Windows XP...? In 2019!!!? Ideas?

[Ajay]

VRAM: 256MB of Graphics Memory.

LOL! Still, Crysis couldn't be run on ultra settings back then.

 

[pcgeek11]

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We had to outfit a PC with DOS 6 a few months ago for this very same reason. Works great.

 

[TheELF]

We had to outfit a PC with DOS 6 a few months ago for this very same reason. Works great.

You can install dos on anything and everything will work fine...except for the audio, you will need a PCI soundblaster for that,there are very few other options for sound.
Oh of course if the software needs a serial or parallel port you are out of luck,or if it needs a floppy disk.
Ok forget what I said getting a custom PC is a good idea...

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Was this win xp 32 bit?
I have no luck with Asus A68hm-k and amd a6-7480. I "feel" the problem is the cpu. And notice Gigabyte recommends the Kaveri cpu for their A68hm chip set if using xp-32.
But you used a Godaveri cpu. Thanks

It is 32bit XP. Windows doesn't care about the CPU used, apart from most of the advanced features not getting used. You'll however need a supported graphics card, since AMD doesn't provide drivers for anything newer then Trinity's IGP (I think) under XP. A simple GT710/HD6450/R5-230 or equivalent has XP drivers and are pretty low power.

There are a few hoops to jump through to getting XP installed however. The most important being that the SATA controller is set to IDE mode. The XP installer will not recognise an AHCI drive unless you provide it with a driver. But the installer only supports floppy disks/FAT12 for this purpose, so you need either an old fashion floppy drive* or a floppy disk adaptor. Or slipstream the required driver. Which is easiest in most cases. nLite is perfect for this. It should still be possible to dig up a copy.

*Which modern boards don't have a connector for, and you can't use a USB floppy drive (unless you're willing to jump through even more hoops), since this is before USB drivers are loaded.

 

[VirtualLarry]

*Which modern boards don't have a connector for, and you can't use a USB floppy drive (unless you're willing to jump through even more hoops), since this is before USB drivers are loaded.

Actually, technically, you CAN use a USB floppy drive, but only one of a select few "approved" models, what I mean by "approved", is that their USB device IDs are pre-installed in the INF files in the XP setup routines. Most of which are no longer mfg'ed. So good luck going that route.

(Yes, I've actually tested/done this.)

 

[mikehati]

It is 32bit XP. Windows doesn't care about the CPU used, apart from most of the advanced features not getting used. You'll however need a supported graphics card, since AMD doesn't provide drivers for anything newer then Trinity's IGP (I think) under XP. A simple GT710/HD6450/R5-230 or equivalent has XP drivers and are pretty low power.

There are a few hoops to jump through to getting XP installed however. The most important being that the SATA controller is set to IDE mode. The XP installer will not recognise an AHCI drive unless you provide it with a driver. But the installer only supports floppy disks/FAT12 for this purpose, so you need either an old fashion floppy drive* or a floppy disk adaptor. Or slipstream the required driver. Which is easiest in most cases. nLite is perfect for this. It should still be possible to dig up a copy.

*Which modern boards don't have a connector for, and you can't use a USB floppy drive (unless you're willing to jump through even more hoops), since this is before USB drivers are loaded.

I have used both CD Rom and easy2boot to create boot able USB. The Bios set to IDE mode. Either case, the win xp installation "hangs" at 35 mins. during device drivers install. Have tried 3 different DDR3 memory sticks.

I guess I am still missing something, it's been very frustrating.

Thanks ,mike

 

[mikehati]

I have used both CD Rom and easy2boot to create boot able USB. The Bios set to IDE mode. Either case, the win xp installation "hangs" at 35 mins. during device drivers install. Have tried 3 different DDR3 memory sticks.

I guess I am still missing something, it's been very frustrating.

Thanks ,mike

I happy to say that I got win xp 32 installed. The problem was xp installation device file cpu.inf Once deleted, xp installed with no other problems.

mikw

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I happy to say that I got win xp 32 installed. The problem was xp installation device file cpu.inf Once deleted, xp installed with no other problems.

Glad to hear you got it working. Using such an old OS on new hardware can throw up the weirdest issues.

Just out of interest, which version of XP were you using for installing? SP2 or SP3? Hadn't any problems with a standard slipstreamed SP3 w/ AHCI drivers.

 

[pcgeek11]

You can install dos on anything and everything will work fine...except for the audio, you will need a PCI soundblaster for that,there are very few other options for sound.
Oh of course if the software needs a serial or parallel port you are out of luck,or if it needs a floppy disk.
Ok forget what I said getting a custom PC is a good idea...

They are a bit pricey, but when the company is paying for it...

 

[mikehati]

Glad to hear you got it working. Using such an old OS on new hardware can throw up the weirdest issues.

