KVM & Network Old & New PC

[Onoff]

I'd like to have an old Windows XP pc and and newer Windows 10 pc sharing the same mouse, keyboard and monitor via a KVM switch then "network" them together just to transfer files. 

 

As long as I don't go on the internet via the XP machine and the Windows 10 one has up to date anti virus etc, will this setup be "safe"?

 

Cheers

[dpmiller]

if you're not on an open network and both machines are already clean what's your concern?

 

/can you not just pull the HDD and slave it into the W10 box either directly or on USB?

[Onoff]

2 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

if you're not on an open network and both machines are already clean what's your concern?

 

/can you not just pull the HDD and slave it into the W10 box either directly or on USB?

 

I want to run the XP operating system on the old pc for some specific software.

[Vijay]

I think you can run XP as a virtual machine if that would work - https://www.google.co.uk/search?newwindow=1&sxsrf=ALeKk03pB9AZkDZmZs8n7x08AL0bBoSjMg%3A1587362944417&source=hp&ei=gDydXu65F6uIlwSbpoKIDQ&q=run+xp+on+windows+10&oq=run+xp&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoFCAAQgwFQxAdY_RNgpCtoAXAAeACAATiIAZ8CkgEBNpgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab

[Onoff]

28 minutes ago, Vijay said:

I think you can run XP as a virtual machine if that would work - https://www.google.co.uk/search?newwindow=1&sxsrf=ALeKk03pB9AZkDZmZs8n7x08AL0bBoSjMg%3A1587362944417&source=hp&ei=gDydXu65F6uIlwSbpoKIDQ&q=run+xp+on+windows+10&oq=run+xp&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoFCAAQgwFQxAdY_RNgpCtoAXAAeACAATiIAZ8CkgEBNpgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab

 

I've VMWare Workstation 15 Player installed. It takes too long to boot, runs too slow. Quite happy going the KVM route. Just ordered a couple of USB to PS2 adaptors.

[ProDave]

I used to have a folder in my old XP machine mapped as a shard folder for other computers.  On the remote computer you then use "map network drive" and that folder becomes visible to the file system usually as Z:

 

Now I just have a network accessible drive that any computer (windows or linux) can see and any files we want to share we just drop in there.

 

Why are people so paranoid about XP on the internet?  I had an old laptop (remember the one I could not get linux to work on) so I put a fresh install of XP back on that, I found the latest version of firefox still works on XP as does AVG anti virus. For email I found the latest Thunderbird did not work on XP so I found an older version that did.  I sold it on ebay set up like that.

[PeterW]

KVM doesn’t share data ports so it’s fine.  It’s a hardware switch so you’ll only ever be using one device at a time. Your risk comes when you choose to swap data between them using USB keys

[Onoff]

Just now, PeterW said:

KVM doesn’t share data ports so it’s fine.  It’s a hardware switch so you’ll only ever be using one device at a time. Your risk comes when you choose to swap data between them using USB keys

 

I was literally aiming to plug the XP machine into the router, same as the Win 20 machine so I could share data that way. Not sure on the risks of that. Only the Win 10 pc will have a used browser on it.

[dpmiller]

15 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I used to have a folder in my old XP machine mapped as a shard folder for other computers.  On the remote computer you then use "map network drive" and that folder becomes visible to the file system usually as Z:

 

Now I just have a network accessible drive that any computer (windows or linux) can see and any files we want to share we just drop in there.

 

Why are people so paranoid about XP on the internet?  I had an old laptop (remember the one I could not get linux to work on) so I put a fresh install of XP back on that, I found the latest version of firefox still works on XP as does AVG anti virus. For email I found the latest Thunderbird did not work on XP so I found an older version that did.  I sold it on ebay set up like that.

^wot Dave says.  If both machines are "clean" - and your router will have some kind of firewall too, yes?- what risk do you expect?

[Jeremy Harris]

I run something similar.  I have a perfectly good scanner that only works on an XP machine, as there are no drivers for any newer version of Windows, Linux etc.  My copy of AutoCad also only runs on XP (still works fine, though).  I've tried a couple of KVM switches without much luck.  The problem seems to be the way one of the machines responds to the HDMI being switched; when the monitor "disappears" the graphics processor reverts to some weird mode, and won't switch back to the correct resolution.  After hours spent faffing about, including a time when I used two monitors and only used a KVM switch to switch the mouse and keyboard over (a work around for the video resolution problem) I've ended up running the XP machine headless, and connecting to it using Tight VNC.  Not perfect, as the screen resolution isn't an exact match for the monitor, plus there's a very slight lag, but it works well enough, and is a lot more reliable than using a KVM switch.  All I have running on the XP machine is a handful of programs, no internet browser,  no email application, so it should be pretty safe.

