Windows XP made to run on Vision Pro

An emulator company has shown a first look at running Windows XP on the Apple Vision Pro, for some reason.

While it is at least many months before the Vision Pro is released, developers are working with Apple's visionOS development kit and using it for purposes Apple probably didn't consider. Such as installing and running Windows on it.

Specifically, Turing Software, maker of UTM Virtual Machines for Mac, has installed Windows XP. That would be the same Windows XP that Microsoft ceased supporting in 2014.

UTM is now running on Vision Pro (simulator)! Still need to implement input devices but here's a sneak peek. pic.twitter.com/xYnSgTdXpi
— UTM (@UTMapp) August 8, 2023

The demo shows Windows XP booting up to its desktop and so far not running any Windows apps. UTM notes that it doesn't yet connect to keyboards or other input devices, so it's not a practical system yet.

UTM Virtual Machines for Mac is intended for Apple users to be able to install many different versions of Windows, or Linux, and so have access to the massive array of apps written for those platforms.

"UTM employs Apple's Hypervisor virtualization framework to run ARM64 operating systems on Apple Silicon at near native speeds," says the company on its website. "In addition, lower performance emulation is available to run x86/x64 on Apple Silicon as well as ARM64 on Intel."

One casualty of Apple's move from Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon was that Mac dropped its Boot Camp feature. This was the ability to reboot a Mac and have it running Windows natively.

In February 2023, the Parallels company managed to get its Desktop app running Windows 11 on Apple Silicon.

17 Comments

williamh 1047 comments · 13 Years

About 1 year ago

For some reason? Because it's funny and cool! Obviously running Windows XP on a $3500 headset isn't something many people are aching to do but it's a very cool proof of concept. Back in ye olde day, some folks got MAME running on a digital camera. Why? Because how cool is that?!

darkvader 1146 comments · 15 Years

Well, I suppose that immediately solves the problem of running Doom on it.

prairiewalker 60 comments · 9 Years

Windows 11 as a VM runs superbly on Parallels in my M1 iMac.

dewme 5760 comments · 10 Years

prairiewalker said:

Windows 11 as a VM runs superbly on Parallels in my M1 iMac.

Ditto for Windows 11 ARM on VMWare Fusion Player 13.

But it’s still impressive to see what some very clever programmers can do to shoehorn a big OS on to very limited platforms, like Windows 10 on Raspberry Pi.

I think all programmers would learn a little something by seeing how these clever folks pulled it off. Unless you’ve done embedded software yourself you kind of lose touch with dealing with serious platform constraints. The penalties for being sloppy are drowned out by the immense resources of newer desktop platforms.