Just out of interest, which version of XP were you using for installing? SP2 or SP3? Hadn't any problems with a standard slipstreamed SP3 w/ AHCI drivers.

Used xp 32bit sp3.

 

[vailr]

Seems socket 1155 Z77, B75 chipsets still support XP.

An Intel Z77 chipset motherboard with on-board Realtek LAN + NVidia GTX 600 or 700 series video card + SATA SSD + 2x 2Gb DDR3 should have drivers for running XP & would probably run faster than an AMD FM2+/A68H system. A used Z77 HP or Dell machine from eBay would be the less expensive option.
See:
Is a $70 Hackintosh Any Good?

 

[TwoWings]

I need a box that can run XP on as modern a platform as possible. A VM is unfortunately out of the question in this case. The application doesn't need tremendous performance, mostly raw CPU performance. More would be better of course, but within limits. As in small core AMD/Intel CPUs are likely out of the question.

Hi Sir!

What are your thoughts on this setup?
I am aiming for a drive with Win XP to run old music studio programs and open old projects. Will it work?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I am aiming for a drive with Win XP to run old music studio programs and open old projects. Will it work?

Partially. If you're serious about running bare metal XP, you'll need another GPU. Polaris (RX 400/500 series) doesn't have XP drivers.

That rules out everything post Kepler (700-series) Nvidia, and post GCN1.2 (HD 7000-series) on the AMD side. You might have to dig a bit around for chipset drivers too, but they shouldn't be too hard to find.

What I'd really recommend is getting something dedicated to run XP. If you dig around a bit, you may be able to find an old PC free or very cheap that can run XP. Setting Windows XP up on a modern PC isn't really something I'd recommend unless you know exactly what you're getting into. Simply because there is an awful lot of gotchas and incompatibility, where you need precise knowledge of how both Windows and PC's work to get a succesful installation in place. Also because installing XP will break compatibility with newer Windows versions. XP is after all almost 20 years old. The core is even older. This isn't for the faint of heart, or shortness of temper.

 

[Magic Carpet]

That rules out everything post Kepler (700-series) Nvidia, and post GCN1.2 (HD 7000-series) on the AMD side.

Maxwell, GeForce 950 and 960 officially support Windows XP SP3 without any hacks or tweaks.

MyPal would be your web browser, that is still updated regularly. But of course, there is no much point to use Windows XP these days, outside of experiments or when using specific gear. Most older computers can still run Windows 7, that is still regularly maintained, if you are subscribed for updates.

What is more hardcore is trying to run apps on ancient processors without required cpu instructions. I recently, messed up with a Pentium 133 on a socket 7 motherboard, oh boy that was quite an adventure.

In other news, you can run 3dfx Voodoo2 SLI in Windows 10, and it works largely the same as 20+ years ago, but you do need a couple of legacy PCI slots, however. Hard to come by, these days.

 

[mikeymikec]

What was the reason you couldn't run this in a VM again?

I'm curious to know as well. AFAIK the usual reason is hardware support, ie. whatever legacy application needs to access a piece of obsolete hardware.

 

[TwoWings]

Thanks guys, i wonder what to do. A dual setup seems necessary. If i change GPU i still have to change to IDE in bios each time to get a faster SSD for Win 10 right? Nvidea GT 710 is good for XP though, i have test it out. But a little weak for 10 maybe.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Maxwell, GeForce 950 and 960 officially support Windows XP SP3 without any hacks or tweaks.

Good to know. Wonder why actually. My 970 doesn't have drivers listed for XP, and since the 950/960 is newer...

MyPal would be your web browser, that is still updated regularly.

Obligatory "Windows XP should be kept of the internet". But it might be less pressing these days, since XP is certainly legacy at this point.

What is more hardcore is trying to run apps on ancient processors without required cpu instructions. I recently, messed up with a Pentium 133 on a socket 7 motherboard, oh boy that was quite an adventure.

In other news, you can run 3dfx Voodoo2 SLI in Windows 10, and it works largely the same as 20+ years ago, but you do need a couple of legacy PCI slots, however. Hard to come by, these days.

That's really the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. Windows 10 has great backwards compatibility, so there is no reason old drivers won't work if you use the 32bit edition.

Windows XP forward compatibility? Not great. F.x. XP assumes and only has built-in drivers for old fashion IDE and SCSI. AHCI or RAID mode requires either a driver loaded from a floppy disk(!) because XP doesn't support reading anything other then floppy/FAT12 during install, or that you slipstream the required driver.

I'm curious to know as well. AFAIK the usual reason is hardware support, ie. whatever legacy application needs to access a piece of obsolete hardware.

