Introduction

I remember when I was young, the computer at home always had Windows 98 installed. I often complained about how difficult Windows was to use. Although there were no other newer operating systems available, I couldn’t see how outdated Windows 98’s design was. It had many bugs, frequently crashed, suffered from system-level failures, blue screens, and sometimes even broke down completely, unable to boot again.

One day, by chance, I went to my sister’s house where they had just bought a new computer. I took a look and it was vastly different. The blue interface, beautiful taskbar, and window styles were captivating, but I didn’t know what system it was. It felt like Windows but seemed much clearer and more stable.

Later, I gradually learned that this system was called Windows XP, which was released in 2002. Its beautiful interface, crisp and elegant alert sounds, and cute icons left an indelible mark on my memory.

When I returned home, I sought help to install Windows XP on my family’s computer, but I was told that the computer had only 256MB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, and an 800MHz CPU, which would likely make it very slow. Reluctantly, I had to accept the reality.

Sometimes, the things we can’t have are often the most beautiful. I fell in love at first sight with Windows XP, dreaming of it, imagining using Windows Media Player and Windows XP, even though the scenarios in my dreams seemed a bit off. Yet, that excitement is something I can never forget.

Yearning for the day I could play with this system, back then the internet was not well developed. It wasn’t that there was no network; it was just that you couldn’t find what you wanted online, and not everything was available for download. You might say, “Use Thunder?” No, at that time there was no Thunder, only – Internet Ant.

Using Windows 98 was painful. It frequently crashed, requiring a system reinstall. Did I ever consider a transitional product, like Windows 2000? Yes, I did, and I installed it a few times, but Windows 2000 didn’t leave a very good impression on me.

In 2003, one day I could no longer bear it and went to a retail store selling pirated software, spending 10 yuan to buy a Windows XP SP2 installation CD. My happy life began from that moment.

To this day, I still love Windows XP, even though 14 years have passed; it’s hard for people to forget fleeting beautiful things.

Installation

Now, back to the main topic. This article will discuss how to install Windows XP on a Raspberry Pi 3.

This is actually a misleading question; how could an ARM architecture run Windows XP? At best, it should be considered emulation. Indeed, the solution is to install a virtual machine on the system and use an ARM virtual machine to emulate the x86 architecture to install Windows XP.

The method is quite simple. First, open the terminal:

`1`	`sudo apt-get update`

Once confirmed, we begin installing qemu and kvm:

`1`	`sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm qemu virt-manager virt-viewer libvirt-bin`

If the internet speed is fast, it should finish installing quickly. At this point, you must restart your computer; otherwise, it will prompt that libvirt has not started:

After restarting, download the slim version of XP MicroXP with the password: warez-bb. Of course, if you want to install the full version, that’s also possible. Just download it and copy the ISO file to the system.

The next steps are straightforward: create a virtual machine:

Applications – System Tools – Virtual Machine Manager

Then: File – New Virtual Machine

In the dialog that pops up, configure the system architecture to x86_64, set the memory to 256MB, and allocate the space according to your ratio, suggesting 1.5GB to 2GB.

Then start it, and you can begin the installation, which will take about 3-4 hours.