Installing XP on a PC that already has WIndows 10 and dual booting

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Installing XP on a PC that already has WIndows 10 and dual booting

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#319044 17-Mar-2025 10:02

For various reasons I need to install XP on a machine. Well the reason is I need to access my SCSI scanner and the USB to SCSI adapter I have is not supported on Windows 10 (or even 7).

I wanted to scan a bunch of negatives and my scanner does the job well in batches,.

I was thinking of doing this.

Install a spare SSD into the PC.

Install Windows XP from an CD ISO and target the SSD.

Then I hope when I boot up the machine, the XP board loader will present me with options to either boot XP or the original Windows 10, which is installed in a NVME drive.

Gotchas - I can think of a few

the network adapter on the MB might have not have drivers for XP
Video might not work but hopefully a generic VGA driver will work. Once the scanning is done, I will do the processing on WIndows 10 or 11 on another machine
I might not be able to boot the Windows 10 anymore
Anything else?

If it does work I was thinking once I am back in Windows 10 I would use EasyBCD to manage the boot sequence

Thanks

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

1 | 2

10503 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3354512 17-Mar-2025 10:24

I would disconnect (or disable via BIOS, if possible) the existing SSD during installation to be sure that the XP installer doesn't damage anything. Once it's installed you could then either use a third-party boot menu or just use the BIOS to choose the XP SSD when needed.

toejam316

1466 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3354513 17-Mar-2025 10:28

You could install XP in a VM on your current PC, and then either pass through the USB device, or get a whole USB controller card and pass that through to connect it. Saves rebooting, just fire up the VM as required.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Andib

1363 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3354517 17-Mar-2025 11:11

I would be surprised if a machine that supports booting an OS from NVME also supports Windows XP.
AFAIK 4th Gen Intel (2013) was the last to support XP.

<#
.DISCLAIMER
Anything I post is my own and not the views of my past/present/future employer.
#>

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3354571 17-Mar-2025 12:02

toejam316:

You could install XP in a VM on your current PC, and then either pass through the USB device, or get a whole USB controller card and pass that through to connect it. Saves rebooting, just fire up the VM as required.

I did think about using Hyper-V but I wasn't sure if it could virtualise the USB port enough for it to be able to see a SCSI device. Might be worth a try

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3354572 17-Mar-2025 12:03

I was only able to get it to work by having a separate drive with XP and then using the firmware boot selection to choose the SATA SSD to boot in legacy mode to get XP up, and to boot the NVME drive in UEFI mode to get 10. 10 could see the sata XP drive fine, XP had no idea about the NVMe drive and I never bothered to see if I could get a driver to make it see it.

Similar need, old hardware with nothing beyond XP - this was an old PCI analog video capture card before I sorted out a 10 based solution.

TBH I just plugged in the an HDD from forever ago with XP on it and cloned it to an old 250 gig SATA SSD rather than doing any installing. Seemed to operate fine on a 5th gen i5, not tried it again since I swapped that board out for an 8/9th gen one.

Richard rich.ms

Andib

1363 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3354573 17-Mar-2025 12:08

lchiu7:

I did think about using Hyper-V but I wasn't sure if it could virtualise the USB port enough for it to be able to see a SCSI device. Might be worth a try

VMWare Workstation would be better for passing through devices to older OSs than Hyper-V. It is free for Personal use

<#
.DISCLAIMER
Anything I post is my own and not the views of my past/present/future employer.
#>

shrub

775 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#3354587 17-Mar-2025 12:52

Could try your local ewaste spot and pickup a computer for $5 that will work for this 1 job. Just make sure to limit any internet access as XP is not great these days.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3354618 17-Mar-2025 15:24

shrub:

Could try your local ewaste spot and pickup a computer for $5 that will work for this 1 job. Just make sure to limit any internet access as XP is not great these days.

No this is a long-term project as I go through all my store of negatives and scan them all.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

KiwiSurfer

1449 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3354627 17-Mar-2025 16:00

lchiu7:

shrub:

Could try your local ewaste spot and pickup a computer for $5 that will work for this 1 job. Just make sure to limit any internet access as XP is not great these days.

No this is a long-term project as I go through all my store of negatives and scan them all.

If it's a long term project then a $5 investment into a standalone XP machine makes far more sense than trying to shoehorn XP onto your current machine.

No internet access required surely. Just transfer the images onto a USB drive and transfer over to your main machine that way.

YMMV but that would be my approach if I had the same issue.

Ragnor

8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3354630 17-Mar-2025 16:25

What's the scanner make/model? I think you'd be better off getting it running in a VM or in Linux if possible, even if you need to get a new USB to SCSI adapter.

fearandloathing

503 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3354720 18-Mar-2025 06:41

Have you tried vuescan https://www.hamrick.com

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3354732 18-Mar-2025 08:30

fearandloathing:

Have you tried vuescan https://www.hamrick.com

I have this software. But it didn't occur to me that it could work if the underlying OS could not present the scanner connected at leas physically. When I plug my USB to SCSI device into my Windows 10 box, it's not recognised at all but it ever occurred to me that Vuescan might still see it.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3354733 18-Mar-2025 08:33

Ragnor:

What's the scanner make/model? I think you'd be better off getting it running in a VM or in Linux if possible, even if you need to get a new USB to SCSI adapter.

It's a Canonscan FS2710. Not the greatest resolution but good enough for digitising negatives from the past. What makes me want to continue using this is it's only scanner wit a reasonable price that can scan APS cartridges and I have a bunch of these as during the day, I moved my photography from 35mm to APS (silly decision then I guess) given the poorer resolution of APS film, but the panoramic prints that you could do were pretty cool. Of course these days you just take a wide shot and crop.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

fearandloathing

503 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3354734 18-Mar-2025 08:33

I use to use it to drive an old usb flat bead scanner until it died. I don’t remember how windows saw the device.

elpenguino

3419 posts

Uber Geek

#3354766 18-Mar-2025 10:37

Just be aware that XP won't authenticate / activate online anymore, officially anyway.

Microsoft turned off the servers for XP and Windows 7 a while ago.

I found someone runs a private activation server so with a little reading, you can connect to this service and activate XP.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

1 | 2