Boot an existing XP (Physical HD) install with VirtualBox

[Sand Lee]

# This can be made in Vmware Server or in the closed-source Virtualbox (in Win/ or Linux) [See part 9.9 of user manual]

The VBox version in the repos is the opensource version, therefore you will need to the closed-source download from the link provided.

[Sand Lee]

Thanks for heads-up lance2010, I've seen this before but you've put it in a clear and understandable format. This will be added to the tutorial shortly. ToDo #3 = Done!

Tutorial Updates: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769883#6

[armitage1337]

If I'm using a copy of XP activated with a corporate license, I shouldn't need to do the activation thing, right? Since the license works on multiple computers, and the "two" XPs (virtual and physical) would just be recognized as two separate computers?

[Sand Lee]

I don't know exactly how corporate licensing works, however it seems to me that it just allows the license to be on multiple computers. I think it you may still have to backup your activation keys because Windows will/should notice the significant change in hardware. The corporate key will probably make activation a trivial process for you though.

[gladstone]

Great work on the guide Sand Lee!!

Now if it were only possible to install the Guest Additions... Could it ever be possible?

If you attempted this using VMWare instead (as per here), does VMWare have its own "Guest Additions" that would work?

[armitage1337]

I think that VMware Workstation 6.5 might allow you to install the 'addons' and boot from a physical partition, but it's currently in beta. You can get a free copy from the VMware site and try it out, but it may be buggy.

[AndrewTheArt]

Small note, you can refer to the currently running user's home directory as simply ~

For example, to go to a folder named "test" in /home/username, you'd type

~/test

No need for the clunky YOUR_USERNAME syntax (I used to do that too, seems noobish now)

[Sand Lee]

Thanks AndrewTheArt, wish I had known this before hand. This will make my commands a whole lot shorter !!

Oh, and thanks gladstone, I've put quite some time into making it..

[spiffytech]

I tried doing this with Windows 2000 and almost have it working. I get to boot and select the hardware profile, then the "loading Windows" progress bar goes by, but the OS hangs where it's supposed to transition to the graphical boot, never removing the completed progress bar from the screen.

I followed your guide to a T, except for using the dual-channel IDE controller. Trying that made Windows die a horrible death upon reboot. Is that the problem? Is there an alternate driver I could try?

[UnknownFear]

I have a small question. I am trying to install VirtualBox and in the readme, it says

How to "Install" and Run
------------------------

1. Unpack this archive somewhere.

2. Make sure you have a dot (.) in your LIBPATH statement in CONFIG.SYS.

3. Put the following line at the beginning of your CONFIG.SYS
and reboot:

DEVICE=<somewhere>\VBoxDrv.sys

4. Go to <somewhere> and run VirtualBox.exe (Qt GUI frontend).

5. Note that by default VirtualBox stores all user data in the
%HOME%\.VirtualBox directory. If %HOME% is not set, it will use
the <boot_drive>:\.VirtualBox directory. In either case, you may
overwrite the location of this directory using the VBOX_USER_HOME
environment variable.

Now, I don't know what exactly it means to put a (.) in the LIBPATH statment. And also, for the first line in the CONFIG file, I put "DEVICE=home\VBoxDrv.sys", I than saved it and rebooted.. but I dont see any VirtualBox.exe or anything in the home folder except my username folder with all my stuff in it. Some help please?