Purchased this Mac can it run Windows XP?

You shouldn't be running Windows XP. Microsoft has ceased supporting it.

Besides, it wouldn't. It would only run 7 and above.

 

Not supported. Windows 7 or above. Suggest you try virtualisation.

Last MacBook Pros that support Windows XP via Boot Camp are the Mid-2010.

 

Why is it terrible? The reason that you have an old XP product key that you can't run doesn't count. At the time that Mac was new, way back in 2012 .... XP was eleven years old and was three years out of mainstream support. I don't see you complaining that the Mac won't run OS X 10.1 Puma, which launched the same year.

XP might install from media, but you'll struggle to find Apple specific drivers. Restore the Winclone backup and I'd expect Blue Screens.

You want to run XP, do it virtually.

P.S. You'll also find Windows 7 SP1 is out of mainstream support now.

 

Restore Winclone to Parallels (or VMware or VirtualBox etc)? Probably not. Last time I used it Winclone required direct access to the disk so you won't be able to restore it back to a virtual disk easily. Even if you get around that you are back into STOP 7B Bluescreen territory as it can't find the expected nVidia SATA controller.

If you still have the older Mac available then you could import the XP installation via Parallels Transporter, or the equivalent tool in your chosen Virtualisation software. That would sort the entire process out for you.

As for websites - XP is limited to IE8 and that's full of unpatched security holes now. Many sites insist on IE10 or higher now, a prime example being the Google sites.

 

No, you can't.

And Windows 7 won't run well either if your Mac has a retina display, because Windows 7 lacks high DPI display support.

Your only option is Windows 8.1.

There is no such thing as a site that only runs on XP.

 

Except that his Mac doesn't have a Retina display (double check the first post). Windows 7 would be fine in this instance, but 8.1 would be better because it is currently being supported and runs quite well on "classic" MacBook Pros.

 

Not to mention that performance on Windows 8.1 is better compared to 7. Besides, 7 no longer receives mainstream support from Microsoft.

 

Still, saying that it'll only run in XP is complete BS.

Are you sure that it won't run on IE in Windows 8.1?

 

Those who advise running XP in a virtual machine are spot-on. I personally prefer VMWare Fusion, but Parallels has its advocates too. Meanwhile VirtualBox is free (www.virtualbox.org) and works very well too.

But do reconsider using XP at all. I do, on occasion, to support customers who are still stupidly using that platform. "Stupidly" because it was never the most secure OS and is growing rapidly less so now that Microsoft has ceased supporting and updating it.

The challenge for you is to get your old Boot Camp instance into your preferred virtualization engine. Several folks here have pointed the way for that. It will take some effort and time.

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Not sure where he said that something will run only in XP...

In any case, Microsoft doesn't support XP anymore, so why should Apple? ...It's time to upgrade. Win8.1 is not bad, and the imminent Win10 is really quite impressive.

 

He edited the post that I quoted.