Hi,
I have used Hyper-V in the past to run a Windows XP Virtual Machine on a PC running Windows 10. When I did this, I created a blank virtual machine and installed a fresh instance of Windows XP, followed by whatever software I intended to use with it.
Something came up recently that has made me wonder if something else is possible. I have a customer who is running a database application that I developed. This application is installed and running on a PC that is running Windows XP Pro. My application makes use of a connection to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server that runs on the same PC, as well as some other 3rd party add-on process historian and reporting services.
I know that if I had a test PC with the same hardware as the working PC, I could ask my customer to create a drive image of the entire working PC. I could then restore this image onto my test PC. After doing this, my test PC would be a "clone" of the working PC. I could then use the test PC to work on (or troubleshoot) my application.
Unfortunately, I do not have a test PC with identical hardware. This makes me wonder if it is possible that I could restore a drive image of the physical (working) PC into a virtual machine for the same purpose.
If anyone here has experience with something like this, I would greatly appreciate any advice you have to offer. I have experience with Hyper-V, but I am willing to consider any alternatives if there are better options.
Thanks in advance,
Paul