đŸ’¾ Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2023 › 202310 › 20231019-virtual-xp-and-computer-consolidati… captured on 2023-11-04 at 11:21:43. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I've always been a relentless data hoarder. When I was first introduced to the world of BitTorrent in the late 2000s, I would actively go out and amass huge collections of media, but these days I merely keep the things I actively use or like, then I never delete them. This means I have a lot of old data of my own, going back to the mid to late 1990s in some cases. In the meantime, however, I want to cut back on some of my physical possessions, and that includes consolidating how I use some of my computers.
To that end, I'm currently migrating a Windows XP installation on an old ThinkPad to a virtual machine I can run from any location. The machine is primarily meant to run retro games, but I also use it for any XP-related tasks I might have, from simple nostalgia to working with old programs that aren't compatible with Vista forward.
Something isn't working correctly with my installation of Oracle VirtualBox on my primary desktop, and as a result USB passthrough support is broken. I needed to find a way to move files to and from the XP virtual machine. The quickest solution I could come up with was to spin up a basic FTP server on a Raspberry Pi, connect the XP VM to the local network, and use the built-in FTP support of Windows Explorer to move files. I find it amusing that in 2023, I still find use cases for deploying FTP in my local environment.
Among the piles of data in my NAS are two particular gems: full drive images of two computers my family had when I was young. One of them is also Windows XP, while the other comes from a Windows 98 machine. Last night I tried to convert the XP drive dump to a VirtualBox format but was unsuccessful. I'm sure it could work if I figure out what I'm doing wrong, but right now it's enough for me just to mount the drives and access the files within statically.
The ultimate goal is to get rid of a few of my computers that I'm not using and am not likely to use. I currently have thirteen different desktop towers and laptops, not including half a dozen old Android smartphones, and not including two modded Nintendo Switches that can run full Ubuntu from the SD card. That's simply more computing power than I'll use anytime soon. While some devices are purpose-built and therefore have their own place, I plan to get rid of at least three computers--potentially more if I consolidate further.
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[Last updated: 2023-10-19]