VirtualXP (OS virtualization)

[Midas]

I haven't tested it (yet), but Farstone VirtualXP is free for non commercial use...

• For the sake of allowing users to keep running applications and accessing data on XP, FarStone developed VirtualXP to convert XP system to a Microsoft virtual disk, which can be run on Windows 7/8 or Windows Server 2008/2012’s virtual machine. XP virtual machine is safer since it runs above Windows 7/8 or Windows Server 2008/2012 platform with extra security protection from the host environment.
  
  Key features: convert Windows XP to virtual machine; free for non-commercial use; allows you to continue running XP and its applications on Windows 8; VirtualXP can convert Windows XP and 2003 systems.

Download current VirtualXP (v1.0) from http://www.neowin.net/news/farstone-virtualxp-10 -- the only reputable alternative to CNet.com I was able to find...

Recent reviews:

• http://www.ghacks.net/2014/08/31/conver ... virtualxp/
  http://betanews.com/2014/09/04/virtualx ... l-machine/

[copc]

Basically you can use disk2vhd to create virtualxp.

[webfork]

VirtualXP

For reasons I'm not clear on, my buddy wasn't able to get the volume to work with VMware so I sent him this. I'll post here again if I hear back about it. For whatever reason they didn't want to use Microsoft's Hyper-V.