Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd
I've never had a problem with XP activation inside a virtual environment. I've used the same image on an Atom 330, Sempron 3200+, Celeron E3300, Pentium E5200, Pentium E6300, Core 2 Duo E7200, Core i3-530, Phenom II X6 1055T and Core i7-860 and not once have I been prompted to re-activate. That's with a TechNet (FPP) key, though.
As for just reporting an older CPU, part of the reason virtualization is fast is because some resources such as the CPU is mostly transparent to the virtualized OS. Emulation is much, much, much slower.
|
Most modern X86 CPUs are backward compatible, so it's not necessary to switch to emulated instructions, just lie to the VM by reporting some kind of simpler 'lowest common denominator' device like a pentium 4. Yes there are some subtle ways that this can cause issues, but in general it should work for nearly all XP 32 bit applications.
As far as the XP activation issues go . . .
Yes, with the Full Product version of XP you are technically entitled to move the license, but even with the full version, I tied this a few years back and couldn't get the web activation to work, even though I had Internet connectivity and Explorer was up and working in the VirtualBox VM. I was told that XP web activations had been discontinued for ALL versions, and that I would have to call for telephone activation.
It's possible that Microsoft has pulled their collective heads out of their posteriors, and fixed this after realizing that trying to kill off XP isn't promoting Win7, it's just driving people to Apple, Android, Linux, and other less restrictive, or more reliable and secure alternatives.
These alternatives now have more of the market than ever thanks these stupid Microsoft practices (like not letting you move a perfectly legal copy of XP from a dead PC's hard drive to another PC.)
Guess what Billy boy, when I ran into this, I didn't run out and buy a copy of Windows 7, I just downloaded Ubuntu, and had NO trouble getting Linux loaded on those same PCs, and they are now working about ten times more reliably than XP or Win7 ever did.
Microsoft does have a virtual machine XP environment, but they are doing everything they possible can to NOT promote it. This is right up there with the STUPIDEST thing they have ever done (and there have been some dillies). Best thing Microsoft could do if they want to have any hope whatsoever of saving the Windows OS would be to make a Virtual Machine based portable thumb drive XP environment freely available so folks could run it portably on any PC, that way they might not abandon windows.