virtualbox.org

It mostly worked...

It did convert but failed to boot. Instead of using the Windows Repair process, which I assume would also reset all registry entries and I'd have to reinstall all applications (I don't want to do that)...

So I ran GoVirtual which keeps all application registry entries and just replaces... uh... DLL's? Anyway it now boots and runs.

Unfortunately it's much, much slower than a freshly installed XP .vdi would be. I realize a new install is always faster, but this is bad, 5 minute boot.

Oh well... I've got my files.

A slow VM after migrating are always VM settings such as vt-x, io-apic, wrong memory settings, wrong hdd controller and sometimes the wrong HAL, all solvable.

Bad network settings... the list goes on and on. And deleting unwanted processes from the VM is something I'd eventually do as well.

Incidentally, I'm not familiar with GoVirtual. Searching, I find that both VMWare and Paragon seem to have <somethings> with names similar to that... and I'm wondering whether they would install VMWare / Paragon guest additions - if so then that is hardly likely to help performance either.

FYI, and as far as I know, your correct next move would have been inserting an XP install CD and repairing the installation. AFAIK, the difference between repair and reinstall is precisely that a repair keeps all your old registry settings etc.

I would not recommend so much to use the CD repair as the tool might decide to use the repair folder initially created when windows was installed leaving you back to the future We might benefit from a checklist what needs to be done pre-migration and make it a sticky.

vbox4me2 wrote:I would not recommend so much to use the CD repair as the tool might decide to use the repair folder

Right - for the avoidance of doubt I am talking about the "Repair installation" feature found on full Windows Setup CDs. I am not talking about running a "system restore" CD! The latter should really be called a system destroy CD, since (if it does anything) it will revert the PC back to the point in time prior to when it did anything useful...

It raises a good point though. If the old PC came with a Restore CD then it might be worth looking for a restore partition - and deleting it, as that partition is only wasting host disk space now (run CloneVDI again to recover the space - use Keep UUID to keep the VDI a direct replacement).

I ran GoVirtual from Paragon, good point I do not know if it installed it's own "additions" however it did not ask me about an install directory and I did install VB guest additions after boot.

You guys have given me a few things to try this weekend. I'll post my results.

I went back to the unaltered CloneVDI file and ran WinXP install CD on it until it found the existing OS and asked if I wanted to repair ('R'). I hit R.

First weirdness - after going through the entire Windows install it rebooted and took me back to the "repair question". That seemed wrong so I exited... at which time it warned me that my installation was incomplete. I then rebooted and XP booted ok.

Mouse was freezing intermittently so after trying to see a pattern (I didn't) for about 5 minutes I decided to reboot. When I did, I got the notice that updates were being installed. (I'm on a network and my domain login likely initiated a GPO update request). Perhaps that's why my mouse was glitching.

After that reboot the mouse was usable. I installed Guest Additions.

It's pretty good. I can still watch the icons display slowly in about 3 steps but once up, it's usable.

Boot time is just under 3 minutes. I'm going to check boot time on the original box now...

3min? mine starts in 15sec then another 20sec wait until rdp is ready for connections.

That would be AWESOME!

And I'm open to suggestions... but you guys have already gotten me to what I'd hoped for.

2:30 - Original (real) WinXP boot, from Windows splash screen to my ObjectDock app load/display.

2:45 - VM WinXP

I tried enabling/disabling IO APIC but it makes no difference... perhaps because I'm set to only 1 CPU?

I only see one additional partition in Windows, FAT (EISA Configuration)... I can't delete that.

If you have additional suggestions, I'm ready. If not, that's ok.

Thanks!

Use Sata drivers for the VM, see plenty of topics here.

Try setting the VM's BIOS data to the same values as the original machine you cloned. See here about setting extra data.