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I would like to run a windows xp OS on my raspberry. If I try to install it with Win32DiskImager would be able to use? Which version should I try?

Kroy
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5 Answers5

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TL;DR Yes it is possible to virtualize Windows XP on an ARM device such as Raspberry Pi.

For anyone saying that this isn't possible needs to re-evaluate what "possible" means. Just because it hasn't been done yet (which it has), it's not appropriate to say it's impossible. In fact, it's generally never a good idea to claim something as impossible.

That said, it IS entirely possible to run x86 systems on an ARM device if it meets the standard requirements. I have first hand experience with getting Mac OS X Mavericks running on an ARM HDMI stick, primarily aimed at running Android on a TV. This setup requires that QEMU be compiled and running with a specific configuration.

There are also guides that have ported Windows 95, 98, XP and other x86 system to run on many ARM devices.

One such guide can be found here

From the guide:

 Now you can run x86 based operating systems on your ARM device. 
 Now you can have full desktop windows/linux experience on your Android smartphones.

It should be noted that this guide was primarily written with an Android operating system in mind, however one with enough experience can get a minimal Linux OS running on the rPI, say Debian, Linux Mint or lubuntu and then attempt to get QEMU compiled.

Looking at the minimum system requirements of Windows XP and then comparing those to Raspberry Pi's specifications, at a glance I would say it's possible to virtualize XP. I don't know what kind of performance you could get and it might even prove to be unusable. However, it would be an interesting experiment to try.


To give you an idea of the steps that would be required, it would look something like this.

  1. Get a linux distribution of your choice to run on RPI, like Debian, Ubuntu, etc.
  2. Compile QEMU with whatever requirements that Windows XP needs to emulate. This step requires research on your part.
  3. Virtualize Windows XP with a running version of QEMU and attach the video to the QEMU instance.
  4. Most things in the OS should operate normally, however you may run into compatibility problems with hardware due to emulated conditions.
  5. Note the limitations of running Windows XP, which is a very dated piece of software that has reached it's end of life. This means that newer modern web browsers, firewalls, anti-virus solutions and many more key pieces of software probably won't run properly, if it all.


Extras:

Here is a video tutorial of how to get QEMU running on the Pi.


Here are some reasons of why I think it could be possible.

  • A YouTube video in German that displays Windows XP booting up in 20-some minutes on a Raspberry Pi.
  • Eye witness accounts of running OSX Mavericks on an Android HDMI stick
  • Several tutorials of running past OS's with QEMU virtualization (x86 to ARM)
Levi Roberts
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    To the down voter: Care to leave a comment on what or why you disagree with this answer? Your negative feedback provides no value in this instance. I have an idea of whom this came from and why. That's what happens when not everyone agrees. – Levi Roberts Dec 09 '14 at 19:53
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The answer is no. The Raspberry Pi is powered by an ARM processor, and there is no ARM Windows version

user20002
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You couldn't directly run Windows XP but you might be able to put it through an emulator. The only problem is that it would really slow.

user20010
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I'm not interested in running Windows XP in particular, but I'm running an x86 Debian userland on my Pi 4, which allows running Windows programs via Wine.

The performance is certainly worse compared to running native ARM code, but it's not that bad. Here's a test with Exagear emulator:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 5.4.51-v7l+ #1333 SMP Mon Aug 10 16:51:40 BST 2020 i686 GNU/Linux
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=1000 run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark
...
Test execution summary:
    total time:                          7.5422s

Compared with:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 5.4.51-v7l+ #1333 SMP Mon Aug 10 16:51:40 BST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=1000 run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark
...
Test execution summary:
    total time:                          3.5249s

The performance gap becomes more apparent if the program in question tries to use hardware acceleration, e.g. the emulated x86 version of gltron only gives me about 10 fps, while the ARM version runs fine with 50+ fps.

Dmitry Grigoryev
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    Yes, depends very much on what software you run and if it's full system emulation or the qemu userland translation layer as then kernel calls will be native. – onion Nov 10 '20 at 12:04
  • @onion It's userland translation layer (note the kernel is v7l in both runs), not that it matters that much in a number crunching test. I just wanted to provide some performance numbers, as there are lots of answers / comments claiming that the emulation will be "very" or "prohibitively" slow where it is in fact acceptable in many cases. – Dmitry Grigoryev Nov 10 '20 at 13:01
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You have not done research.

The minimum requirements for Windows XP are (from Microsoft Knowledge Base):

  • Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
  • At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
  • At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
  • Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
  • Sound card

Raspberry Pi does not meet those requirements, due to the fact that the maximum Raspberry Pi specifications are (from Wikipedia):

So, to answer your question: no, you can't.

And please do more research in the future. Do a Google search for Can I run Windows XP on Raspberry Pi, you'll find many topics and answers to them, with the answer: no.

Community
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    You seem to have pasted the requirements twice. Also, I seem to remember running Windows XP in 8-bit VGA mode, like 320x240x8, so it at least does support such resolutions. Maybe plain VGA card would be enough. – Ruslan Aug 30 '14 at 20:42
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    STOP UPVOTING THIS! This is only slightly nearer the answer than the one on the Potato SE website, someone asked if their potato could run windows XP and (I think it was the same guy) posted the XP minimum specifications and said "Even the most advanced potato doesn't match these" - It cannot run, it's not because it's a bad computer, it's because it's an ARM CHIP! – Alec Teal Aug 31 '14 at 00:26
  • @AlecTeal Not necessarily. If it had a better processor, it wouldn't work either. –  Aug 31 '14 at 09:24
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    Read it again... – Alec Teal Sep 01 '14 at 00:41
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    Yeah, this answer is puzzling to me too. The OP says that the rPi doesn't have enough requirements, lists XP requirements then lists the Pi's. The XP requirements are much lower than what the Pi has.

    The only thing questionable is possibly the video/sound support. Not that it would be worth it, but it might be entirely possible to run a VM XP on Pi. Don't know if it would be worth it or even feasible but don't care.

    I'm just pointing out the obvious flaw in this answer. And asking the not-so-obvious question, why doesn't it meet the requirements?

     – Levi Roberts Dec 09 '14 at 15:59
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    P.S. I've seen Mac OSX Mavericks run on an ARM device using QEMU. So, again.. not sure why the rPi can't VM XP. – Levi Roberts Dec 09 '14 at 16:01
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    This answer is just wrong. The reason you cannot run Windows XP on the pi is because Windows XP has not been compiled for the particular architecture. If it were, it could be used. But since the source code is not available, no one can legally do it. – goldilocks Dec 09 '14 at 16:33
  • @goldilocks You're forgetting about virtualization. Additionally, there are licenses you can purchase to virtualize Windows on other platforms legally. Mac OSX wasn't compiled for ARM either but low and behold, it runs flawlessly on my HDMI stick. – Levi Roberts Dec 09 '14 at 19:57
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    @LeviRoberts Good points. There is a related question here about using an x86 simulator: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/1312/can-i-emulate-x86-to-run-windows-95 I still think this answer misses the point, however. By "no one can legally do it", I meant, compile windows for armv6, not that there might not be some other legit method. I'm sure Microsoft would not care about someone using Windows on the pi, but they would if you somehow copped their proprietary source code in order to do so. – goldilocks Dec 09 '14 at 20:08