Help wanted to run a virtual machine

[Bob Mehew]

I am seeking help from a computer expert to explain to me how to get running a piece of software in a virtual machine running Windows XP.

The back ground is I have a PicoScope ADC 200 (a computer based oscilloscope) which is no longer supported by PicoTech.  In order to use the device, I need to run an old version of PicoSoft, see https://www.picotech.com/downloads/_lightbox/r5.21.2 .  Unfortunately my W10 machine reports that "ADC20032.dll failed to load correctly" when I try and run the program.  I think there are two conflicts, one being I am using W 10 and the program is for W XP and the other being my lap top is 64 bit, where as I think the program uses 32 bit.

I have tried to load a virtual machine (Oracle VM Virtual Box) so as to run W XP using the instructions at https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-windows-xp-for-free-and-legally-straight-from-microsoft-si/ , but to little avail.  Whilst I have got the W XP home page running in emulation, I am unable to get any program into my virtual hard drive or on my disc drive so as to run it.  I am obviously doing something stupid and have no clues as to how to get around it.  Can anyone help?   Please PM me to discuss further.  It would be a pity to loose the use of what was a useful device.

[Steve Clark]

I've just managed to install it on Win10 Pro 64bit.

Use Win10 logged in as administrator. Download the exe file to somewhere (eg. Downloads folder). Right click on the file and select 'Troubleshoot Compatibility'. It auto-selected Vista SP2 and installed ok.

I don't have the device to check if it actually works, but no .dll errors.

[AR]

Bob, if Steve's suggestion doesn't work and no-one can help with VirtualBox, you could consider shifting over to VMware Player (free for home use) and creating an XP virtual machine through that, or if you still have an old XP machine that works you could create a VM off that - I did that with my wife's 15-year old laptop to hang on to a useful bit of statistical software it had on it.

[ChrisJC]

I use VMWare Player 15 (hosted on Linux) to run Windows XP with great success. It really is very easy once you have the virtual machine to run.

I see that your hardware relies on the Parallel Port for connection. I have used the Parallel Port in a VMWare Virtual Machine, although that one was running FreeDOS to run a really old EPROM programmer! I found that a few tweaks were needed to allow the Parallel Port to work - I think mostly around permissions.

USB works fine.

Chris.

[traff]

Another vote for VMware here. As part of my day job I have to support some legacy industrial hardware. I've built VMs for DOS, 98SE and XP and been able to passthrough both serial and parallel ports hosted on W10 machine.

Epic fail with both Oracle & MS offerings.

[ChrisJC]

To make the parallel port work, this was required (on the Linux host):
sudo rmmod lp
sudo chmod 777 /dev/parport0

If you are on a Windows host, I have no idea.

Chris.

[Bob Mehew]

I have just tried the Troubleshoot approach using Vista rather than XP with no success.  I got the same dll error message.  (Which makes me wonder if it is the build on my machine.)  I think the next step is to try VMware but I may be gone somewhile.  Many thanks for the suggestions.

[royfellows]

Hi Bob, after a quick glance can see what you trying to do.
I have a machine set up with 3 HDDs and 3 different platforms using a boot loader. With dirt cheap ex office system HDDs on ebay for a few quid its cheap IT.

I am running WinXP, Win7, and Win10. The boot loader is free download, but beware free downloads unless you really know what you are doing!
You can have a copy of mine if I can get it to you.
Anyway, if you set your default OS to either XP or 7, its a DOS menu off the bootloader, but set to 10 and you get a lovely graphic user interface of three icons.

[RobinGriffiths]

Probably not relevant to actual requirements here, but just a note that Windows 10 Pro/Education/Enterprise (not sure about Home) comes with it's own hypervisor: Hyper-V, so if you already have one of those OSs, you can already run virtual machines. It also allows you to run a throwaway Windows Sandbox.

[royfellows]

I didn't know that.

MS says"Hyper-V is available on 64-bit versions of Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education. It is not available on the Home edition."

Here is the MS link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/

[RobinGriffiths]

I didn't know that.

MS says"Hyper-V is available on 64-bit versions of Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education. It is not available on the Home edition."

Here is the MS link
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/

It also comes with a couple of Windows and Linux flavour images from what I remember. Sorry to take the thread a bit further off topic, but containers are worth a look if you want some virtualisation, but without the overhead of a virtual machine. I had Linux running in a Docker container over the summer with virtually no resource overhead.