Still don't rightly know why. I mean, it should work, but somehow just refuses to work on anything post XP.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Thanks guys, i wonder what to do. A dual setup seems necessary. If i change GPU i still have to change to IDE in bios each time to get a faster SSD for Win 10 right? Nvidea GT 710 is good for XP though, i have test it out. But a little weak for 10 maybe.

You can either slipstream the AMD AHCI driver, or you can do the IDE/AHCI switch trick once you have it installed.

Be aware XP doesn't support TRIM, so you get a lot of write amplification on an SSD.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Thanks guys, i wonder what to do. A dual setup seems necessary. If i change GPU i still have to change to IDE in bios each time to get a faster SSD for Win 10 right?

You can slipstream AHCI support into the iso, as mentioned above. It’s not that difficult

Nvidea GT 710 is good for XP though, i have test it out. But a little weak for 10 maybe.

I run an office computer with GT710 in Windows 10, no performance issues at all. Well, only FHD resolution and a single monitor though.

Be aware XP doesn't support TRIM, so you get a lot of write amplification on an SSD.

If it’s an older SSD there might be a utility for Windows XP that does it. Intel SSD toolbox certainly did that. But if its a dual boot setup, you can do it in w10.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I run an office computer with GT710 in Windows 10, no performance issues at all. Well, only FHD resolution and a single monitor though.

Even my old Voodoo Banshee could do full GDI acceleration. Anything post shouldn't have any trouble with desktop XP. With the possible exception of Intel "Extreme" Graphics (2)...

I think the maximum resolution on the VGA output was 2048x1536, so FHD should be possible on it.

 

[mikeymikec]

Still don't rightly know why. I mean, it should work, but somehow just refuses to work on anything post XP.

So it's just a piece of software that refused to work in an XP VM?

 

[TwoWings]

Can ane assumet that the slightly stronger GT1030 (wants a silent) also got support for XP?

Any link to the IDE switch trick?

 

[Magic Carpet]

Good to know. Wonder why actually. My 970 doesn't have drivers listed for XP, and since the 950/960 is newer...

For one, 950/960 had newer silicon and a slightly better video decoder. For two, these cards were perfect upgrades for older computers, so it made a lot of sense to support W_XP. But, you can modify drivers and make even 980 Ti run in Windows XP, but that’s hacking. I think, nvidia really didn’t want to spend resources to optimize these higher performing cards for the outgoing dx9 OS and I don’t blame them.

Obligatory "Windows XP should be kept of the internet". But it might be less pressing these days, since XP is certainly legacy at this point.

Should be, but some people are willing to take the risk. Again, it’s only cool for experiments. The performance isn’t there if you have a half decent computer and not a single core Celeron from 2003. The only plausible use that I see today is car diagnostic software that is still used to fix older cars.

That's really the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. Windows 10 has great backwards compatibility, so there is no reason old drivers won't work if you use the 32bit edition.

There is a 64 bit driver for the V2, no need to use “legacy” w10 32bit 😎

Windows XP forward compatibility? Not great. F.x. XP assumes and only has built-in drivers for old fashion IDE and SCSI. AHCI or RAID mode requires either a driver loaded from a floppy disk(!) because XP doesn't support reading anything other then floppy/FAT12 during install, or that you slipstream the required driver.

Windows XP was a beaut in customization, you could even assign/rename system folders to your liking and allocate them to different drives. A lot of that was taken away in newer os revisions, for the sake of security. I remember having lots of SIF files for that purpose alone on a floppy disk. That was handy, you could initiate custom/unattended installation at will. Nowadays, I have multiple usb pen drives instead. Not sure which method I have prefered more.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Even my old Voodoo Banshee could do full GDI acceleration. Anything post shouldn't have any trouble with desktop XP. With the possible exception of Intel "Extreme" Graphics (2)...

Banshee had amazing 2D output quality for its time, that rivaled Matrox and surpassed Nvidia in some cases, and that is worth something these days 😉

I think the maximum resolution on the VGA output was 2048x1536, so FHD should be possible on it.

In my experience, the quality of VGA signal can greatly vary on higher resolutions. Even card to card implementation can vary greatly. Some of my older Kepler and GCN 1.0 cards didn’t have VGA signal done right (there was lots of interference even at 1280x1024). And it wasn’t the cable. With digital you get far more consistent results, so it’s always a good idea to upgrade your monitor to avoid running into those issues. Maxwell was the last nvidia series to support native VGA output.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Can ane assumet that the slightly stronger GT1030 (wants a silent) also got support for XP?

Pascal isn’t supported in Windows XP. See if you can find GeForce 750 Ti 2GB, that card is quite power efficient and should be quiet in most cases. GeForce 950/960 are also suitable but likely more expensive, but some of the models have a stop fan feature, which gives you silence in low demanding tasks like browsing.

Any link to the IDE switch trick?

What is your chipset? If it’s Intel, check this guide. Questions shoot later.