Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Sat Dec 28 02:12:30 CST 2013
Hi Arthur and Shamil: I have not tried this myself, yet, but have been told the following instructions work when you want migrate an existing XP installation to a virtual drive like VirtualBox. https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22656 You don't need to use the Snapshot.exe referenced in the article as DriveImageXML works just as well. Also activate ACPI and IO ACPI in your VB; see article https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html for information on ACPI and EFI. Also check out https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10056 or if you want to try the following tool...http://vboxtool.sourceforge.net/ (Supposed to be great for creating unlimited XP containers on your Linux box.) ;-) Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Salakhetdinov Shamil" <mcp2004 at mail.ru> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Friday, 27 December, 2013 9:30:56 AM Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Windows 8 and 8.1 Hi Arthur -- Try the following utility to make a VM clone of your client WinXP box: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx It worked well for me for Win 2003 Server, Win7 and Win8. -- Shamil Friday, December 27, 2013 11:50 AM -05:00 from Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>: >First off, I like Windows 8 and especially 8.1 a lot. I know that lots of >people don't, but I have grown into it. One possible reason is that an >external monitor is connected to my laptop. That allows me to run the Win8 >UI on the laptop and the Desktop on the external, and just drag the mouse >from one screen to the other, so I run stuff on both at once. It helps to >have 8GB of RAM; that helps a lot. > >But there are a few things that I still can't find. Such as, which version >of Win8.1 am I running? I used to know how to find that in Win7 and cannot >locate this info in Win8.1. I also cannot find, despite the little guide >that came with this Dell laptop, how to switch from cabled to wireless. The >guide says it's F2 but that doesn't seem to work. Maybe I'm supposed to >hold down some additional key as I press F2. Don't know. > >I also have a set of Logitcch speakers and I did notice that there are on >the aide of the laptop a pair of jack inputs, one for microphone and the >other for headphones., according to the guide. Do I just plug the speaker >jack into the headphone jack? > >Any ideas, anyone? The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron with 8GB RAM >and 1TB hard disk (and not that it matters, but a couple of TB USB >externals attached). > >And before closing this message, I want to praise Dell Canada for their >superb support. The hard disk failed after about 7 months, so the local >dealer said that I had to deal direct with Dell. I ran Diags and obtained >the error number and phoned Dell and quoted chapter and verse; they sent me >a container by Purolator with instructions on how to package it, and a >number to call for pickup. Purolator arrived a day later to pick up the >laptop. Three days later it was delivered back to me, with most of the data >recovered, and a spanking-new hard disk in place/ That round-trip must have >cost them $50, aside from the labour costs. I sparked it up and Presto! >Everthing worrked. They didn't manage to recover all my data, but since I >have several USB externals attached and schedulued backups, it only took me >a few minutes to put everything back in place. This is the first Dell I've >ever owned, but on the strength of their support policy I will recommend >this company to every present and future client, and family member. > >One last thing: being a bi-OS-ual, spending half my time in Windows and the >rest in Linux, with 8GB of RAM this works splendidly. So well, in fact, >that I have a couple of different versions of Linux in Virtual Boxes, and >sometimes run them both at once. The only thing I haven't figured out is >how to create an XP Virtual Machine; I have an old client or two that has >not yet moved beyond XP and once in a while I need to do maintenance on >them. In the ideal world, I would have a VM for each client/friend/family >member, so I could just switch from this one to that one, and essentially >be running a duplicate of their system, albeit with outdated data, but the >data doesn't matter, it's the code that matters. So that means that for >client ABC, he's running XP and refuses to migrate, and he has an Access >app against a MySQL back end, and refuses the risks of upgrading. Client >BCD has Win7 Pro and an Access app against an MS-SQL back end, and refuses >to upgrade. Client DEF has an Unbuntu installation running a PHP/Javascript >site with MySQL in the back end. > >That will suffice for now. Then there is me, always the experimenter and >explorer, playing with the latest release of Python and whatever else >interests me (I hereby confess that I'm a coding slut, always interested in >every available language, from C++ to assembly to VBA to Eiffel (and kudos >to Bertrand Meyer for showing us the way). I suppose that you could >describe this as my problem. The only language in which I am confident in >declaring my fluency is VBA. In the rest, I am at best conversational. > >And just to reveal how out of the current loops I am, last night I re-read >Albert Camus's "The Rebel", for about the fourth time. Tomorrow it's Tom >Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" for the fourth time. But before I leave >Camus, a month or so ago I had a conversation with my friend Audra, and >somehow the topic of Camus and "The Rebel" came up. And I vaguely quoted, >and said "This book is about the relationship between the Master and the >Slave, and it proves that The Slave is always in control, because at some >point he will say, Rather than suffer this abuse, I prefer to die. And at >that point, the Master has lost all his power. That spoke to my soul. That >told me almost everything I needed to know. It didn't teach me how to make >love to a woman and I still don't know that, but it did teach me how to >behave in the public world. I will never forget that: the moment when the >Slave says he would rather die than suffer the crap the Master shovels upon >him, that is the definition of Progress. > >-- >Arthur >_______________________________________________ >dba-Tech mailing list >dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- Салахетдинов Шамиль _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com