Windows XP very slow

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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starguything
Posts: 3
Joined: 4. May 2018, 04:51

Windows XP very slow

Post by starguything »

My host is 64-bit Windows 7 and my guest is Windows XP Professional (uncertain if 32 or 64-bit). I had already done an install like this on a laptop running 64-bit Windows 10 before on an older version of Virtualbox and it ran smoothly. Obviously, I'm using a different machine now and I'm using the newest version of Virtualbox as of writing this post.

I noticed that my guest is slow, REALLY slow. At present it's at the last part of the installation and for the past few minutes I've been stuck on a part of it as if the thing were running on 1 frame per minute (just an exaggeration though, but the Next button looks like it's in a stuck state and the only change on the screen is when I move the mouse around but it looks really choppy and parts of it disappear when I move it around).

EDIT (2018.05.05): The problem could be because of my PC. I tried using the version of Virtualbox I probably used at the time I had my previous install of Windows XP on a virtual machine.
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Last edited by starguything on 5. May 2018, 07:19, edited 1 time in total.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Windows XP very slow

Post by mpack »

Yep: old Windows version, new install. Slow. I don't see much need to have this conversation going on in two topics at once. See :-

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=87756

Particularly page 3 of the discussion. It's a pity you installed XP with only one core though. You have a 4 core host, so you could have given it two. People are not used to single core lag any more.
starguything
Posts: 3
Joined: 4. May 2018, 04:51

Re: Windows XP very slow

Post by starguything »

mpack wrote:It's a pity you installed XP with only one core though. You have a 4 core host, so you could have given it two. People are not used to single core lag any more.
Installing it on two cores didn't quite help. Still feels like the OS is just as slow as last time.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Windows XP very slow

Post by mpack »

Well, that would certainly be a problem if it was the only suggestion instead of a minor aside. Windows Update will be the main reason.
starguything
Posts: 3
Joined: 4. May 2018, 04:51

Re: Windows XP very slow

Post by starguything »

I finally got the OS to install after letting it sit well around 5 hours. Good to know that the OS isn't as slow as the last part of the installation process where I had to wait for around 5 minutes for one segment of it to load. It's not a very fast booter though; when I select some tab on, say for example, Properties, the entire screen would refresh and you would mostly see black as well as other parts which are parts of the desktop.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Windows XP very slow

Post by mpack »

I assume you understand that you need to install the Guest Additions to get good graphics performance. Chapter 4 of user manual.

Also, I assume when you set the number of vCPUs to 2 you then reinstalled XP, as XP will not use cores that appear after it has been installed - at least not without some work.
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