The mounting is similar to mounting a ISO image but never knew the unmounting requires going to Disk Management.

After I mounted the virtual disk I was perplexed that there was no option to unmount it. However, it really became a problem when I couldn't boot the VM. Then through the magic of Googling I found out how to unmount the virtual disk.

Bree · Nov 22, 2023

Almighty1 said:
Thanks @MisterEd - The mounting is similar to mounting a ISO image but never knew the unmounting requires going to Disk Management.

MisterEd said:
After I mounted the virtual disk I was perplexed that there was no option to unmount it. However, it really became a problem when I couldn't boot the VM. Then through the magic of Googling I found out how to unmount the virtual disk.

You might both like to know that you can eject a mounted virtual disk from File Explorer, same way as you can eject a usb drive or a DVD. It's called 'eject' rather than 'unmount' which is why you (and me for a long time) didn't spot it :wink:

It was there in W10 too....

johnlgalt · Nov 22, 2023

Almighty1 said:
But in any case, does the Volume License Keys require a certain .ISO to work as I know there is OEM and Retail versions of the ISO which does not wok with the VLK.

VLK from an Enterprise install? Should still be doable. I'm pretty sure I saw VL builds for older OSs at Archive.org.

But cloning that physical drive to a VHD should also be doable as Bree showed.

Almighty1 · Nov 23, 2023

johnlgalt said:
VLK from an Enterprise install? Should still be doable. I'm pretty sure I saw VL builds for older OSs at Archive.org.

But cloning that physical drive to a VHD should also be doable as Bree showed.

Yep, found one right here which even includes a working Volume License key which does not need activation. If I remembered correctly, it's really one file that is different that defines what type of licensing it will accept. Now the question is are updates that were released after Service Pack 3 still available using Windows Updates?

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (Product Key) : Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Product Key: B2RBK-7KPT9-4JP6X-QQFWM-PJD6GImportant: For those who want to run on windows 10, and still want to access windows 10, I recommend you use a...

archive.org