[Onoff]

7 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

The problem seems to be the way one of the machines responds to the HDMI being switched

 

No HDMI here. VGA on both machines.

[ProDave]

HDMI is a real pain for computers. 

 

I tried connecting the laptop to the tv to use it for iplayer.  What a palava. It would only work if you slected the tv as the only display, it would not work if you tried to display on the tv and the laptops own screen due to different resolution displays,  the picture on the tv over scans slightly and I cannot find any settings on the tv to adjust that.  And finally on the laptop you have to separately switch the audio output to the hdmi. Why it can't just do that automatically when it detects an hdmi display beats me.

 

It was just far too clumsy to do more than once.

[Onoff]

My old XP pc has a a mouse and keyboard with the old, round PS2 style connectors (green and purple ports).

 

The pc also has USB ports. 2 on board and 4 on an expansion card.

 

I tried unplugging the PS2 ones then plugging a USB keyboard and USB mouse into USB/PS2 adapters and plugging these into the green & purple PS2 ports. It just booted up with a keyboard error. 

 

Then tried plugging the mouse and keyboard into the original, onboard USB ports. Nope.

 

Then tried plugging the mouse and keyboard into the USB expansion card ports. Nope.

 

Then one device in an onboard USB port and the other in a card USB port. Yep! ?

 

I'll try the KVM switch next.

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

16 minutes ago, Onoff said:

My old XP pc has a a mouse and keyboard with the old, round PS2 style connectors (green and purple ports).

 

The pc also has USB ports. 2 on board and 4 on an expansion card.

 

I tried unplugging the PS2 ones then plugging a USB keyboard and USB mouse into USB/PS2 adapters and plugging these into the green & purple PS2 ports. It just booted up with a keyboard error. 

 

Then tried plugging the mouse and keyboard into the original, onboard USB ports. Nope.

 

Then tried plugging the mouse and keyboard into the USB expansion card ports. Nope.

 

Then one device in an onboard USB port and the other in a card USB port. Yep! ?

 

I'll try the KVM switch next

 

 

My memory might be a bit hazy, but I remember having a similar boot problem with a PS2 keyboard PC, that I wanted to run without a mouse, keyboard or monitor.  IIRC, the fix was to change a setting in the BIOS, to stop it doing the keyboard check on boot.

[ProDave]

I had another USB issue that if you put the PC to sleep, it would wake up if you just pressed a key or wiggled the mouse.  There was another setting to stop it waking up on USB activity or something.

 

@Jeremy Harris  trying to get a pc to run without a keyboard reminds me of the old "No keyboard detected, press F1 to continue" error message.

[ahdinko]

XP is insecure, unless it is totally isolated from the network, the likely issue is something you get on your Windows 10 machines may not be able to execute properly, but if it can copy itself from there over to the XP machine where it can execute using an unpatched vulnerability and then spread from there.

Edited May 4, 2020 by ahdinko

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, ahdinko said:

XP is insecure, unless it is totally isolated from the network, the likely issue is something you get on your Windows 10 machines may not be able to execute properly, but if it can copy itself from there over to the XP machine where it can execute using an unpatched vulnerability and then spread from there.

 

 

Potentially insecure would be a more accurate description.  If run on a wired LAN, with no internet browser or email programme, then the risk is miniscule, especially if, as most have, the router has a reasonably good firewall.   In my case the XP machine gets booted up when I want to use the scanner,  then gets shut down again, so the risk is vanishingly small, and significantly lower than some other  users of XP I suspect (like Waitrose - all their self-service checkouts still seem to be running embedded XP - I spotted one that had crashed a few weeks ago).

[ahdinko]

They sound like pretty good risk mitigations. Just make sure you aren't downgrading security elsewhere to make stuff work with the XP machine (such as turning on SMBv1 on your newer machines to make the file sharing backwards compatible with XP)!

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, ahdinko said:

They sound like pretty good risk mitigations. Just make sure you aren't downgrading security elsewhere to make stuff work with the XP machine (such as turning on SMBv1 on your newer machines to make the file sharing backwards compatible with XP)!

 

All scanned files get dumped on a small Linux file server that's on 24/7, really so we can securely access files, photos, music etc from any device on the LAN.  That's locked down pretty tightly, with only my TeslaCam and TeslaMusic directories set as public (has to be, as the Tesla will only talk to public directories on the LAN for dash cam, sentry cam and music file sync).