Installing Windows XP on UEFI System Without Working BIOS Emulation

I am trying to install Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 on a computer the uses UEFI system firmware.

The computer's firmware is supposed to support BIOS emulation; however, the BIOS emulation is severely defective and does not work to boot an operating system.

What may be done to boot Windows XP on the given computer?

I was thinking that perhaps installing a boot manager that supports UEFI might workaround the issue and solve the problem. I was thinking the the boot manager could correctly load the Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 operating system.

So if I understand you right legacy boot mode does not work on your motherboard? Make sure your installing with your sata controller set to IDE unless you have a slipstreamed version with ahci support. What board do you have?

Yeah what do you mean by "BIOS emulation is severely defective". Every uefi board has a legacy boot option. It just doesn't work for you? But if it doesn't work, how did you install Windows XP since the Windows XP's installation media uses legacy boot?

And is there a particular reason you'd prefer Windows XP over Windows 7? I mean if your board has eufi, I'd assume that it's a more modern computer and should be able to run Windows 7?

More details please. Board and bios version would help us. I've installed XP on a few uefi boards without issue.

I am posting to subscribe to this thread because was told that it would be possible to install Windows XP on UEFI boards so I wanted to find out if that means all UEFI boards or just some. You would need to disable and change a few BIOS options.


To ward of any more Why XP? questions:

• Maybe he just feels like it (valid reason) or maybe it's because:

• Old hardware/software compatibility.

• Windows XP allows you to group files or folders on different parts of the screen whereas in Windows 7/8, you can *only* do this on its Desktop and nowhere else. Windows 7/8 has no option to turn Auto-Arrange off.

• Search Engine is more difficult to use and not as reliable as Windows XP Search Engine.

• Windows 7/8 Explorer status bar does not show file details which were available in previous versions of Windows. From Windows 95 to Windows XP Explorer has had a STATUS BAR which displayed very useful information at a glance. Microsoft Developers have removed most of that information and have done so in a way that even Classic Shell or other programs cannot restore it under Windows 8.

• When you right click on a web shortcut link, the correct current location of its custom icon is not displayed. But this is a problem on every system from which IE 6 is removed and replaced by Internet Explorer 7 or later, even if you use other web browsers.

• Windows 7 has a bug not fixed to this day: You cannot check an external drive for errors without your Windows 7 running out of resources.


If all the above posted reasons are irrelevant, then the most important reason for using Windows XP of course is multi-boot! Why would we have only one OS?

The motherboard being used is:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03343058

There was a system firmware update (to version 8.14) for the motherboard. The newer firmware update, however, was silently removed by HP and HP documentation of its existence was also removed. I do have a local copy of the firmware update. Legacy Boot does not work correctly in the 8.14 firmware either.

There are no other obvious system firmware updates available at this time.

I do not have the current firmware version information, but believe that the firmware version is 8.10 or 8.11.

You could use grub to load XP, similar to what would be done if you were dual booting Linux.

However I would personally be more interested in the exact error message you receive, as well as in what part of the OS installation process you receive an error.

Are you able to screenshot your bios options with a camera or phone, and let us review those so that we can ensure the settings are correct?

I am not sure how to install grub without a Linux install, however you could simply install Ubuntu, follow the directions for dual booting XP, then delete everything on the Linux partition other than the grub boot files.

We can dig into that more if you need help. I would really like to see some captures and get more detail about the XP problem you are having currently tho.

ilovecats said:

Yeah what do you mean by "BIOS emulation is severely defective". Every uefi board has a legacy boot option. It just doesn't work for you? But if it doesn't work, how did you install Windows XP since the Windows XP's installation media uses legacy boot?

Click to expand...

It is correct that the legacy boot does not work for the motherboard firmware being used (typically process hangs before any obvious loading).

One need not use the original installation media to Windows XP. For example one may launch setup from within another operating system that may use a UEFI boot. Some example of this are some versions of WinPE. Installation over the network might also be possible.

ilovecats said:

And is there a particular reason you'd prefer Windows XP over Windows 7?

Click to expand...

There are quite a lot of reasons.

I.M.O.G. said:

However I would personally be more interested in the exact error message you receive, as well as in what part of the OS installation process you receive an error.

Click to expand...

There is no error message. Oftentimes, when attempting to boot a legacy utility or operating system, the loading process hangs before an obvious loading actually occurs. Sometimes the screen may be black or have a blinking cursor. Other times, when booting a DOS style operation system like Caldera Dr. DOS or FreeDOS the loading of the operating system is indicated (with a message such as "Loading FreeDOS" (do not remember exact string)) but hangs. Interestingly, the Text Mode part of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 setup does seem to often launch from disc; the GUI portion of setup, however, fails to run.

I do select the legacy boot options directly from boot menu to rule-out boot order issues.

I.M.O.G. said:

Are you able to screenshot your bios options with a camera or phone, and let us review those so that we can ensure the settings are correct?

Click to expand...

This is not very feasible at this time. Plus, the UEFI Shell uses an interface design very similar to the old Compaq top-menus style BIOS (which would mean quite a lot of screenshots).

I have Secure Boot and UEFI Boot disabled and have configured other firmware settings to what should work.

I have also installed Windows XP on different computers that use UEFI or EFI, but none without function BIOS Emulation.

I plan to try using the rEFInd boot manager by Roderick W. Smith. Its website address is:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

The scripted install method for the boot loader is performed under Linux.

If the boot manager is to be installed on the local system, it seems that Linux distribution that runs from a RAM drive would be ideal.