machine I am going to give it a name that will help me identify what it is
will select Windows XP 32-bit then we will set the system memory in to 3
gigabytes so we have a decently capable system to work with for the hard drive
capacity we will go with 25 gigabytes to give ourselves some room to install some
programs and games we can leave the other hard drive settings as is I prefer
the dynamically allocated option the system does take a performance hit but
boot it up this screen here allows us to select a disk image to boot from I will
browse to and select the Windows XP disc image and we are off to Windows setup I
hard drive a little bit we can partition the drive then press the Enter key for
format options I will just press ENTER to see what happens
interestingly enough it goes right to the formatting options and doesn't
complain about a lack of a partition because this is a virtual machine I am
going to use the quick format option now setup is going to copy some files I used
to have two windows XP disks with scratches in different places so to
finish the installation I would have to switch disks several times so all the
necessary files could be copied after the restart we get a more graphical
interface spoiler alert the installation does not take 39 minutes to complete the
default setting for regional and keyboard options are fine so we can
click Next for the name I have used owner for many
will enter the product key and be back in a moment the computer name can be
whatever it says here we can change it later if we decide to do something
related to networking date and time settings are fine so we can click Next
we can stick with the typical settings for networking and click Next I missed
the little animated drums from Windows 95 when processes are running like
installing Start menu items
you
and we get to restart the computer again we will be back after the restart this
phase of the installation is called the out of box experience if you purchased
an OEM system this is what you should see the first time you turn the computer
on let's click Next on this screen we get to choose how we
want to receive updates I'm going to leave automatic updates on and click
Next we can click the skip button on this screen as the internet connection
should be fine if the connection of the host PC is
working as we are setting this up for demonstration purposes we can skip
activation then we are presented with options to set up user accounts we only
need one for now I would call it owner then click Next and click finish here we
are at the desktop on our clean installation of Windows XP Home Edition
in my opinion of VirtualBox tutorial is not complete without briefly covering
the guest additions this is how we get access to higher color depth and screen
resolutions click the devices menu at the top and select insert guest
additions CD image then we will get a pop-up to install the guest additions
click Next the destination folder is fine click Next we may consider
selecting the options for direct3d support if you are going to be playing
games in the guest operating system after you make the decision click Next
Windows XP can't tell if the drivers are compatible so we will need to click
continue anyway several times to finish the installation one last restart
we are back after the restart now we can click on the View menu at the top and
hover over virtual screen 1 then select the resolution that we want I'm going to