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Loaded software from an external 3.5" floppy onto an XP VM running on a W10 laptop earlier
Posted on 10/1/25 at 12:55 am
Posted on 10/1/25 at 12:55 am
Paranoia of a very old Compaq laptop dying compelled me to set up a VM on a much newer machine and install XP SP2 from a CD. I was shocked how well that part went. I decided to use HyperV without realizing the degree to which access to peripherals on the host box are limited. I will download and figure out VMWare if I ever have to do this again.
HyperV doesn't properly support using the host box's USB ports when the VM is opened as a normal VM window through HyperV. The work around is to start the VM in HyperV but not log into it and connect to it with an RDP session. Since the target OS was XP I though this would be messy and figuring out how to get the XP VM to pick up the virtual switch that HyperV creates on the host box as a network adapter in XP took a while.
After that was working it went pretty well. The external floppy had to get mapped as a network drive and the drive letter forced to A: for the loader program to work.
Then, sit back and listen to the oddly comforting whirr of an A: drive.
Software loaded, the next mess was getting the COM port on the physical box (which HyperV also doesn't do well with) passed through to the VM via a pipe which I confess to never hearing of this one before.
Once that got straightened out...success! Code running and we're chatting away at a lightining fast 2400 baud. 2400/8/1 with BCC error checking to be exact.
Lessons learned -
HyperV is built in and convenient and I'm familiar with it. The shortcomings of how poorly it handles accessing resources on the physical box really suck.
XP SP2 is still as awesome as I remember it, no bloatware at all just an OS that works properly and a free game of solitaire.
HyperV doesn't properly support using the host box's USB ports when the VM is opened as a normal VM window through HyperV. The work around is to start the VM in HyperV but not log into it and connect to it with an RDP session. Since the target OS was XP I though this would be messy and figuring out how to get the XP VM to pick up the virtual switch that HyperV creates on the host box as a network adapter in XP took a while.
After that was working it went pretty well. The external floppy had to get mapped as a network drive and the drive letter forced to A: for the loader program to work.
Then, sit back and listen to the oddly comforting whirr of an A: drive.
Software loaded, the next mess was getting the COM port on the physical box (which HyperV also doesn't do well with) passed through to the VM via a pipe which I confess to never hearing of this one before.
Once that got straightened out...success! Code running and we're chatting away at a lightining fast 2400 baud. 2400/8/1 with BCC error checking to be exact.
Lessons learned -
HyperV is built in and convenient and I'm familiar with it. The shortcomings of how poorly it handles accessing resources on the physical box really suck.
XP SP2 is still as awesome as I remember it, no bloatware at all just an OS that works properly and a free game of solitaire.
2
Posted on 10/1/25 at 7:17 am to reverendotis
But why? If you want the nostalgia of a simple OS, just install Ubuntu.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 9:01 am to Dallaswho
I had to do something similar about 10 yrs ago to run a program to control my CNC mill bc it only ran on XP. I skipped the VM and just brought an old desktop out of retirement.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 9:19 am to reverendotis
quote:
The shortcomings of how poorly it handles accessing resources on the physical box really suck.
The desktop edition of Hyper-V is a stripped-down version. To get full hardware passthrough support, you need the server edition of Hyper-V. Also, you could have created a floppy disk image in Windows 10 and mount it in your Windows XP VM.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 9:40 am to TAMU-93
So the physical box's CDROM and HDD drives pass through fine and I suspect if this were an internal bus floppy drive it would have as well.
Since it was a USB plug in device, HyperV would not pass it to the VM. Tried a thumb drive to confirm that was the issue. Dug around online and got to realizing that is a "thing" with HyperV. That was where I saw the idea to RDP into the VM.
The login prompt from mstsc...show options...local resoirces...check the boxes for all the box's drives and USB devices and presto - they all show up in My Computer on the XP VM.
Getting the XP VM to pick up the virtual switch created by HyperV as a network adapter took more dicking around than anything else. Had to get this working before attempting an RDP session.
Since it was a USB plug in device, HyperV would not pass it to the VM. Tried a thumb drive to confirm that was the issue. Dug around online and got to realizing that is a "thing" with HyperV. That was where I saw the idea to RDP into the VM.
The login prompt from mstsc...show options...local resoirces...check the boxes for all the box's drives and USB devices and presto - they all show up in My Computer on the XP VM.
Getting the XP VM to pick up the virtual switch created by HyperV as a network adapter took more dicking around than anything else. Had to get this working before attempting an RDP session.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 9:53 am to Dallaswho
Not for kicks, this is actual vendor specific software talking to physical hardware on a serial port. Has to be a supported 32 bit OS, newer OS in compatibility mode does not work. Has to be a floppy drive running as drive letter A: as the program is key activated via a proprietary master disk activation, a floppy image will not work.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 10:06 am to reverendotis
fricking hell talk about technical debt compounded by vendor lock-in.
Posted on 10/1/25 at 10:51 am to reverendotis
quote:
Has to be a supported 32 bit OS, newer OS in compatibility mode does not work. Has to be a floppy drive running as drive letter A: as the program is key activated via a proprietary master disk activation, a floppy image will not work.
Ok so Government or Nuclear?
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