USB memory stick

[ecarlile]

I've just got Vista and there are a few applications that I want to run in XP. Can I install XP onto a Memory stick (Along with the few Apps) and run XP from that memory stick? (I would buy at min a 4gb memory stick)

 

[jzr]

I am pretty sure, but no expert or experience. If your BIOS supports 'boot from USB', I don't see why you can't use 'bart's preinstalled environment to make a bootable image on the stick with your apps.

 

[gpalmer711]

If your machine is up to it install Virtual PC from

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

It's free and will allow you to run XP from within Vista

Greg Palmer
Freeware Utilities for Windows Administrators.

http://www.palmersoft.co.uk

 

[vacunita]

If you search these forums, there are plenty of threads that deal with this issue.

For starters try this one:
thread779-1336879


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[cdogg]

Keep in mind that while it is certainly possible, it would be a heck of a lot slower than you'd expect. Even the fastest USB flash drives peak at 8-9 MB/s for reads and even less for writes. For comparison sake, a basic hard drive will average 45 MB/s. Even a DVD-ROM drive is faster than that.

So the question is whether or not it's worth your time. In a crowd, the Nah's would have it! I'd say the money would be better used towards a spare hard drive.

If you really need the portability of a flash drive, buy a cheap USB 2.0 external enclosure and throw a hard drive in it. It would give you the same thing only a heck of a lot faster!!

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Rick998]

Bear in mind that whilst it's certainly possible to run XP from USB sticks and USB hard drives, these installations use a RAM disk for unpacking into and for temporary files.

My own experience backs up what cdogg has written. Booting into a portable XP environment for me has been fastest from CD, then from USB hard disk then from from USB stick as the slowest. All 3 methods are incredibly slow if the PC has only 256Mb RAM and usually fails if the PC has less, e.g. 128Mb. If the PC has 512Mb RAM or more then the boot process is usally acceptable, i.e. less than 2 minutes.

However, getting XP to run from a portable device is only the first step... next you would have to find a way of making your applications portable so they can be run from the USB stick/drive.

You also need to bear in mind that most commercial applications prohibit modification... so making an application portable may break the license agreement.

I agree with Greg (gpalmer711)... the most efficient method of achieving what you want would be to use a virtual installation of XP within Vista (although my experience is that VMWare's Workstation appears to be faster in operation than MS's Virtual PC).

Hope this info helps...