VM inside VM or XP on extarnal HDD?

Mixzzz · October 29, 2017

Why?

I need to run a BMW specific diagnostic software called DIS. It's not a program but rather an OS so it needs its own VM. The problem is that I don't have the BMW specific device to install it on so obviously I'm going to install it on my laptop. The problem is that it needs INPA(it's drivers and shit) to communicate with the OBD II reader itself. The setup has always been flaky on XP, windows 7 was worse and I'm not going to even try it on win 10 + I don't want INPA installed directly to my system as it is rather a messy installation(folders all over the C: drive, modified registry...).

The perfect combination would be if I could run it off directly win xp rather than win xp VM.

Q:

1. Can I run Win XP off of an external HDD? How do I install it on the HDD if I can?

2. If not, can I run VM inside a VM?

Crunchy Dragon · October 29, 2017

You could try running a VM inside a VM, I don't see any reason other than hardware limitations for it to not work.

Lord Nicoll · October 29, 2017

Yeah you can virtualise inside of a VM, there will be a much larger overhead but since this is more of an embedded OS it's not gonna hurt. VM's inside of VMs are normal