I recently tried installing XP on my desktop and, despite it being old enough to still be compatible and have drivers available, I wasn’t able to ever get it installed. I’m still trying to figure it out. I certainly don’t remember it being this difficult the last time I tried it... (before 2010?)
A better choice is patching the installation disc to bundle a AHCI driver in it, works like a charm.
First, download and install nLite [0], a Windows installation disc modding tool, and then download a copy of Rapid Storage Technology driver from Intel (in zip format) [1] and decompress it. Finally, open your Windowx XP disc image in nLite, bundle driver "iaAHCI.inf", and burn a new CD. You can find a lot of tutorials on the web [2]. You may need to bundle other essential drivers as well, USB and Ethernet comes to mind.
I still have a Windows XP SP3 CD in my CD collection, it is the original MSDN version with an AHCI driver bundled, although I haven't used it in the last 6 years or so...
[1] https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23295/Intel-Rapid-...
[2] https://www.prime-expert.com/articles/b02/installing-windows...
There was also a WinUltra DVD that had Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 on it that had driver packs on it for every SATA device at the time. It also had a Tiny install with just the basics of the OS like XP. Used 48M RAM small hard drive space as well.
You could slipstream an install disk with driver packs using this website http://driverpacks.net/
I liked SP2 better than SP3 because SP3 needed more RAM or else it ran slow on a PIII like my father's PC and it had some sort of Vista features in it.
Someone did leak the MSDN ISO files on the Internet but Microsoft shut it down. The MSDN disks were always up to date.
Windows XP lost Internet support for IE and Firefox is no longer made for it. I know people who still run it for the old apps they bought and still using them. Microsoft Office 97 or Lotus Smartsuite 99 run great on XP.
Bear in mind that for WiFi you only get WPA2 support with SP3.
Oldows support for something like that might be dicey. I wonder why one would just not run 32bit(better compat) windows server 2003. A bit of setup for desktop use for sure. That said, if you are going down this road, you are already rolling your sleeves up.
Evidence: HP's instructions for installing Windows XP from retail media on (ca. 2012) Zx20 workstations
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03366531
list "(USB) Floppy Diskette Drive" as one of the hardware requirements.
As for storage, the Z820, at least, includes an XP-compatible LSI 6Gbps SAS controller onboard in addition to SATA, so performance with SAS and/or SATA drives shouldn't be an issue.
High core count, dual-socket Z820s are readily available on the used market for <$1,000, and seem like they'd make excellent high-end XP boxes (and even better Windows 10/Linux boxes; I'm running both under ESXi with GPU passthrough on mine; licensing issues aside, current [10.14 and 10.15] OS X versions also work, including GPU passthrough, at least in the case of the NVIDIA Quadro K2000 and Apple-supplied drivers).
More generally, XP-compatible 6Gbps SAS PCIe RAID cards and HBAs are readily available on eBay for peanuts, so that'd probably be the way to go if you want the best disk performance under XP with (relatively) modern hardware.
You push the F6 key when prompted just like NT Setup where you would add SCSI drivers if needed from a manufacturer's OEM floppy.
The OEM (F6) floppy for your specific SATA hardware will contain a fileset with their basic drivers and a TXTSETUP.OEM text file referencing that particular Device ID as well. These floppy contents are often included in a small folder in the manufacturer's full unzipped SATA driver setup files.
There are workarounds if you don't have a floppy, see my other message.
Any proper BIOS serves USB devices to DOS no differently than legacy hardware, even if it is optional to be enabled when needed. You do have to plug in USB drives, kybd, mouse before turning on the PC but then DOS or W9x can boot from or access them best usually without USB drivers installed in the OS. USB-connected non-80's-legacy devices like webcams would be recognized by W9x only if the USB hub they were on had been properly installed beforehand to the somewhat uncommon USB-enabled W9x, but still would not work unless you had the device-specific W9x USB drivers for windows installation of the exact cam. Cams like this were the kind of thing that actually used windows drivers and would work after windows was booted without having to plug them in beforehand.
I don't have one. What kind of device interface do USB floppy drives use, and does Windows XP have drivers? I highly doubt it (edit: others have pointed out that they use USB-FDD mode and is supported by Windows XP, so yes.).
The reason I don't have one is that although I have floppy drives, but I cannot find a single working blank floppy anymore... A floppy emulator that uses an SD card and the identical floppy interface should have better compatibility (but without the convenience of Plug & Play like USB), and you don't have to find a source of working floppy.
Later on I found you could integrate the driver into the WinXP installation CD itself.
