However, if your system has Windows XP installed on it, you can more easily set up a dual-boot Linux/Windows XP. Running Windows XP in a virtual machine (VM) on your Linux laptop is a better solution than either reimaging your Linux system with XP or attempting the often precarious task of setting up a Linux/Windows XP dual-boot system next to an existing Linux installation. If you find yourself needing to run Windows applications, especially Windows legacy applications on Windows XP, there is a solution: virtualization. Note that when trying to start VirtualBox without the serial port being available to the host device, VirtualBox will refuse to start with a variety of error messages.Your Linux laptop can do a lot of things, but it cannot fully emulate Windows nor can it run many essential Windows programs. Click “Next”, it will search and find the new COM port.Click “Search for and install the hardware automatically”.Choose the last list item “Add new hardware device”.Choose “Yes, I have already connected the device”.Double click the “Hardware” item (“Add New Hardware Wizard”).Start the Windows XP guest OS and add the COM port to Windows XP:.IRQ and port settings: ignore, use the defaults.For that, use the following settings in the configuration dialog for your VM:

Configure your VirtualBox virtual machine to have a serial port.Re-connecting power to the docking station does not help here, but restarting does. This happens for example when disconnecting power from the docking station on a ThinkPad T61 using Ubuntu 10.10, because the serial port is only available on the docking station and is assumed “disconnected” when switching to battery operation, even though the dock is still physically connected. If the output says “unknown”, your port is not accessible by the host OS. Make sure your serial port is found in the host operating system.Make sure your serial port is enabled in BIOS.

How to use virtualbox 6 for windows xp