Windows XP hasn’t been supported by Microsoft for a decade now, but it’s in use in many places. According to the most recent figures from Statcounter, the ancient OS still holds 0.27 percent of the Windows market, placing it above Windows 8/8.1.
There is even a Linux version of XP that you can run if you want a hit of nostalgia, but don’t want to risk using an unsupported OS. You’ve no doubt seen Doom running on all sorts of hardware, and XP is similar in some respects. We’ve already seen it running on Apple’s Vision Pro, and now it appears that with a bit of creative thinking it’s possible to run Windows XP on an Apple TV.
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In truth, it won’t run on every Apple TV. In fact, you will need the original version for it to work, as this model shipped with an Intel Pentium M processor and 256 MB of RAM, which is powerful enough to handle the OS.
Nobel Tech documented the process in a video, which you can watch below. It was achieved thanks to DistroHopper39B who managed to port Windows XP to the original Apple TV using ReactOS, because, as the video notes, Apple TV doesn’t have a Legacy BIOS module built-in.
The original Apple TV for this video was supplied to Nobel Tech by the Australian Computer Museum Society (ACMS). As you can see, Windows XP ran exactly as expected, with everything working except for graphics acceleration.