Pure UEFI ("class 3") firmware without BIOS support won't boot (32-bit?) XP at all; as for whether native UEFI drivers are typically provided for USB (or any other) floppy drives, I have no idea.
[1] Qualification because I recall having trouble booting from USB optical and flash drives on at least some USB-capable systems that predate XP, but haven't had a problem with USB boot on any system in at least a decade.
You can also use Rufus [0] to write the XP image to a USB stick and skip the hassle with CD-R(W)s.
You can get around this, there are USB drives that can be switched to a mode that presents as a floppy drive.
Many Chinese Flash Drive allows you to emulate USB-CDROM, USB-HDD even USB-FDD.
If you do have the proper SATA hardware drivers needed for this type of XP install to be in SATA mode, you still would need an actual floppy to install them from during XP Setup the recommended way, which does work ideally if you've got it.
Without the NT floppy routine, using the vendor's Setup file, most of the time you can not install the SATA/AHCI drivers for XP after you have first installed XP in the default IDE/Legacy mode. The Device ID's are not the same in these two different modes.
There is a workaround, easier than it sounds.
You can manually add the SATA drivers in XP (after installing the OS wth the HDD in IDE/Legacy mode) easiest if you have a copy of the files that would be found on the hardware vendor's "F6 Setup Floppy" for that particular AHCI hardware.
These can often be found after unzipping the full XP drivers for that hardware. There will be a small folder (less than 1.44 mb) sometimes just labeled F6, it will contain the minimal SATA drivers needed on the floppy during the setup phase, and a TXTSETUP.OEM text file that would be used by the XP Setup routine if you actually had a floppy drive, USB or not. The XP Setup step where you have the chance to use an actual floppy to preinstall non-standard drivers for show-stopping devices was mainly intended for installations to SCSI drives originally.
Other times there may not be dedicated floppy provisions and you have to select the regular non-F6 SATA drivers for XP from where you have them unzipped to. They can also sometimes be considered RAID drivers even when you are not going to use RAID.
I copy these files to a new AHCIREG folder on the C: volume.
I copy my old instructions from how I did it last time using different hardware, this is an INSTRUCTIONS.TXT file which I add to the folder.
I copy the old AHCI.REG file that I used to modify the XP registry last time for different hardware, in the form of a text file, this adds AHCI.TXT to the folder.
I then modify these two text files to fit the current set of hardware.
INSTRUCTIONS.TXT is like a manual script, crafted from the previous one, using an open parenthesis on lines from earlier versions that are not executed in the current version. Basically documents which files to manually copy and install.
Here's one to add SiS drivers to a Dell, where my Instructions and REG file are derived from earlier Intel procedures:
Begin INSTRUCTIONS.TXT
add AHCI drivers in IDE mode then switch to sata mode
(this time ICH9 has already been installed in IDE mode
(this time there are no ICH9 drivers yet
(this time "7 Series/C216" chipset driver has already been installed in IDE mode
this time xp standard dual channel pci ide controller has already been installed in ATA mode
with xp successfully installed in IDE mode:
(try R173416.exe, for SATA on XP (-this dell package fails, but before cancelling the install, it appears unzipped (in c:\windows\temp\IIF (-copy it and use it later
run SiS_SATA_A01_R198505.exe, it unzips to the dell\drivers folder
copy SISAHCI & TXTSETUP.OEM from dell\drivers\R198505\FloppyImage\968\1184 to this "AHCIREG" folder
copy contents of dell\drivers\R198505\FloppyImage\968\1184\RAID\Winxp_2k to this "AHCIREG" folder
(copy contents of IIF\Winall\Driver\ to this "AHCIREG" folder
(-unzip the SATA drivers from ASUS
(copy contents of IRST_XP_VER11101006\Driver\Disk\32bit to this "AHCIREG" folder
(from the AHCI32_11_2_1006 folder: (copy contents to this "AHCIREG" folder
(copy iaAHCI.inf & iaAHCI.cat, iastor.inf & iastor.cat to INF folder
(copy iastor.sys to c:\WINXP\SYSTEM32\drivers
copy sisraid4.inf & sysraid.cat to INF folder
copy sisraid4.sys to c:\WINXP\SYSTEM32\drivers
copy PROPERTY.dll to c:\WINXP\SYSTEM32
(in the INF folder, right click on iaAHCI.inf, hit INSTALL
(in the INF folder, right click on iastor.inf, hit INSTALL
in the AHCIREG folder, right click on sisraid4.inf, hit INSTALL
(copy iaAHCI.inf & iaAHCI.cat to INF folder
(copy ibexAHCI.inf & ibexAHCI.cat from c:\IPMx2\All\ to INF folder
(copy iaAHCI.inf & iaAHCI.cat FROM c:\WINDOWS\NLDRV\001\ to INF folder
(copy iastor.sys to c:\WINXP\SYSTEM32\drivers
(copy iastor.sys from c:\WINDOWS\NLDRV\001\ to c:\WINXP\SYSTEM32\drivers
(right click on iaAHCI.inf, hit INSTALL
(right click on ibexAHCI.inf, hit INSTALL
run this AHCI.REG
reboot and switch to SATA mode in bios, then wizard will install the whole sata package in windows
End INSTRUCTIONS.TXT
Modify the Instructions to work with the current hardware then save it and follow it. You will basically be manually copying the drivers and any dependencies into the c:\windows\system32 folder & subfolders as needed for that hardware, copying the corresponding INF file(s) and associated CAT files to the regular INF folder, then manually installing the INF file from there.
