To XP or not to XP . . . ? [View all]

[ucrdem]

As Windows XP nears its much-ballyhooed “end-of-life” on April 8, many of us will need to decide whether and how to keep using it. Basically there are 4 options:

1. Keep it: Hang the torpedoes and just keep running it on whatever it’s installed on;

2. Replace it: Buy a new PC with Windows 8/8.1 and say goodbye to XP forever (XP won’t install on newer hard drives, see below);

3. Dual-boot it: Install XP alongside Vista/7/8 on a new or used PC in a dual-boot arrangement;

4. Run it in a VM: Install XP in a “virtual machine” (VM), or emulator, in a regular Windows 7/8 partition. Popular VMs include Oracle’s "VM Virtualbox," discussed in several threads below, Microsoft’s “Virtual XP” (for Win 7 only), and MS “Hyper-V” (for Win 8 only).

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And here are the basic pros, cons, how-to’s and recommendations for all 4 options:

1. Keep it: Or, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A perfectly reasonable option. MS will keep activating and updating MSE for XP until July 2015 at least.* (see link below)

Recommended: Get SP3 and all available updates before April 8.

2. Replace it: Hard drives in new PCs are formatted using GPT partitioning, which XP can’t boot from. (64-bit versions of XP can read data from a GPT partition, but 32-bit flavors can’t. To install XP on a GPT drive, you need to wipe the entire drive, reformat it using MBR, install XP, and then reinstall Win7/8 from a full backup. Lotta work.)

Recommended: Get a new PC before your old one is completely hosed so you can retrieve data and run XP as necessary.

3. Dual boot it: Possible on pre-2012 MBR-partitioned drives, or on newer GPT drives that have been wiped and reformatted MBR (above). Several steps are involved, and you might need to install a boot loader, so unless you have a taste for bricolage (tinkering) and a lot of time, or need XP for a critical application, it might be better to avoid the trouble.

Recommended: Get a full-retail copy of XP with a valid licence from ebay or elsewhere, as an old OEM back-up disk will balk if you use it to install XP on a different machine.

4. Install it on a VM: This involves downloading and installing an emulator (“virtual machine”) on your hard drive, and then installing XP into the emulator. This saves the hassle of reformatting your drive and finding drivers to run XP on newer equipment, which it won’t without a lot of help. However, VM’s are not a perfect solution, because a VM is basically one huge file with everything in it, including your data, and if anything goes wrong and XP won’t load, well, there goes the ball game. So you need to treat it gently, don't save any files you need on it, and be ready to reinstall if it goes south. And at some point it probably will.

Recommended: Go easy on the updates (forget Windows Live for example), back up your VM frequently (as a .vpi file for example), and use it only as needed, not as your primary OS.

So that’s it in a nutshell: how to handle Micro$haft’s latest Y2K crisis. I’m going to ask Steve if he’ll pin this thread so we can add links to previous discussions and additional info, updates, downloads, and help files as needed. Thanks Steve!

p.s. good luck and slaínte!
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* ZDNet, March 14, 2014: "Microsoft will continue to make all patches and fixes made to Windows XP up until April 8, 2014, available to users via Windows Update. 'There are no current plans to remove existing Windows XP security updates from Windows Update after end of support on April 8, 2014,' a spokesperson confirmed." link: http://www.zdnet.com/xp-sp3-download-it-while-you-still-can-7000027323/