Question on running older operating systems

[p3sty]

Ok the company I work for have a lot of older front ends that only work on win xp and nothing newer. My current laptop is dying what would be a solution for a laptop that I need a newer os for current projects but need the ancient ones for some day to day tasks? Duel boot,vm ?????? solution has to be mobile.

 

[ChadD]

Wine if your running Linux or mac.

Half joking there... VM is going to be the best option. (if its possible to do your xp stuff offline that would be preferable for security reasons)

 

[michalrz]

VMs, as ChadD said.
There are some very easy ways to migrate a working XP box to a VM (like with VMWare). I myself managed to simply image the OS drive (make an ISO file), point the Virtualization software to it as the drive and it just worked. Box within a box.

There are also dedicated tools to migrate machines to a virtual environment (p2v).

The only thing that will change within the system you'd be imaging will be the drivers. Your XP, when launched in a virtual context, will detect the virtual graphics card, virtual ethernet, virtual sound etc and you'll have to install drivers for those (the virtualization software usually simplifies that by copying those onto your running virtual machine).

The only thing that doesn't seem to work for me with virtualization (I use Linux KVM) are fullscreen DOS era programs. They run windowed.
Also, some graphics acceleration features may not work, as will advanced sound features.

Solution is very mobile, you can literally carry your XP box on a USB stick.

 

[bigdogchris]

I have to keep an XP install around for a few things that require an ancient version of Java. I just use a VM that stays powered off unless it is being used.

 

[ChadD]

The only thing that doesn't seem to work for me with virtualization (I use Linux KVM) are fullscreen DOS era programs. They run windowed.
Also, some graphics acceleration features may not work, as will advanced sound features.

Solution is very mobile, you can literally carry your XP box on a USB stick.

Good points. I guess with the usb stick idea if you really don't want to install a xp vm on your hard drive you could always run a small linux live usb and run your xp stuff in there via wine / dosbox. (not likely the preferable solution but yes it would be portable and work on any machine)

I really just wanted to mention that for DOS era programs if you have any if your working in both a XP VM and a newer win 10/8/7 OS you could just run Dosbox for both. You can switch dosbox to full screen using alt-enter by default. I use that solution myself and have set it up for some clients I in general add this to my dosbox config file in the proper places (not sure where that file is in the windows version but a google should locate it);
[sdl]
fullresolution=1400x1050
windowresolution=1280x960
output=opengl
/* this will switch the render to a smoother fullscreen option in opengl, and give you a non wide full screen and window rez... clearly adapt that to your actual screen resolution as best as possible. Dos programs tend to look pretty terrible stretched out on newer monitors*/

Once setup you could setup its not a big deal to config needed programs to simply launch in dosbox.

 

[SuperSubZero]

Is it a huge deal to run a DOS app windowed? The window could feasibly be larger than a monitor from the DOS days.

For XP either get a VM or get an eBay account. You'll need to buy old hardware at some point.

I am so insanely happy I work for a relatively recent company with little need for legacy stuff. Heck, just to get a Win7 machine takes two levels of approval. I only recently did my very first Office 32-bit install ever and that was two days of the stakeholder going back and forth with the vendor about how it's 2017 and why don't you have a 64-bit compatible plugin for Excel what's wrong with you etc.

 

[michalrz]

Is it a huge deal to run a DOS app windowed? The window could feasibly be larger than a monitor from the DOS days.

For XP either get a VM or get an eBay account. You'll need to buy old hardware at some point.

I am so insanely happy I work for a relatively recent company with little need for legacy stuff. Heck, just to get a Win7 machine takes two levels of approval. I only recently did my very first Office 32-bit install ever and that was two days of the stakeholder going back and forth with the vendor about how it's 2017 and why don't you have a 64-bit compatible plugin for Excel what's wrong with you etc.

The thing with windowed vs fullscreen is that special characters like ąęźćółń don't show up windowed. It's a fairly specific problem. Dosbox would probably help out here.

I work for the gubment here and there's always this one zombified audit guy who feels the need to grab data from a period when he was still swimming in his dad's right testicle.

Should be a non-issue for the OP. Specific use case. Currently I'm tasked with bringing my workplace from 2005 to present day.