Need Windows 8 help from the experts

[TheForce]

I have a Surface Pro with Win 8 pro installed. I would like to se it up to have a virtual PC running windows XP, similar to how I have it on my win 7 pro desktop. I understand that this has been disabled in windows 8.

But for Windows 8 Professional, there is a different version that is supposed to achieve the same goal. In fact there are several ways to achieve a windows XP running on top of windows 8. But I have been unsuccessful of getting any of them to work.

I have tried to install using Hyper V and VMware Virtual Box. I can't get HyperV to recognize windows XP install at all. Virtual Box seemes to recognize the windows XP install and I achieved the basic desktop screen however, I have no mouse control although I do have keyboard control. The mouse pointer disappears when floating inside the Virtual Win XP desktop. I've tried the mouse touch pad as well as the attachable keyboard and neither work.

There is a third way to run windows XP as a dual boot but this is less desirable than having both win8 and win xp working at the same time like I do in windows 7. I haven't tried this procedure yet as I want to exhaust the other methods first.


There are a number of You Tube videos posted on the different ways to run winXP inside of win8 on the Surface Pro but these instructionals really difficult to follow, full of errors, speaker is not in English, or talks like a street hypster.

VMware virtual box seems to have gotten me the closest to my goal if I can get the mouse to work.

But there is an additional problem. When this installed the downloaded windows XP, it said I have 30 days free and then need to buy it from Microsoft and install the key. Of course this wasn't mentioned in the video. Can I use any of my older key's from XP or is the key for XPMode different? On windows 7, I just used an old copy of windows XP I had and it installed fine. But that was a couple years ago.

I'm not against buying a license to run XPMode, or some utility, reasonably priced, if it streamlines the process of getting this to work.

 

[lparsons21]

Don, I don't know enough to really help, but here's a link to a place full of people that do:
http://www.eightforums.com/


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[KE4EST]

Use Oracle VM Virtual Box

 

[TheForce]

Already tried Virtual Box that is where XP installed but don't have mouse. Do I need to turn on mouse integration feature? How do I do that? In win 7 there was a setting for that but I don't see that in VirtualBox.

The one YouTube video that actually showed Virtual box being used to install, unfortunately was done on a laptop, not a Surface Pro. There may be a difference preventing Virtual Box from integrating properly.


Thanks, Lloyd. I will review that link.

Found a thread with some hits for Hyper V. But again this was with a laptop. I will try the suggestions anyway.

 

[lparsons21]

Don, here's another link to a forum specific to Surfaces.
http://www.surfaceforums.net/

I've not followed along with trying to run XP on newer Windows. Mine has been the other way. At first I ran the Windows 10 Tech Preview with VMWare Player which worked fine and is free. Might be the best way for you to go also, and then add the VMware tools after you get it going. Never had issues with it on my SP.



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[Ilya]

Don, Windows 7 Pro included Virtual PC and also came with a free Windows XP license for Virtual PC called "XPMode"

In Windows 8 Microsoft has dropped the support for Virtual PC in an attempt to standardize around its newer enterprise-level virtualization platform Hyper-V. As far as I know, Microsoft has also stopped offering that free Windows XP license: there is no XPMode with Hyper-V, and in fact, Microsoft has completely discontinued Windows XP this year (without making it free of course). You can still install Windows XP in Hyper-V (I've done that a few times, though not on a Surface), but you would need a license key. Not sure if you can buy it from Microsoft anymore, since XP has been retired.

Why do you need XP? Can you use Windows 7 instead?

 

[TheForce]

I have several copies of windows XP Pro on disk here with license key. The question I have is since MS has discontinued XP, when you enter the legal key today, will they authorize it? When I heard :"no longer support" I thought that meant will not update new discovered bugs, will not answer questions. I didn't think they would prevent you from installing and activating the Key.

Why do I need Windows XP?
I have several 16 bit programs from the 90's that do not run in win 7+ I still maintain my old Dell Laptop with XP Professional just for that purpose. I have win 7 and VM XPMode running for all but 1 of those old programs.
For the past year, when traveling and needed to access these programs, I used my surface Pro with logmein and accessed via the internet, my home computer but that is awkward, slow, and unavailable when I travel with no internet connection, or very expensive access such as on board a cruise ship.

I'll review your link too and your suggested approach. I also read about the windows 10 tech preview but that quickly went over my head. There are so many " sure you can do it" posts in these forums yet I haven't seen anyone successfully explain the step by step process to make it work on the Surface Pro. Like I said, I came close with Virtual Box but never could get mouse pointer control.

 

[lparsons21]

Don, I wasn't suggesting W10 for you though after re-reading my post I can see why you might think so.

The link to surface forums should help you out as I'm sure there a some on there doing just what you want to do. I remember seeing some posts over the past year though I didn't follow along with them.


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[Ilya]

I have several copies of windows XP Pro on disk here with license key. The question I have is since MS has discontinued XP, when you enter the legal key today, will they authorize it?

The answer is YES! Provided you have the correct installation set. In Windows XP the license key authorization was done by the installation program itself, not over the Internet, as far as I remember. (At least that was the case with the business licenses I used.)

 

[Art7220]

Why cant you Erase 8 and install XP?

