Solved Windows XP Mode used in Windows 7

[Brds7t7]

You may still be able to get an over the counter OEM license for XP. A google search turns up several sites that are still selling it. And all for around $50-60.

Once installed into a VM it can easily be moved from PC to PC without going against the license terms.

Or become a TechNet subscriber.

I wish I could, unfortunately my budget doesn't allow it at the moment!
I've been looking at TechNet licences recently, pretty good considering how many products and licences you can get. I'm doing a new build over the next few months but once that's out the way I'll look into a standard technet subscription.

 

[edwar]

Yes it is, TN, but it is only supposed to be used for testing. Which is what I use it for. But that does not mean others don't use it for other things. What those other things are is up to them.

 

[Brds7t7]

One thing I did wonder about with XP mode, is there anyway to reduce the size of it? It currently shows as 126gb free when I only want it to see about 20gb. Seems very large for a VM and the amount allocated can't be changed while setting it up.

 

[edwar]

One thing I did wonder about with XP mode, is there anyway to reduce the size of it? It currently shows as 126gb free when I only want it to see about 20gb. Seems very large for a VM and the amount allocated can't be changed while setting it up.

That 126GBs is the virtual HD space available. It is not what the Virtual Machine is actually using. Not quite sure about MS Virtual PC but with all other VMs the VHD (virtual hard drive) only uses the physical HD space it needs even though the VHD reads as much bigger.

With VMware Player or Fusion (Mac VMware program) you can view how much physical space the VM is using. Not sure where MS V-PC stores that file (It is just one or multiple files in the same place).

The only bad part about any VM that I have used is if you load a bunch of programs and or files into the VM to expand the VHD size and then delete those files or programs the VHD stays that expanded size, IE it doesn't shrink back down. So be careful what files and program you load into the VM.

 

[Brds7t7]

One thing I did wonder about with XP mode, is there anyway to reduce the size of it? It currently shows as 126gb free when I only want it to see about 20gb. Seems very large for a VM and the amount allocated can't be changed while setting it up.

That 126GBs is the virtual HD space available. It is not what the Virtual Machine is actually using. Not quite sure about MS Virtual PC but with all other VMs the VHD (virtual hard drive) only uses the physical HD space it needs even though the VHD reads as much bigger.

With VMware Player or Fusion (Mac VMware program) you can view how much physical space the VM is using. Not sure where MS V-PC stores that file (It is just one or multiple files in the same place).

The only bad part about any VM that I have used is if you load a bunch of programs and or files into the VM to expand the VHD size and then delete those files or programs the VHD stays that expanded size, IE it doesn't shrink back down. So be careful what files and program you load into the VM.

Very true, there is the option to select Fixed Size when setting up a Virtualbox VM but then if you make it too small you're going to have to delete it and start over again. I usually pick Dynamically Allocated but I have very little installed on VM's at any one time so it never goes over the amount originally set.

Even my Win7 VM's have never gone over 20GB... well not yet anyway!