Windows XP on UTM

TidBITS Talk
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My main computer is an Intel iMac running Ventura. It doesn’t support Sonoma. So this means it is time to think about replacing it, which would be with Apple Silicon. And that means none of my virtual machines will run.

I’ve already converted a Windows 10 VM to Windows 11 on ARM, which was surprisingly easy. Now I’m working on Snow Leopard (Server), Mojave, and Windows XP. I tried Snow Leopard first, but it doesn’t even boot, so I decided that it should be easier to work on Windows XP.

I was able to get Windows XP installed on a M2 Pro Mac using UTM, emulating Intel with QEMU. But that would be a totally clean install. What I would rather do is migrate the existing Windows XP image from VMware Fusion to UTM, so that I have all of the Windows updates applied to the XP image over the years.

I tried converting the VMDK to QCOW2 (which may not have been necessary), and just substituted the drive file for what was created when I built the new VM. Note that configuration is using IDE. That didn’t boot.

The Fusion VM is using SCSI for the drive. I tried changing UTM to use SCSI to access the disk, but still doesn’t boot.

So now I’m thinking that Windows XP doesn’t have the driver installed for whatever SCSI controller QEMU is emulating.

Should QEMU have been able to boot the drive using IDE? Or do I need to install some drivers for QEMU, while the machine is started using Fusion?

You’d think there’d be recipes for this kind of migration, but my Google-fu hasn’t come up with a good match.

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It’s not just the driver. The boot.ini file in the root of the VM tells Windows what bus and device the boot drive is on. It’s probably configured for a SCSI controller and device given what you’ve said about how it’s existing on your Fusion VM.

I’d suggest using the default of an IDE drives for a Windows XP x86 VM - that way you don’t have to worry about any other kind of driver. You’ll need to make sure the Windows XP IDE drivers are installed in that VM before moving it, and you’re going to have to hack the boot.ini file on the VM to change what is most likely a SCSI bus configuration to reflect an IDE boot disk.

Not surprising that Snow Leopard won’t boot, and you’ll probably find the same thing with Mojave. You’re going to have to play Hackintosh games if you want to get any macOS version that runs on Intel CPUs running under UTM/QEMU.

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Mojave does work with UTM with the correct configuration which is available as well as for other OS’s here:

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I have a Tiger (10.4) virtual machine running in UTM. I found the following instructions helpful when getting this running, and it didn’t take long to set up:

Run Tiger, Leopard, or any Mac OS X PowerPC version on M1

That page also works for Leopard, so I imagine Snow Leopard should be possible. As @jk2gs says, Mojave is possible as well – the config files on the GitHub page they linked to are very useful.

This page might also be of interest:

I tried migrating a VirtualBox Windows XP machine to UTM and never got it to work. Whatever I tried it had boot problems, I think driver-related (i.e. at the text boot manager stage). Since I don’t really understand Windows and I only needed the VM to run one old app to convert some files, in the end I found it quicker to create a new Windows 11 VM in UTM, and re-install the app I needed. I realise this doesn’t help you, so hopefully the details from @Technogeezer will get you on the right track – that’s far more than I previously understood about the process!

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I visited that page and noted some conflicts. The article mentions downloading the specific configuration for 10.14 (Mojave) but then discusses installing 10.13 (High Sierra).

So are they talking about installing 10.13 or 10.14?

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I noticed that as well but I can say that Mojave 10.14 does work with UTM and the other page I referenced has config files for most other OS’s except Snow Leopard.

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I forgot to add that UTM and Mojave is a slow combination so keep that in mind if you try it. On the other hand, Tiger and Leopard work much better with UTM using the PowerPC emulation.

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I am grateful every day for my 2020 Intel iMac, however where Apple Silicon is concerned it probably is a good idea to try to wean yourself off x86 emulation. It does work but even XP is slow, even when you turn off as many of the visual effects as you can. Windows-on-ARM with its x86 emulator may be the best choice, if wine won’t cut it for you—and it often does, for me. Loss of x86 is undoubtedly a bummer, though emulating it slowly is better than nothing.

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I’m not seeing anything IDE or SCSI or driver related in the boot.ini file.

The file on the SCSI Windows XP, running on VMware Fusion is:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

The file on IDE Windows XP, installed on UTM as a fresh install, is the same except for two differences:

  • Timeout is 30 instead of 5
  • UTM version doesn’t have a Microsoft Recovery Console

I’m back to thinking I need to install drivers (perhaps the IDE driver?) while in Fusion, before migrating.

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For what it is worth (FWIIW :blush:) I have a Windows XP VM running in Parallels under Mojave on an Intel Mac. This is my spare Mac & media server. I don’t intend going beyond Mojave due, partly, to some of the issues that you raise.
If I do find, for some crazy reason, I need to run Windows without the Intel Mac and Parallels then I might invest in a cheap Windows machine.

FWIIW (2) I am happily running an ancient DOS app in 64-bit DOSBOX under Sonoma on a Silicon Mac. I used to do this via a Windows XP VM but discovered DOSBOX worked in OSX/macOS.

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