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I'm currently running Windows 7 Professional, with Windows XP Mode (basically Windows XP in a Windows Virtual PC VM). I've done a few upgrades from 7 and 8 to 10, and all went smoothly without losing any functionality but I'm reluctant to upgrade this PC.

I understand that Windows 10 Pro doesn't include XP mode and that I really shouldn't be using XP any more, but I have one app that I need that needs it.

If I upgrade this PC to Windows 10 Professional, will I lose access to my Windows XP Mode VM?

Chenmunka
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Randy Orrison
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4 Answers4

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You should still have access to your XP VM. The VM itself should be a .VHD file. If you are upgrading to Windows 10 Pro, enable Hyper-V in the Control Panel. Then, open Hyper-V and create a new VM. It will ask you of you want to create a virtual hard drive. At this point, you just need to browse to your XP VM ( the .VHD file) and this should be very similar to Windows XP mode. If you don't have Windows 10 Pro, you won't have access to Hyper-V. However, you cam still use Oracle Virtual Box, VMware Player, Paralelles, amd maybe some others.

Peter
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It is true that Windows 10 does not include XP Mode, but there are ways to get a XP VM. First of all, you can always download the XP Mode install file, extract the folder VirtualXPVHD, and put it into a .vhd file, and load the resulting file in HyperV or other hypervisor as suggested by several websites (that also have more detailed instructions and pictures).

http://www.download3k.com/articles/How-to-add-an-XP-Mode-Virtual-Machine-to-Windows-10-or-8-using-Hyper-V-00770

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/forget-end-life-woes-windows-8-xp-mode/

Another option would be obtaining an XP ISO file, which is still pretty common.

timuzhti
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Yes because xp mode is only licensed on Windows 7. There no license for it beyond the Windows 7 platform included.

netniV
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If you are unable to buy Windows XP licence anywhere and you have a lot of free time, you could do the following:

Install lightweight Ubuntu version (or other linux) into your virtual machine and install Wine software inside of that linux. Wine is able to run many older software which was designed for Windows XP.

Andrei
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