I would only argue that W2K and lower no longer seem to me to be workable everyday options given that they cannot deal with hi-dpi screens whilst XP easily can. The enclosed screenshot shows W2K on the left and XP on the right, on a 3200x1800 15-inch screen. Even though the fonts in W2K are larger, the screen quality and readability on XP are outstandingly superior. Needless to say, these observations are only based on my limited experience with the limited instances of W2K and XP I am using. For example, the W2K I am using, as vanilla installed, will only go up to 800x600 for its virtual screen, whilst XP (along with VB) immediately knows that it is on a hi-dpi screen and adjusts accordingly. Perhaps if I knew more about Win2K I would be able to overcome this limitation, but as far as I know, nothing will bring ClearType font rendering to Win2K. My instance of XP shows that I can use it at up to 2560x1024 pixels, although I have manually adjusted it down to 1400x1050 pixels, because I didn't want to (a) put work into adjusting interface elements to work in higher res and (b) risk getting stuck with some elements whose size could not be adjusted. Further observations: Like Mac OS X on the Macbook Retina, Win 8.1 does some extraordinary things to get legacy programs working in hi-dpi. For example, XP under VB works out very well, but I notice that Eudora, now an ancient program, works at this super-high resolution just about as well and visibly as it would at much lower dpi. Apparently it is automatically being supersampled and scaled up, Mac-style. For those interested in this fascinating topic, the one good article is at anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/6 Bafflingly, there are many modern programs that do not work in 8.1 at nearly 300 dpi: for example, in both Quark and in Photoshop CS6 or CC, the main tool elements are too small to be visible. At 12/12/2013 12:08, you wrote:There are important caveats to what I mentioned in my previous post. You can indeed extract the VirtualXP.VHD with 7-zip. Installing it to VirtualBox can be done. I had problems with a missing cursor during the install, but installing VirtualBox add-ons makes the system workable. But then I discovered that the copy of XP is not activated. Activation is done when installing XP mode as part of the normal installation process, so what you have is a 30-day trial copy. This makes options 1 and 2 essentially the same as option 4. If you have a free license key, you can use it to activate this copy. Then again I think you should reconsider as the downloadable copy has been specially made to support virtual machine use in XP mode environment. My conclusion: if MS VirtualPC is not available (not present as in Win7 Home or incompatible as in Win8), it is better to use W2K which can be installed without problems. If you have Win 7 Pro, you can use XP mode, and, if for some reason you cannot (e.g. you want to use VirtualPX 2007), there is VMware Player which imports and installs an activated copy of XP (if you have Win 7 Pro). Is it portable to Win 8, I do not know. Maybe. Still this might be your best bet to use XP mode in Win 8 without paying for an extra copy of XP. If you have a retail XP license, you should be able to transfer it to a virtual machine, but not an OEM license tied to a machine. WMware Player is a bit complicated to use as you need to first convert the VHD file to VMware format. VirtualBox opens VHDs, but does not handle activation. As the hardware parameters change when you change virtualization programs, you cannot transfer activations from different virtualization programs. Best regards, Kari Eveli LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland) lexitec@xxxxxxxx *** Lexitec Online *** Lexitec in English: http://www.lexitec.fi/english.html Home page in Finnish: http://www.lexitec.fi/ 11.12.2013 20:16, I wrote:There are at least these options when and if you switch to Win 8: 1) Any Win 8 version, not just Pro: VirtualBox (or VMware) with XP mode VHD extracted from Win 7 XP modeneeded), see: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-run-windows-xp-in-windows-8-for-free-tutorial/ 2) Win 8 Pro Hyper-V with XP mode VHD extracted from Win 7 XP mode (Win 7 Pro needed) as above 3) VirtualBox (or VMware) with Win2K (if you have a copy, just install, no activation) 4) VirtualBox (or VMware) with XP CD (a separate license to activate, costly!) Depending on your needs and virtualization solutions you like, there are plenty of possibilities. I have not tried all of these, as I am quite happy with Win 7 and VirtualBox/W2K. For running DOS, VirtualPC 2007 is still my choice. Win 3.1 DOS boxes are superior in their visual aspect, simplicity, and task switching. VirtualPC 2007 DOS/Win 3.1 is not for everyone, as it needs tuning and delicate attention like any DOS/Win 3.1 system does, and shows its age but producing some odd behaviors on the host video system (not severe, but irritating at times). Best regards, Kari Eveli LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland) lexitec@xxxxxxxx *** Lexitec Online *** Lexitec in English: http://www.lexitec.fi/english.html Home page in Finnish: http://www.lexitec.fi/ 11.12.2013 11:08, Bill Troop wrote:Sadly it is not. Otherwise, I would not be bothering with VB. Who knows? There apparently is some way to get XP running under Hyper-V, the new (and apparently superior) virtualization technology, but for a start you must have Win 8 Pro. I need to investigate thisAttachment: xywrite in W2K and XP.JPG
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