XP SP3 supported on Hyper-V
April 28th, 2008 | 
Author: I was not aware that you could not install WinXP SP2 or earlier versions as a VM on Microsoft’s Hyper-V servers. I haven’t had the opportunity to play with Hyper-V yet, so I I’ll attribute missing this fact to not having the need to know. I’m sure there are a bunch of administrators in the same stage of evaluation as me. Hopefully this post will not be old news to most. XP SP3 will become available for download this week as an optional update. Microsoft will begin pushing XP SP3 to everyone that has Windows Update set to Automatic in early June.
The problem with installing XP SP2 on Hyper-V is that you can not install Integration Services (also called VM Additions or VMtools by other vendors), and without Integration Services you do not have network adapters in the VM. Christian Saborío sums up the problem in his post titled How to Install Integration Services on a Virtual Machine without Windows XP SP3.
“The problem happened when importing a Virtual hard disk that I had that had Windows XP SP2. See, in order for a VM to take full advantage of Hyper-V, you need to have the Integration Services installed (these are the new Virtual Machine Additions, in Virtual Server lingo). In order to install the Integration Services, I needed to have Windows XP SP3 – which I could easily download; but the VM did not had network support. Why? Because it needed Integration Services…see where I am getting at here?”
Christian explains that he was able to slipstream an .iso of XP with SP3 and, after a new install he had a running VM.
Microsoft announced that XP SP3 will be generally available this week. I found the following useful info
in the April 28th edition of the WServerNews newsletter email I received.
Q: So, can I get my hands on SP3?
A: Depends on who you are. OEM? Yup. Got an MSDN or TechNet subscription? After some screaming… yes. Willing to get it via gray channels (torrent) yeah but not recommended. Redmond said it will put SP3 on Windows Update on April 29. At that point you’ll be able to update by calling up WU, then selecting the download. Just like Vista SP1, for a few weeks, SP3 will be optional.Q: I want to have WU do all the work for me… when?
A: Hold your horses. You should do some serious testing with SP3 so that you are sure it does not break anything. Redmond will start pushing SP3 to everyone that has set WU to ‘automatic download’ sometime in “early summer”, June 10 has been mentioned by some sources.Q: Remind me, why did I want SP3 again?
A: Well, there are a lot of benefits. It rolls up all the patches and hotfixes since 2004. There are changes in product activation, it’s giving an about 10% improvement in speed. SP3 is cumulative, so you can install SP3 on top of WinXP SP1 or SP2. It supports the Network Access Protection and Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) used in Vista so XP apps can communicate with apps running on Vista that use this code. It can also be a guest OS on Hyper-V. The verdict is the new SP3 is a must-have update for XP ‘life-extenders’.There might be a glimmer of hope for people that want to stretch XP’s life. Ballmer this week said based on customer feedback “we might wake up smart” and not end-of-life it coming June 30. InfoWorld has a petition going that already got 180K signatures, so please add yours. It’s on the right side:
http://www.wservernews.com/5KT5XC/080428-Save-XPNote that there will not be any integrated SP3 release for XP Media Center Edition or WinXP Tablet Edition. Here is the formal notification that SP3 went RTM by Chris Keroack Release Manager, Windows XP Service Pack 3:
http://www.wservernews.com/5KT5XC/080428-XP-SP3-NotificationHere is Redmond’s official XP Service Pack 3 Overview:
http://www.wservernews.com/5KT5XC/080428-WinXP-SP3-Overview
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