Can WinXP Pro 64 run all 32bit apps?

Elizabeth23 said:
great work, next time it would probably be easier to just hook a second drive up with a usb?? :)
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I only have one external USB drive, and I didn't want to install a Windows OS on it.

Is it popular now to keep your OS on something not a part of the computer?
 
I left out something that anyone restoring a disk image may be interested in. The Acronis Recovery Wizard ISO I was using handed me only one option I was not sure of..... a check box that said "recover disk signature" or something very close to that. It was unchecked by default.

I left it that way and proceeded with the process. Then I had 2nd thoughts and looked it up online, and the Acronis site I was looking at said to always use this option when available or installed programs might run normally or run at all. So I cancelled the process, and restarted with that "recover disk signature" checked this time.

Why it was not checked by default.... who knows?
 
FWIW, my 'newer' Toshiba laptop has an 'ESATA' port, (actually a combo esata/usb port) which I could/have connected a hdd, (needing external power), go into bios, & tell it to boot to that second drive. Very useful for quickly transfering large amounts of data.

[Toshiba Satelite A5050, if you can find one. Went through a huge rigamrole to get official, legal, W7 install disks, 2 dvds, 1 cd, about $35, as I recall, from Toshiba, Rigamarole to insure comp was not stolen?]
{I installed XP-64 on it, internally, works just fine!}
 
I have 7TB of Acronis images for all my machines. I boot off of an Acronis True Image 2014 USB stick right after making any major change and make a new backup. I keep all the old backups and a history log for each of what was changed in case I need to revert to a known state.

I also save "Acronis" backups of my virtual machines- I make a folder with the machine name, date in sort order format (like 2019-10-26), and what was changed. I shut down the VM and copy the VM's folder to the backup folder. I compress them with 7zip later on. If something on the VM breaks or I want to revert, I just delete the running folder and copy the backup folder to the running place. VMWare Workstation has a snapshot feature that does the same thing (useless feature when you understand how the data is stored...).

Eventually the backups are copied to an external USB drive and stored in another building on my property or at a friend's place. I have 4 10TB external drives for xxcopy backups, and 2 10TB drives for Acronis or vm image backups.

This process has worked very well over the years. My main box's XP install age is a less than a year old yet it was installed in 2010. I often revert to a prior backup, then redo all the changes, and then immedialety make a new backup. This keeps XP "fresh" for many years. I use the same strategy on my Win98, Win2000, Win7 and Linux boxes.
 
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About XP 64bit... it would be a neat challenge but I'd have to have a very specific use case to spend time building. For most memory hungry XP apps, Win 7 x64 works well.

For 8GB RAM boxes, if you must have XP, it makes more sense to run XP32 with a 5GB pagefile.sys on a 5GB RAMDisk (using RAM XP cannot see).

I have the classic look with all my boxes. Win 98, 2000, XP, and 7 all have the same look- small rectangular Start button, quick launch on the left, show desktop icon. Task tray on the right. Dragable taskbar buttons (not on Win9x). Takes a bit of work to set up on Win7, but it can be done.

I've been running Win7 32bit in some of my VMs. Very lightweight OS that runs pretty much any app. I often have only 768 to 1024MB RAM allocated for the virtual machine depending on what it's for (Commit Charge is about the same as the RAM). Unlike 64bit Windows, it doesn't start page faulting just by booting.

Keep in mind, all Windows page fault as soon as the Commit Charge goes beyond 1.5 GB. If you can keep below 1.5GB, you'll not have to beef up the virtual memory system to avoid page fault delays.
 
Sixthofmay said:
For 8GB RAM boxes, if you must have XP, it makes more sense to run XP32 with a 5GB pagefile.sys on a 5GB RAMDisk (using RAM XP cannot see).
Click to expand...

I stopped pretending I was a computer geek long ago.... I think it was about the same time my eyes first beheld the Windows Registry. Suffice it to say, much of your post concerning Pagefile.sys, Commit Charge, and using Virtual machines is still over my head.

So far as choosing XP to install on this newly acquired 8G Ram box, it was because I am most familiar with XP, and I didn't need to purchase anything new. I already owned both 32 and 64 bit flavors, and thought I needed to install the X64 version to fully use all the installed ram. I was wrong about this.

I ended up installing XP Pro 32 and implementing the PAE (Physical Address Extension) method I found many places online. It was a simple matter of D/L and placing two files into the System32 directory (Ntkl64g.exe and Hal64g.dll), and then making an edit to Boot.ini. According to "My Computer/Properties", XP 32bit now recognizes all installed ram.

If you're familiar with this method, I'd be curious to know how it compares with what you've been using.
 
OK..... it took a long time, but I finally got the correct Interposer and quickly added the 2nd HDD.

Although this is a proprietary part that took some time to track down, I'm respectful of Dell for making at least HDD installing/accessing so easy.... much more joyful than any desktop/tower I've touched in the past.

