Note: With the change of hardware from physical-to-virtual, Windows will need to be re-activated. This way, you can upgrade to a newer version of Windows and still access your old Windows XP programs. You can also create a virtual hard drive from your physical hard drive. You create a virtual hard drive and install your operating system inside of it. I've written a few times about using VM's to run different operating systems on the same computer. If you're one of these people, there is hope. Either the software came pre-loaded, they lost the installation media, or the company went out of business. The problem most people are having with going to a new version of Windows is that they have software installed on Windows XP that they cannot install or will not run on a more recent version of Windows.

But you can still use your old version of Windows XP and the installed programs on a newer version of Windows using a Virtual Machine ( VM).Ī physical-to-virtual migrated version of Windows XP inside of VirtualBox running on Windows 8 Using Windows XP as a primary operating system is no longer an option.

After April 8th, 2014, Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP, which means no more security patches or hotfixes.

If you haven't heard by now, Windows XP has come to the end of its life.

Windows xp virtualbox image