Running XP purely from USB Stick

[sj33]

Basically, I have a few games that do not work properly in Vista (and presumably Windows 7), but work fine in XP. I am currently running XP 64-bit (giving me the benefits of XP, but with support for 4GB+ RAM and 64-bit applications) and am happy with it (as far as Windows goes, anyway). However, I am conscious of the fact that support for this OS will wane at some point (be it from Microsoft themselves, Nvidia dropping driver support, whatever), and may have to grudgingly upgrade to Windows 7 eventually. With this in mind, I'd like to be able to access XP for those games that require it.

Dual boot is an option, but creating an entire partition for 3 or so games that I'll play about once a year seems extreme. The alternative is to stick XP onto a USB stick, and use that.

I've read internet guides about this, but does anyone have first hand experience? How well does it work? (for example, being able to upgrade Direct X, install new drivers etc, without the thing getting confused about it being a removable device).

[kernow]

I've tried it before, running from an external hard disk, it wasn't fun. maybe a removable sata drive bay could work, just install it on a cheap drive and use that.

[briareos_kerensky]

I've tried it before, running from an external hard disk, it wasn't fun. maybe a removable sata drive bay could work, just install it on a cheap drive and use that.

Maybe an eSATA driver would perform better than USB/Firewire drives, but I'd try with a virtual machine before anything else.
You would boot up a single OS and then fire up the one you want to emulate with no problems concering a dual boot or keeping an OS on an external media up to date with drivers and whatanot.

I guess that forcing Windows XP compatibility in the properties tab doesn't help, does it?

[sj33]

^No the games all have the same issue, they suffer from Vista/Win7's lack of native DirectAudio support, and I guess the way they're coded means that XAudio doesn't run them properly.

I've never used a VM though, I should look into it. How much does performance suffer?

[EvilBoris]

If you have a Create Soundblaster XFI or Uadigy you can use this to get sound from DirectAudio titles

http://www.soundblaster.com/alchemy/

or if you have a Realtek Sound card (probably onboard) you could try 3D soundback beta

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

[sj33]

I have neither I'm afraid, but they only partially solve the problem. The video in my first post is actually using Alchemy. Without it, it doesn't work at all.

[sj33]

Sorry to double-post, but I've been advised that Virtual Machines don't use the GPU natively, making them pretty useless for gaming - is this true?

[kernow]

True, they usually provide an emulated framebuffer device or very simplistic graphics card.

I'd honestly just plug a spare drive in and install XP to that.