You need the ISO file and a licence key to run any other OS, but I doubt it will run XP tbh. If you only need that for Etka though, I have a version which will run on W10.

I need to look in to Elsawin 6.0. It'd be very helpful to not have to run that in a VM.

I don't have ETKA and it sounds like Elsawin might have a W10 solution.
The only other item is my Bentley manual which uses eBahn software.
To be fair I haven't tried running it on W10 other than inside an XP VM under Oracle VirtualBox, but rummaging around online it looks like many have tried but all have failed.

There's also an authentication process for any new installation that may no longer be working so maybe I'll stick with Oracle for that, assuming there's a working environment available for my existing VM.

Thanks for the advice and information folks. +++
I'm doing nothing until the replacement CMOS battery arrives in the post, unfortunately it's a tagged CR2032 with leads and a small plug; I only have plain ones and don't trust my soldering skills to transplant the tags/leads on a battery!

I'm sure I've got a legal bootable XP CD somewhere with a key so I might try it. I'm intrigued to compare Hyper-V to VirtualBox.

But first I'll get the latest VirtualBox and check that works with my existing VMs.

I have not used Elsa in a couple of months and prompted by this thread I thought I'd check it's working fine. However, it seems an update may have broke it - the SQL server is not connecting. I know it has worked fine up until now so will see what needs to be done to fix it.

You can probably take your existing virtualbox image and convert the disk into hyper-v, then boot and sort and driver issues.....

https://kags.me.ke/post/virtualbox-to-hyper-v/

I also found this: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/mig...ws-10-hyper-v/

A right collection of them as it happens, mostly the Pro version!

The only one bootable with SP3 included is a Dell OEM version with no key (they detect Dell hardware and activate) but I wonder if that will install inside Hyper-V and detect it's on a Dell laptop? Can but try.....

The others are XP Pro with SP1 and separate CDs with SP2 and SP3 on. I vaguely recall all sorts of issues with applying those and updates in the past, not least because of Internet Explorer versions that were tied to Windows Update creating Catch-22 roadblocks. :tuttut:

Edit: Got bored while waiting for the washing machine to finish so created a VM in Hyper-V (never used it before!), started it, connected the DVD drive with XP SP3 CD in, and booted. Off it went installing XP, which will take a while, I'll go back later and see how far it gets!

It installed fine, but didn't auto-activate so I had to phone the Microsoft computer chat line and ignore all the stuff about Windows 10.
That's 10 minutes I'll never get back.

It does and it activated OK by phone. :D

No networking configured as I don't need it. I'll play with it another day. ;)

Bonus! I had to activate a brand new server by phone the other day since it flatly refused to auto-activate for no reason. It was a rather surreal experience, not having had to do so for nearly a decade now.

You would be surprised how many times I find myself "talking" to the Microsoft activation helpline - Apart from being a PITA, I see no real value in it!?