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We have an old Powder X-Ray Diffractometer that was built way back when, which operates using a software called "XRD Commander". This program only runs on Windows 2000 and we are still months away from finally receiving a new machine from Bruker.

There is no warranty anymore and also not a whole lot of money to go around to call a technician. It is heavily used daily and runs from a PC that is on its last legs that we are not allowed to shut off in case it will never boot again.

This morning it started restarting on its own multiple times and thankfully stabilized itself again. I fear, however, that these types of issues will start to quickly become more frequent before the thing breaks entirely.

Right now we are just praying that it will last until the new machine arrives, but I am not confident that it will last that long. Another issue is that sometimes we do over night measurements on it that last up to 16 hours. So if it is not stable for that whole time, a very lengthy measurement has to be restarted from where it stopped during the day, cutting out valuable measurement time from other users.

I wanted to know if it is possible to emulate windows 2000 on a modern PC (We have a bunch of DELL Optiplex machines), install the software there and then set up a connection from it to our NAS server so all the measurements are backed up.

Can it be done or should I keep praying?

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  • Have you tried running Windows 98 within a VM? Have you tried running the software, using the Windows 98 comparability mode, within a 32-bit version of Windows 7 VM without a network adapter? Any solution I have requires you to duplicate the disk and work with an image of the disk.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 5 at 9:32
  • Modern processors are not capable of running Windows 98 as a host, modern processors, lost their native ability to run 16-bit operating systems when the 64-bit x86 extension was integrated into all Intel and AMD processors. Your best bet is a VM.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 5 at 9:38
  • Use Disk2VHD to create a virtual image, which you can host in VirtualBox.
    – spikey_richie
    Commented Jul 5 at 9:45
  • @spikey_richie - It will be impossible to run Disk2VHD on Windows 98.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 5 at 17:57

1 Answer 1

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There are step-by-step directions for setting up Windows 98 in a VirtualBox virtual machine (VM).

Get the VM running on almost any modern PC, which should be easy.

Then set up connections from within the VM to the outside world, which might take some trial and effort. Does the powder X-Ray diffractometer use a serial port (e.g, DB-9 connector), parallel port (e.g., DB-25 connector) or some proprietary connection? You might need to buy or to create a USB-to-diffractometer adapter. This might be the most difficult part.

When you're confident the new PC host and VM are working, the moment of truth has arrived: unplug the existing machine from the diffractometer, plug in (though any adapter) the one hosting the VM, and test. You can leave the old machine running, though disconnected, if you choose.

A great advantage of this procedure is that you can copy that VM to other machines, so if one fails, you can immediately switch over to another. The VM does not need to be mounted all the time, so machines serving other purposes can be used as host only when needed.

X-Ray Diffraction

May your pattern be clear.

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