Canon RebelXT and Windows 8 Quick Tutorial

So, I was wanting to hook up my Canon RebelXT to my Win8 Laptop and use it to take pictures.
I also wanted to do this as a concept for when the Win8 Pro Tablets hit the shelves.

I am currently looking for better software for use with my camera connected to the PC.
Even if it is run from a VM in XP. That doesn't bother me, the camera is old and
I fully doubt there will be updated drivers for Win8 unless there is a huge stink brought on by consumers.

I tried Hyper-V, but this was a pain in the arse and a bunch of hoops to get USB working and wasn't it would
I highly recommend saving the hassle and time using VMWare.

Anyway, this does work, and took about 20 min to set up.

You will need the following software

- Canon EOS Install Disk
- VMWare Player (Latest Version)
- Windows XP SP3

Then make sure the camera itself is set for PC Connection

Install VMWare Player
then create a new VM and install WinXP SP3
Make sure to say yes to installing the VMWare Tools

I setup the Virtual Machine Settings for the following..

USB Controller
--- USB Compatibiliy 2.0 (I don't have USB 3 hubs or devices)
--- Check all the boxes

Options
-- Shared Folders
--- Always Enabled
--- Map as a network drive is checked
---- I mapped to a drive on a seperate partition D:\
When it loads int he VM, it loads as Z:

Then start the VM, and copy all your Canon installs to Shared Folder location for easy access
Install and update Canon software

If your EOS CD is ver. 11 or earlier, you will have to install the ZoomBrowser EX from the CD,
Which will install - CameraWindow DSLR
as this is the only way to update and use the EOS Utility (this provides the ability to take pictures from the PC)

Then update ZoomBrowser and the latest version you can find of the EOS Utility (currently 2.12.3)
from Canon Website

If your CD-ROM is version (Ver.) 12 or later, it should have a version of EOS Utility on it
install from there and then update from the Canon Website as needed.

I then set the Canon Software Preferences to Auto Save pictures to the Z:\Shared Folder\Pictures and the Memory Card
You will also probably need to set the EOS Utility to be the first app that starts when the camera is detected
This is in the preferneces also. I just everything everywhere I could find the all the canon software to save to the same location with the same settings. It was the only way I could get it all to work.

That's it. You may need to turn the camera off and back on a couple of times to get the
EOS Utility to recognize the Camera. I fully believe this is an issue with the software not picking up the device
over USB, maybe it has to do with running in a VM, but I am not sure about that,
it is as if the software, when opened from the icon, makes zero effort to even check for the presence of the camera.

Good Luck, hope this helps someone else.