Note that for this SiS AHCI chip there was a dependency on not only their .SYS driver to be in the regular drivers folder, but also the PROPERTIES.DLL to be in the regular folder with most DLLs. Dependencies like this will be seen in the text of the INF file, when there is a TXTSETUP.OEM file these dependencies will also be listed within, even though TXTSETUP.OEM is only for floppy usage.
Then there is my AHCI.TXT file which was modified to be completely specific for this Dell SIS AHCI hardware according to its Device ID(s), Service, .SYS driver, and DisplayName:
Begin AHCI.TXT
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_1039&DEV_1184]
"Service"="sisraid4"
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_1039&DEV_1185]
"Service"="sisraid4"
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\sisraid4]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"Group"="SCSI miniport"
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\sisraid4.sys"
"tag"=dword:00000019
"DisplayName"="SiS 1185 AHCI Controller"
End AHCI.TXT
You customize the AHCI.TXT for your exact machine, save a copy, then save another copy renaming it as AHCI.REG.
The needed AHCI Device ID's are in the matching AHCI INF (which will be similar but not exactly the same as the IDE-mode Device ID when the same hardware is installed in IDE mode)
So overall after placing a correct INF file in the regular folder, with all its dependencies in their proper folders you run your custom AHCI.REG file and it adds that exact SATA hardware and driver to the Critical Device Database in the Registry so it will load earlier in the bootup routine not much differently than it would if you had used the floppy during Setup.
Then you reboot to the BIOS Setup and change from IDE-mode to SATA/AHCI and you will get to the desktop.
From that point you can then run the vendor's full XP SATA driver install or update routine and it can add more features than the floppy alone would have done, since the device ID's will then match.
If the previous/default IDE drivers have not been removed, the partition should boot with BIOS in either SATA or IDE mode afterward.
ATI dropped XP support in 2013, nVidia have actually managed to ship Windows XP drivers until 2016.
One issue I ran into the hard way is that win 98 (and presumably 95) gets very unstable if you have more than 3/4 of a Gig of ram installed.
There is also this option: https://www.windowslatest.com/2018/08/25/run-windows-95-on-w...
But it can crash on you.
Here is a thread where surely compatible motherboards are listed (for XP):
https://msfn.org/board/topic/177563-newer-motherboards-that-...
The issue is mainly with drivers, though there are (unofficial) drivers for a few newish thingies (like NVME and USB 3.x) they do not work on all motherboards.
Here is one for 9x:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/97588-modern-motherboards-which...
- Even fairly recent systems with hybrid UEFI/BIOS still provide an IDE-compatible mode for onboard SATA controllers that should work with Windows 95.
- Windows 95 supports 16-bit MS-DOS drivers and BIOS disk access, so any storage controller with BIOS boot support and/or 16-bit MS-DOS drivers (disk, optical, ASPI) should work.
- Modern video cards still provide SVGA-compatible modes that should work.
- PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports should work.
- Serial and parallel ports should work.
- USB devices with legacy emulation provided by the system's BIOS (floppy, mass storage [hard drive, flash drive], keyboard, mouse, [optical?]) should work, assuming they're plugged in at boot.
Likely problems:
- non-emulated USB devices
- network adapters
- audio
- large amounts of RAM
For network and audio, your best bet would probably be to find a (still relatively recent) machine with pre-Express PCI slots for an older NIC and sound card (some not terribly old workstations and servers have these); while PCIe-to-PCI, and even PCIe-to-ISA, expansion boxes exist, the ones I've seen are both expensive (>$1,000) and hard to find on the used market.