VMWare Slow performance running XP

[5h4rk]

Hi, my XP virtual machine is about 13GB, I made it out of my current running Windows. When I start the virtual machine, XP takes ages to start up and I can't do anything because it's too slow. Is that because my virtual machine is too big? Should I do a fresh installation? Or is there something else that I'm missing?

Thanks

[Shazaam]

When I virtualized my physical WinXP install it ended up being about 19gigs so yours sounds about right. Also I only allocate 512mb memory for the vm as any more seems to slow the whole system down.
Have you gone into "Device Manager" and looked for any problems there? Already installed chipset drivers and such can cause problems. Another problem can be fixed by changing the processor in Device Manager from "Uniprocessor PC" to "Standard PC" to fix any acpi problems, but if you have already activated your XP vm you will have to do it again after the change. When you change it to "Standard PC" WinXP will rediscover all of your virtual hadware.

[dpj23]

I would recommend that you use a minimum of 512mb RAM... And install VMtools into the guest operating system... This will also improve performance...

[tighem]

Same problem for me until I switched to Virtualbox 1.5.2. Much faster than VMWare server.

Virtualbox is not without its problems, but if you just need to run XP applications it's pretty fast.