Run Windows XP on a usb drive virtually on Windows XP?

Question

I am sick of not being able to run and install certain applications on my work computer due to admin restrictions (eg: Adobe AIR) . I have heard of smaller versions of Windows running on a usb thumb drive and have looked into it but can't find anything on running windows virtually from a usb drive.

I would like to be able to login to this particular computer, insert my usb drive and then open up another version of windows installed on the thumb drive while still being able to use the windows I logged in on (literally be able to alt+tab between the main desktop and the virtual desktop from the usb drive).

Is this even possible? For further clarification: The version of windows has to be Windows XP and there is no other option available for what I want to do.

Looking forward to a response.

Answer 1

You would need to have virtualPC (or vmware or virtualbox) installed on the work PC, then you could run a virtual session on anything (although a USB key might be slow)

There are also a set of portable apps that are adapted to run from a usb key (no install, no write to the main drive) which might also do what you need.

Answer 2

This is not a programming question and it doesn't belong on Stack Overflow. Lucky for you I searched around and found a thread on Super User which appears to answer your question.

http://superuser.com/questions/18231/which-virtual-machine-can-boot-from-usb-drive

Answer 3

Not really an appropriate question for StackOverflow... but since you likely don't have administrator access, you probably won't be able to install VirtualBox, VirtualPC, VMWare, etc on the system (thus you can't use them).

You could get a copy of QEmu for Windows (free and open source) and then run it and the virtual machine off the thumb drive. It won't be all that fast since it can't use the accelerator (no admin access), but it will be one of the few that will work in that situation, and would likely be the fastest.