Leave the default “VDI” option selected, and click Next. A new setup window will open, with choices about virtual hard drive files. On the next page, leave “Create a virtual hard drive now” selected and click Create. Depending on how much memory you have to spare, you can allocate from 512MB to 2GB. Windows XP’s memory requirements are very low, but for better performance you’ll want to increase this higher than the recommended 192 MB. The second setup page asks you how much of your system memory you want to devote to the virtual machine while it’s running. Conveniently, Windows XP is the default choice, so unless your dropdown menu looks different, stick with that. On the first page, choose a descriptive name (such as “Windows XP Virtual Machine”) and select what make and model of operating system you’re going to install. You’ll now go through several pages of setup for your new virtual machine. To remedy that, click on the blue New button in the top left corner. When the installer is done, VirtualBox will start up, and you’ll see a message informing you that you don’t have any virtual machines created yet.

There’s a few choices you can make during the installation, but you can just leave the default options selected for everything and click through. If you’ve got all of the above, start by installing VirtualBox. Don’t worry-we’ll walk you through them, one at a time.Ĭlick the blue New button to get started. Setting up a virtual machine isn’t very complicated, but it does involve a number of steps.

With a virtual machine, you can have a full-fledged Windows XP computer running in a window on your desktop, or even one running Linux or Windows 95. It borrows some of your host computers resources, like hard disk space and RAM and uses those to run the virtual computer. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a virtual machine is pretty much what it sounds like: a simulated computer that runs within your main operating system. In light of all this, we recommend that you skip XP Mode in favor of a more flexible solution for accessing Windows XP-running the operating system in a virtual machine. It’s not entirely clear what the security ramifications of running XP Mode after support is cut off are, or if Microsoft will continue to host the free download that allows you to use XP mode. (Click to enlarge.)įinally, and perhaps most importantly, Microsoft will be ending support for XP Mode on April 8 th, the same day they end support for XP itself.

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