I have been running my own business since 2002, and each time I upgrade my computer I keep the old one mothballed to support old projects. Cheryl would never have allowed me to bring all these old PCs onto the boat, but one of my customers now wants a significant update on a circa 1998 product. Well you can guess what’s coming next.
The snag being, one of the tools I use runs on Windows XP and I only have Windows 10 – 64bit on the boat.
The more frustrating thing is I had the ideal PC which could quickly load Windows 2000, Windows XP and the customer’s software. In the effort to downsize ready for the boat I gave it to charity (tools with a mission-TWAM) having not even turned it on for 6 years. It would have been perfect for what I need – C’est la vie.
Since I use Windows 10 Professional, I can run virtual PCs with other operating systems without interfering with my normal desktop. Something I have never done but Google came to the rescue finding me some instructions on how to enable it, and how to find a Windows XP virtual machine to load. It turns out Microsoft has recently removed their downloadable copies of a Windows XP virtual PC from the usual page, I guess in an attempt to stop people using XP, but luckily they have it hidden away in another location so I down loaded it anyway. At home I would have downloaded the Windows 8, Vista, and Windows 10 in 32 and 64 bit versions while I was at it, but as we have to use 4G I have to not waste our download limits.
Still with me?
Got all that done – I have Windows XP running on a virtual PC in a window on my desktop and can load software as if it was a standalone XP PC – brilliant.
Well not quite. The virtual PC does not support USB, which was the whole point in the first place. Still, I found another interesting article on how to use USB devices with your virtual PC and what’s more, gives the advantage of full screen use – brilliant. Well no. Unfortunately, you can only use USB devices that will talk to your host operating system, which the device I want to use does not, which is the reason I started all this in the first place.
After a few days of research and playing around getting my Virtual Windows XP PC working – I am still back at square one. So now I am going down the route of buying an old laptop with Windows XP professional on – just so I can use two old and obsolete USB devices. The alternative is to go back to Suffolk and work from home for a few weeks, perhaps not, I don’t think Cheryl would let me do that either.