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I want to separate my development work from my routine work. My host OS is Windows 7. I was wondering if Windows XP would be a viable choice for the guest OS. I do not own a copy of Windows XP now. Doing some quick searches on sites like Futureshop, I see that they don't sell Windows XP anymore.

I do not want to install Windows 7 as the guest OS (since it would take a significant amount of system resources).

Can I still buy Windows XP from a reputable source? (I do want it to be legal). Is there a reason it is not available anymore (I would have thought it would be available more at least for Virtual machine purposes - considering it is much lighter and provides the necessary base for Visual Studio, SQL Server etc.).

2 Answers 2

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Why buy it? You can use Windows XP Mode (MS Virtual PC) that can be downloaded free for Windows 7.

For further details on XP, see Microsoft's page " Windows XP: The future ".

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    Assuming his SKU of Windows 7 is Professional or higher. Oct 14, 2010 at 3:33
  • Let's hope so. Personally I can't stand anything lower than professional after being babied by the Enterprise edition since it's release :)
    – user1931
    Oct 14, 2010 at 3:37
  • Just note though you lose this option if you update to Windows 8 or 10. Meaning you lose the XP license as well as the ability to run VirtualPC (replaced by the vastly superior but incompatible HyperV).
    – Andy
    Aug 17, 2015 at 22:15
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Never done it myself, but it appears you can with an MSDN "MSDN Operating Systems" subscription. They list XP Home/Pro as available to you at that basic level.

All info is Here

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