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I have a friend of a friend who has a used car dealership, he ran his entire business off a windows xp comp with no backups. That machine died over the weekend. He doesn’t want to have to buy new software and his current software is too old to run on windows 10 or 11. I know with a functional machine there are ways to easily convert a running OS to a VM, I’ve done this with hyper-v and VMware on newer OS versions. BUT I’ve never done this from a raw drive after a hardware failure and not having a compatible swing machine. So is this even possible to convert a windows xp from a standalone HDD to be virtualized?

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COnnect the disk to another PC and then use the disk2VHD converter to create a virtual hard disk file of it : Disk2vhd - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn

Once you have this virtual hard disk image - you can create a VM on a new PC e.g. windows hyper-v on windows 11, and use this file as the disk. I suggest making a copy first as a backup. On first boot the XP ‘pc’ should detect the hardware changes etc.

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As @matt7863 ​ mentioned, Disk2VHD will get a vhd, vhdx file from a physical drive.

Also the Starwind V2V/P2V converter will do the same thing.

And really this is pretty much the only recommended way to move forward with the old OS and Software, other than find another really old PC and swap the HDD into it.

I have more than one client that was in the same boat, and now uses a VM to run their old apps.

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While those before me have provided answers to the technical - note that running a desktop OS on a virtual environment that is not directly in front of you is not allowed without specific licenses.

If the machine is to be installed on windows 10/11 with the Hyper-V role - that’s different, but it cannot be on a headless server with more than one person using it without VDA licenses. These are expensive. At which point your friend or a friend may wish to get prices for a product upgrade or move the data to excel or similar.

Perhaps even a freeway/open-source program that does close enough to what they want.

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Indeed, on the ones I have done, it was using a Windows desktop, so they had an icon to click on the desktop to start the VM.

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The OP is helping a used car dealer that was still using XP, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to get a call from the license patrol for running his Win XP VM on a workstation.
The bigger issue is Hyper-V doesn’t support Windows XP so you will need to use a different Hypervisor.

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While I agree MS are unlikely to pick up the phone and call - the type of business is not relevant to whether they care or not.

The information is provided so the OP and his colleague know the implications - it’s their choice to ignore that, I am simply pointing it out for completeness.

As far as Hyper-V not supporting XP - that doesn’t mean it wont work. I have an XP machine running on Hyper-V on top of W11 - so the OP is aware.

Enable RDP on the box and have the user remote to it, then things like integration tools won’t matter so much.

I’m not arguing with you either, just posting why I covered the licensing part - it seems many on here dislike posts that cover this, but I’m sure we’d all have a little guilt if someone we helped come back a few months later to tell us of a fine they’d received due to licensing. Just covering all bases.

@markrogalski

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Thanks for mentioning StarWind V2V Converter.

Hey @jessebruff ​,

As mentioned, you can connect drive from an old PC to a working PC and use StarWind V2V Converter to convert entire drive to vhd container. Check our help for detailed instructions: StarWind V2V Converter Help : Physical Disks and P2V Scenario

As the next step, you need to attach the vhd to a VM or create a new VM with this vhd.

Feel free to DM me if you need any help or contact our support on the forum. https://forums.starwindsoftware.com/

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But does starwind covers the MS Client OS licensing portion ? This is a can of worms if MS or BSA considers this as accessory to piracy ?

Windows XP was never declared “freeware” and the various MS regulations still applies.

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Actually I am not sure about that. We have been in contact with several Global Software resellers and they have told us that certain software including BSA etc have started a approaching SOHO even. The fines have been lowered to only approx USD 10K “per incident” but they usually offer workaround like some back-purchase of licenses.

Unless the user have WinXP with SA or other OS before Windows 11 “with SA” (there have been reports that MS stopped selling Win 11 with MSVL & SA as well), using a P2V version of a PC or lappy with OEM or retail license is sure fire way trigger some BSA or MS audits (when they get too hungry).

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It’s no can of worms, it’s a pretty routine operation. It works the same way as f.e. VM replication and any OS backups do. You can’t spawn multiple copies of the same-key-licensed OS and it’s up to you how to handle it. Did you convert the machine, restore it from backup or whatever - it’s irrelevant.

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Converting his old machine image into VM and running it in public cloud sounds like a viable option.

P.S. At least he or his consultant would enable cloud backups, so great incremental improvement compared to his old “setup”.