Thread: Hyper-V for XP

In the navigation pane (far left column) in Hyper-V Manager, select your host then right click it and choose ->New->Virtual Machine and go through the wizards and create your VM (hard disk, memory, number of CPUs, etc., and then install your XP operating system.

There is not really a true XP Mode type environment available in Windows 8, so you will need media as well as a proper C.O.A. (product key) as they are no longer provided for free.

I have scanned several articles on enabling XP in a Hyper-V virtual environment and the process appears too complex for me.

It's a moot point however if the virtual machine cannot access (integrate with) the system's hard drives - for backup.
Can you confirm whether XP-mode style integration is available via Hyper-V? Thanks

I can confirm your original observation. Hyper-V is not a walk in the park and there is not much that happens automagically.
But I can confirm that if you take some time setting up your VM, installing XP, installing integration services (very important) and it is very nice if you have a second network adapter that you can dedicate to the guest VM when you set up the new virtual switch, then it does work pretty reliably.
You can configure network shares between the host and the guest VM in both directions and of course map network drives to those shares.
Probably the most important thing to take into consideration is that VMs created for use within Hyper-V do not really lend themselves to interaction from within the Hyper-V management console and only really start to shine and act like you would want them to, when they are accessed through Remote Desktop (msdtc.exe). And given that particular caveat then when you configure your remote desktop connection options to make any or all drives available to the guest VM from the Host and then you can browse them from within "My Computer" on XP as if they are local drives.
I hope that answers your question and I really didn't understand the "for backup" part of the question, as backups can be handled locally on the host machine that would include any guest VMs (.vhd or .vhdx).
So backup what and in which direction is unclear as to what you are wanting to accomplish.
Regards
Randy

Appreciate that, Randy. Yes, as you described it - and I understand it - backups wouldn't be a problem. But the process is indeed too convoluted for my narrow mind. I will seek alternatives.