I already copied a lot of bytes onto this drive, then I realized I should have partitioned first to allow for a Linux Mint setup too. What is my best next move now.... can I still partition and save my work while designating new HDD space for Linux file system?
 
I regularly use Linux 'Part Ed' to resize and create/remove partitions in a manner which preserves existing material on the disk.

Never had any problem, though it warns you to have copy, as things can go wrong.

I think some Linux distros have Part Ed as one of the supplied apps, though I have a standalone prog which boots fom CD, but runs completely in Ram. Something like this is still available, though last time I checked Distrowatch, the complete Part Ed suit is no longer offered at no charge.

I have in the past also used Norton's Partition magic to do the same, but quit as often had problems with it.

PS I think Mint (upon installation) will happily create new partitions in free space, so no problem if you have room. Maybe it also will resize partitions, I do not recall, but resizing is something I would select Part Ed for. It is a known hazard.
 
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Here is what I have been using for the last six years:

https://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

There is almost nothing you cannot do with this, even if you already have a working OS installed in the Disk.Very versatile and extremely easy to use, even for a beginner.

A couple of years ago, with Windows already installed I used this to resize and create more partitions and then used Gparted to format and install Linux, in a dual boot set up. Just last month I used this to resize the already installed XP system partition, and create three more Primary Partitions in my HDD.

With Partition Wizard you don't have to use command line either. Of course Mint might offer it's own partition tool when you are installing it, which you can use for the formatting necessary for Mint. Also, PW is free and they still support XP :)

Don't forget to un-check any other software they offer, when you are installing.
 
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My Linux Mint setup has stalled and I'm not sure how to proceed. I still have the untouched primary HDD with XP installed on it. I used Partition Wizard to split the other HDD with 2 partitions of about 250G each. One of these partitions still has XP NTFS data.

During Mint setup, I created the Linux main partition, and swap area on the 2nd half of this HDD.... the install seemed to be running fine.

Now I'm looking at a "Bootloader install failed" box, and no matter which device I choose, the setup won't continue. My other options are "continue without a bootloader" and "cancel installation".

The list of possible locations include;

/dev/sda (WinXP install) (this was my original default choice)
/dev/sdb (Yumi thumb drive I'm installing from)
/dev/sdb1 (Yumi partition)
/dev/sdc (NTFS)
/dev/sdc1 (EXT4)
/dev/sdc2 (Swap Area)

What to do..... what to do?
 
No option or device choice would allow me to move past the above dialog box..... had to shut machine off.

On restart would not boot to windows, and of course there was no grub boot menu. I'm back into the Linux install now to try again... along the way I noticed setup reports my C drive is all free space. That's not good!
 
Strangely enough, the Linux install decided to wipe my C drive clean.... that's weirder than ska-ditch since I was very carefully making sure to install to a different drive/partition.

Luckily, I was recently schooled on making disk images.... am now attempting to restore the image using Macrium Reflect.... we'll see what happens.

If this works out, I'll have some Q's on the Linux install..... doh
 
The image restore was successful.

Windows Disk Manager now shows that the 2nd HDD has approximately 250G of NTFS files on one partition, another 210G and 12G partition which are "unknown". (as expected)

With a Linux based Rescue Disk, the same partitions appear as Linux ext4, and Linux Swap.

I'm guessing that the reason for the Mint install not to complete by writing a BootLoader to the C boot drive was because Linux first wiped the drive and left it raw. (no file system).

So now my Q is how do I test if Linux Mint is at least bootable? How do I edit or replace the current boot loader to give me duel boot capability?
 
I believe you can get the best answers to your problem from those who has experience in dual boot installation of Windows and Linux Mint. Linux Mint has a huge forum and I think that is where you can resolve this best. Just a suggestion :)

https://forums.linuxmint.com/

Here is the Installation Guide and User Guide page:

https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=linux+mint+forum&t=ffnt&ia=web

At the very top top of the Forum Index you can see thousands of threads under "Installation and Boot"
"Questions about Grub, UEFI,the liveCD and the installer"
 
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Just a thought. These problems you are having, could they be due to the fact that you are attempting to have a dual boot set up, with Windows and Linux in two different Drives. Of course, my experience in this is very limited but do you know whether this is possible; to dual boot with the two OSes in different drives?
 
I had since run the "Boot Repair" utility again and let it do it's thing... It created the duel boot menu so I can now choose which OS to start.

This is the same Linux Mint ISO I used in the past on a different machine. In that case I installed Mint on a separate HDD than Windows, and I didn't have any issues.

At the moment I'm having a problem with updates..... Linux is asking for a CD which I don't have, and didn't need last time I installed this.
 
Your "Bootloader install failed" box: Try hitting "continue without bootloader", finish the install, reboot, see what happens. Also, make absolutely sure that Windows isn't hibernated. That can crash a Linux install. If you still can't install Grub, you could try booting from Puppy Linux and installing Grub4Dos. The Grub4Dos installer generally detects all OSes.
 
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