James Bannan16 December 2008, 10:00 PM
Need to keep XP running on your Vista system? Virtualization is the key and our step-by-step tutorial will get you there.
Page 4 - Install Windows XP
Step 4 - Install Windows XP
There are a couple of methods available to install the OS. If you have the physical media you can insert that into the host and attach the host's optical drive to the VM. Alternatively if you have the media as an ISO you can attach that directly to the VM as the VM's optical drive or install a virtual image utility like Daemon Tools or Slysoft Virtual CloneDrive, mount the ISO in the host virtual drive and attach the drive letter to the virtual guest.
Installing from the ISO is quicker than from CD, but it does result in more intense hard drive activity.
If you have the physical media and want to create an ISO (which is useful as it reduces wear and tear on the media), there's a free, lightweight tool for Windows called ISORecorder (available here) which lets you burn CDs and DVDs from ISO images, and create ISO images from physical media.
To mount the ISO, highlight the Windows XP VM in VirtualBox and in the right-hand side of the screen click "CD/DVD-ROM", then tick "Mount CD/DVD Drive" and then "ISO Image". There are no images available for selection in the dropdown menu, so click the folder icon. This opens the Virtual Disk Manager - VirtualBox cleverly keeps track of all the ISOs you access regardless of where they're kept and catalogues them, making it much easier to access them later.
Click Add and browse for the Windows XP ISO, then click Select and then OK. The ISO is now attached to the VM as the primary optical drive.
Highlight the Windows XP VM and click Start. With no operating system present and the installation media attached, the VM will automatically boot into the Windows XP setup procedure.
You will get a warning about the "Auto capture keyboard" setting - this causes the VM to capture keyboard input for its own use, but you can click the host key to release the capture. By default the host is the Right Ctrl key. There is a similar feature which captures the mouse input, and again pressing the host key will release the cursor back to the host. This behaviour is common across all virtualization platforms when the guest OS in a state where host integration tools have not been installed or loaded - we'll install these tools post-install.
On the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press Enter, then press F8 on the Licensing Agreement page.
Select "Unpartitioned space" on the available disk and press Enter to install, then on the next page choose the top option - "Format the partition using the NTFS file system (quick)" and press Enter.
Windows XP will now format the partition and copy the setup files across. You won't be prompted for input until the system restarts and boots into the graphical mode setup.
When the graphical setup loads, the first screen is the Regional aned Language Options window. Choose your preferences and click Next.
Type in your name and organisation (if necessary) and click Next.
Type in the product key and click Next.
Type in the computer name you want to assign to the VM system and a password for the built-in Administrator account, then click Next.
Choose the appropriate time and date options for your locale and click Next.
Setup will continue and then install the networking components. make any changes if you need to and click Next. Type in workgroup or domain credentials if needs be, and click Next.
That's all the user input required - Windows XP will now complete the installation and the system will reboot.