That Final Move To Linux Lite, Almost

[Wirezfree]

Hi All,

This is not meant to be a tutorial, I'm not that good at writing them, This is really how I've almost completely got rid of my last Windows PC.
I have 2 things that at present necessitate me keeping Windows XP, MS Visio lots of diagrams, and MS Outlook for connecting to my Hosted Exchange account.
I have created a live working image of my last Win XP machine that now runs in Virtualbox on LL2

These are the steps I took to do it, mostly culled from other threads/forums, and it's been running @ 10 days, and have not had to switch on my Win XP box.

1. Downloaded a couple of utilities in advance:
    > Disk2VHD, no install required it is just an .exe, it's a MS tool to create an image of your live running Windows PC
       just copy to c:\
       http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx

    > Clonevdi , no install required it is just an .exe. Used to convert the vhd file(s) above to vdi files for better compatibility with VBox
       Just unzip contents to a folder, say c:\clonevdi\
       https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=22422

Then:
1. In Windows XP I went into Add/Remove programs and removed any/all programs that I have a Linux replacement for.
2. I then ran CCleaner(used it for years) and cleaned out all old files, cleaned the registry and removed old System restore points, except last one.
3. Then defragged my disks.

For the next bit I used an external USB drive(500GB) to avoid disk space issues

Run DISK2VHD.exe, It will show you all your disks & partitions on your XP PC.
Using the tick boxes you need to create 1 ".vhd" per disk, I had 2 disks & 4 partitions, disk1 = C: & E: and disk2 = D: & F:
I created xplivedisk1.vhd and xplivedisk2.vhd on to the external USB drive
This took about 2hr 15mins

Then,
Run clonevdi.exe, It will allow you to navigate to the vhd(s) "Source" and convert them to .vdi "Destination"
I kept everything on the USB drive, and created xplivedisk1.vdi and xplivedisk2.vdi
Leave the generate new uuid ticked, and tick the compact drive while copying.
This took about 1hr 30mins

You now have your .vdi file(s) to use with VBox.

Start up VBox, and start to create a VM...
Give it a name like XP-Live, and move to the next step where you create a disk and stop.
VBox will have now created a folder in the default path of VBox, or where ever you have specified VM's to be created.
Find the XP-Live folder, and copy your .vdi(s) to this folder from your USB drive.

If you only have 1 drive,
Now in VBox continue with creating a new VM, and select use existing disk, and navigate to the .vdi you just copied.
and continue with VM creation setting the appropriate memory, display and network values.

"IMPORTANT" if you had 2 drives,
Now in VBox continue with creating a new VM, and select use existing disk, and navigate to the .vdi that contained your c:\ drive.
for me that was xplivedisk1.vhd, and continue with VM creation setting the appropriate memory, display and network values.
But "Do Not" start VM
Now the VM is created you need to manually add your 2nd disk in the Disk Management part of the VM config, for me xplivedisk2.vdi

If everything worked, you should be able to start you new VM, and it should be just like your Live XP PC.
Depending on the H/W of the original XP PC you may have to enable/disable things like IOAPIC for it to run.
Also remember,
Install "Guest Additions" into your new XP VM when it's running via the Devices Menu, it will add various drivers
This is different to the "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack" that you add into Virtualbox it'self.

I will try to answer any questions,
But most of the above is a short form of what I found by Googling.

Dave