You’ll get a shortcut you can click to launch the application.Īt any time, you can click the Windows XP menu and select Exit Unity to disable Unity mode and confine your Windows XP applications to a single virtual machine window. To create direct links to such applications, right-click their shortcuts in the VMware launcher menu and select Create Shortcut on Desktop.
They’ll appear on your Windows 8 desktop, too. To launch applications running in Windows XP mode, move your mouse to the lower-left corner of the screen and use the VMware menu to launch applications from the Windows XP system. This enables a special mode where your Windows XP applications will run on your Windows 8 desktop.Īny applications you have running when you enable Unity mode will appear on your Windows 8 desktop with their own icons on Windows 8’s taskbar. To make your Windows XP system integrate with Windows 8, click the Player menu in VMware Player and select Unity. Just wait and let the process complete on its own - VMware Player will handle everything, including installing the VMware Tools package that enables the desktop integration features.
VMware Player will automatically install Windows XP inside the virtual machine, so you won’t have to do anything during the installation process. Go through the setup process, providing either a Windows XP installation disc or a Windows XP disc image in ISO format.Įnter your product key, username, password, and other information. Once it’s installed, launch it and create a new virtual machine. Setting Up Windows XP Mode With VMware Playerįirst, download and install VMware Player on your computer. However, VMware Player offers Windows XP-mode-like integration features - you can create direct shortcuts to Windows XP applications and have unique taskbar icons for each virtualized program.
You could also use VirtualBox or another virtual machine solutions, like the Hyper-V virtualization feature included with Windows 8. Windows XP mode isn’t available on Windows 8, but you can reproduce it pretty closely with VMware Player.
Microsoft one-upped their competitors by including a fully licensed copy of Windows XP, offering a nicer experience than installing Windows XP in VirtualBox and having all your old Windows XP applications confined to the virtual machine window. Applications you install in Windows XP mode run inside the Windows XP virtual machine.
On Windows 7, Windows XP mode is actually full copy of the Windows XP operating system running in Microsoft’s Virtual PC virtualization software. Microsoft pitched this feature as a way to run old applications in “ Windows XP mode,” but it’s not just another Windows compatibility feature. RELATED: Our Look at XP Mode in Windows 7 You can virtualize Windows XP with almost any virtual machine program, but we’ll cover a solution that gives you Windows XP-mode like desktop and taskbar integration on Windows 8. However, you can easily set up your own Windows XP mode in Windows 8. Microsoft will soon be discontinuing support for Windows XP and doesn’t want anyone using it, even in a virtual machine. Even my Minidisc recorder is working again.īTW running W2K19 server and WinXP together uses far less CPU resources than just the latest build of W10 alone - so there's definitely either a whole slew of diagnostic stuff that's being captured in W10 and being sent to Ms or there's a massive amount of boat or inefficient coding in it.“Windows XP Mode” isn’t included with Windows 8. I'm now 100% independent of VMWare / VBOX now (Thank goodness - and KVM is FREE). You will need IE8 to download firefox then you are in business.
Now in control panel go to hardware and against any devices with a ? just click properties, update driver and unchecl connect to internet.įor a Browser use Firefox-esr version or Basilik / Pale moon. Now shut down the VM, change the network adapter(s) to virtio, video qxl to qxl and re-boot
Install the VM - after boot just browse the virtio iso and wherever you find a folder xp select the i386 version and then simply right mouse click on the. You can of course host these VM's on SSD's or Nvme's for speed - the Host I/O will ensure max throughput where possible. You need to set sound driver to AC97, and ensure the virtio iso is also enabled. For install the initial disk must be defined as IDE, the install cd must be set up as an ide iso cdrom and you need to set the chipset as i440FX not Q35 as XP will bomb out because it won't until after installation support AHCI.
Install again from new - use Windows XP Pro with SP3 or later. To run XP VM's on the latest hardware and Linux kernels (KVM) - forget about converting from VMWare / VBOX if you have those For some people there's still a need to run XP systems - even as VM's.