 

[TheForce]

Thanks Ilya. I plan to continue digging through this until I find a way. Hopefully you are right, no need to activate over the internet. The version I tried was downloaded over the internet from a Microsoft support site that was to be used in XPMode. After unpacking a file about 1.4Gb in size had to be file name changed to use in Win 8 VirtualBox, by adding an extention VHD. After doing that it loaded but then gave the message about needing to buy a key after 30 days. If I use my disk copy, I'll need to connect a player to the USB port. No problem with that because I have a USB disk player for the SP that works well, even playing 3D Blu Ray.

Art- that would defeat the purpose completely. You need windows 8 to operate the tablet based features in the Surface Pro. Windows XP by itself has no drivers for that. There is even some question if dual boot will work. While it does on a conventional laptop and desktop, the Surface Pro needs it's base OS to be tablet friendly.

 

[Ilya]

Hopefully you are right, no need to activate over the internet.

Again, I don't know if that's the case for retail versions. I have only dealt with corporate versions under Volume License. And those didn't require any Internet connection at all, until Vista. If you have a retail version it might be a different story.

The version I tried was downloaded over the internet from a Microsoft support site that was to be used in XPMode.

Not sure if that version can be used outside Virtual PC and/or activated with a retail key. If you do have a retail activation key, try finding a retail XP installation disk instead of using the XPMode files.

By the way, according to the following link from Microsoft:

Can Windows XP still be activated after April 8, 2014?
Windows XP can still be installed and activated after end of support. Computers running Windows XP will still work but they won’t receive any Microsoft Updates or be able to leverage technical support. Activations will still be required for retail installations of Windows XP after this date as well.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/end-of-support.aspx

 

[TheForce]

Well, that's good news on many levels. Been busy with other things but I plan to do more testing soon. This thread and links have given me quite a few new directions to try. It also gave me pause that lots of attempts to make it work in windows 8 and is loaded with surprise problems. I do have several xp Pro disks with their keys to try.

This reminds me of a similar problem I had with windows 95 and hardware problems when win XP came out. I ended up having to go back to windows 95 to run my Fast Video Machine betacam edit controller.

 

[mike123abc]

Which surface pro 3 cpu do you have? I noticed the I3 version does not have some of the visualization technology.

 

[TheForce]

I have the original SP, 128Gb storage. i5-3317U dual core; 4 logical processors 1.7Ghz. Intel HD4000 display adapter. I didn't know they cut back to i3 processor on newer models.

 

[mike123abc]

The i5-3317U does have all the virtual machine instructions, so it should not be the source of any problems. It would then fall to BIOS support.

 

[lparsons21]

I have the original SP, 128Gb storage. i5-3317U dual core; 4 logical processors 1.7Ghz. Intel HD4000 display adapter. I didn't know they cut back to i3 processor on newer models.

The Surface Pro 3 comes with i3, i5 or i7 depending on how much money you want to spend!
But reading in some Surface specific forums, the sweet spot is the i5's. Seems the i7 versions if pushed, get too hot so the system throttles itself.

Like you I have the original SP. I've used VMware Player to install W10 tech preview and Linux a couple of times and that worked just fine. Just have to remember to install the VMWare tools after you create the VM and install the client OS. While that should work for XP, I don't actually know if it does.

I'm now running the latest build of W10 natively and it is working fine. I've got an image of the SP saved off onto an external drive and can restore it to that in about 20 minutes. I use Acronis True Image for that and a bootable USB stick to do the restore.

 

[TheForce]

I had some time today to mess around with it but still had no luck. My two XP copies were on CD and Home version. Tried all sorts of different things including making an ISO image and trying to load it that way.

I did find out there was a second download that got the mouse pointer working over the Virtual box window. It is called VM Ware Extensions which is a second download and additional install. Now my USB 2.0 works. BUT I still haven't found a way to recognize the windows XP as a bootable file and do the setup. I'm sure it is something I'm just not doing right. BTW- the VMware extensions also fixed the tiny window and now I have access to a full screen with a popup tool bar. So it must have repaired that too.

When I go to start the install of XP OS, I get an error that the iso file is not bootable, yet I followed all the instructions in the downloadable zipped XPMode. I think I'm getting close on this but still it's just beyond my reach. I believe the Oracle VM Virtual Box will be the one that finally works.

It's funny working through this because no video or instruction I have done yet has been 100% complete. Combining several procedures, I am getting closer, I think.

Here is a procedure that I have been following:

He discovered that within the free WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe file, there's a VirtualXPVHD file containing the Windows XP virtual machine, which you can open in VirtualBox. Here are the steps to get this working:

1. Download WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe from Microsoft. You'll need to run the validation tool to prove your copy of Windows is valid.
2. Then use 7-Zip or another archive tool to open the EXE file as an archive.
3. Within that archive, find the "sources/xpm" file within it, and extract that folder to your hard drive.
4. Finally, in the extracted xpm file, you'll find a file called VirtualXPVHD. Rename it with a VHD extension.

In VirtualBox, open the VirtualXPVHD virtual machine, and voila! You've got Windows XP Mode (running Windows XP Professional) in Windows 8, no need for the XP license.

This might also be possible with Windows 8's built-in virtual machine manager, Hyper-V, but that's only available in Windows 8 Pro.


This part is where I must be doing something wrong. The file VirtualXPVHD was renamed to VirtualXP.VHD and then was recognized but it keeps saying not a boot file. There is also several videos showing this.

Maybe I'm not pointing to the right file or have the folder structure wrong.