Hello Rickles
How are you my friend? Good to see you again.
Yeah Virtual Box is definitely the way that I would go.
If you need some assistance setting it up, please let me know.
I have loaded virtual box onto a Windows 8.1 system before.
Setup went pretty smooth, and it ran flawlessly.
If you are running Win 8.1 Pro then please wait before you
attempt to install virtual box. If this is the case then
post here and let us know.
The reason being, Win 8.1 Pro has virtualization software built right into the O.S.
It's called Hyper-V and it's by Microsoft. It's actually a really good piece of software.
So in this case you would have to shut down Hyper-V in order to use Virtual Box.
Or you could just use Hyper-V since it's already there.
One last thing, if you don't still have an XP disc lying around, I'm pretty
sure Microsoft is offering a download of the "Windows 7 run in XP mode"
for free. You could load that into your virtual environment and it
would work for what you need it for.
In order do this follow these steps:
- Download WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe from Microsoft. You'll need to run the validation tool to prove your copy of Windows is valid.
- Then use 7-Zip or another archive tool to open the EXE file as an archive.
- Within that archive, find the "sources/xpm" file within it, and extract that folder to your hard drive.
- Finally, in the extracted xpm file, you'll find a file called VirtualXPVHD. Rename it with a VHD extension.
- Now, in VirtualBox, open the VirtualXPVHD virtual machine, and there you go.
You've got Windows XP Mode (running Windows XP Professional)
in Windows 8, no need for the XP license.
Let us know if you need further assistance.
Thank you Mr. Rickles and have a great day.
SGC 
Edited by SupeR GeekiN CognitO, 29 September 2014 - 03:57 AM.