Windows 7 demo: Windows XP Mode

September 28, 2009, 9:07am PDT | Length: 00:02:16

Is an incompatible program or device standing between you and a Windows 7 upgrade? If you’re willing to pay for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition, you might be able to use a clever solution to fool that old code into running in the new OS. Windows XP Mode lets you run Windows XP applications in a virtual machine right on the Windows 7 desktop. ZDNet's Ed Bott provides a close-up look at how XP Mode works.

Transcript

Windows 7 demo: Windows XP Mode

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>> Ed Bott: I'm Ed Bott from ZDNet, and in this video I'll show you an interesting new way to force old, incompatible devices and programs to run in Windows 7. This feature is called Windows XP mode, and it's only available as part of the professional, enterprise and ultimate editions of Windows 7. It includes a complete copy of Windows XP, fully licensed and ready to run. This virtual machine has its own virtual memory, virtual hard disk, virtual DVD, and a virtual network connection. You can run Windows XP mode in its own window, where you can install software just as you would on a physical PC. In this virtual machine, I've installed Office 2003. The most interesting part of Windows XP mode is the ability to run programs from the virtual machine right on your Windows 7 desktop. You can tell from the bright blue window borders that this copy of Excel is different from other Windows 7 programs. In fact, this is the only way you can run two different versions of Office side by side on a single PC. You can connect USB devices to your virtual machine as well. If you have an old device like a scanner that isn't supported by Windows 7, this option lets you keep using it. After you attach the scanner to your virtual Windows XP machine, you can use the capture software and save the file to your Windows 7 data folders. Windows XP mode isn't aimed at novices. When you install a program and try to run it in Windows XP mode, you might see an error message if you forget to shut down the virtual machine first. Likewise, you'll see an error message if you try to start the virtual machine without shutting down your Windows XP mode programs first. So what's the point of Windows XP mode? You shouldn't expect to use it as a replacement for Windows 7. It's a temporary measure to let you use a program or a device that would otherwise not run at all. For more on Windows 7, go to my blog at blogs.zdnet.com/bott. For ZDNet, I'm Ed Bott.

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xp mode

i have been running the win 7 RC

I downloaded the win xp mode from the mircosoft site. When trying to run the mode it said my computer did not have hardware acceleration and could not use xp mode.

My computer has a 775 socket 3.0 GHZ processor
2 gig of memory and the bus speed is 553MHZ.

more then fast enough to run xp mode and run windows 7.

yet it would not run on my computer.
it may not work on other computers with hardware acceleration built into their computers also.

As much as I would like to go to windows 7 I will either stick with XP or switch to Linux
gas5812@...
29th Sep 2009
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XP mode in Windows 7

I have also been running Windows 7 since the RC was made available.

But, I had to get a newer computer to be able to run Windows XP under Windows 7.

Yes, I had a fast computer - a Pentium 4 at 3.4GHZ with 4GB of RAM. But the Pentium 4 was missing one important thing: Virtualization Technology.

In order to run Windows XP (or XP mode) inside Windows 7, one must have a processor with virtualization activated.

You might want to check for additional information about your processor/CPU on the Intel or the AMD site.
gemini190647
30th Sep 2009
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RE: Windows 7 demo: Windows XP Mode

What are the limitations? Or will this really run everything I run on my XP machine?

Two specifics I haven't been able to find info on:

1. Synching my legacy Palm device by USB connection, a snap in XP, is impossible in Vista. Will it work in 7/XP mode?

2. I also run some DOS legacy programs in a window on XP, but it's impossible to do so in Vista. Will XP mode allow to open a DOS-functional command window?
andyklein@...
29th Sep 2009
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Dos Apps

My ex likes to play old dos games. He uses a program called dos box under Vista. It's a free download, I think. You may want to try that for your old dos apps.
Muttz
30th Sep 2009
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RE: Windows 7 demo: Windows XP Mode

Would like to know: if you have 64 bit Windows 7 will it run XP in 32 bit?
amaref
29th Sep 2009
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XP Mode little more than a bullet on a feature sheet

Windows 7's "XP Mode" is little more than a bullet on a feature sheet. In other words, it's designed to get people to buy into Windows 7 (AKA Vist WOW!, Part II). Issues with XP Mode include: (1) Will your apps run at all? Will they glitch?, and (2) You will likely not get the performance and responsiveness you are used to, since everything running in XP Mode runs on a *single* core only.

So XP Mode is more accurately named "Might work in limp-along mode", but that would be a marketing blunder, wouldn't it?
SteveMak
30th Sep 2009
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Well, actually...

...WinXP can run pretty snappily on a VM. The big limitation is that Win7 XPM supports only 16 MB VRAM, which hoses many "graphic-intensive applications" (a.k.a. "games").

The kicker (something Microsoft REALLY doesn't want you to think about) is that you don't have to buy into Win7 at all. You can run XP on a Mac, or on any PC under Linux, using sofware like VMware or Virtualbox. You can assign up to 4 cores with VMware, so there's no "limping along". No glitches, because it's not an emulation: it's the actual WinXP OS. And those games that XPM can't run will probably be happy with 128 MB VRAM and 3D-accelerated video.

Best of all, you can avoid exposure of the WinXP installation to email and the internet, so your malware worries vanish. No more interminable scans, no annual Symantax, no MacAffekxzxpfft. A stable system can remain stable indefinitely, and by saving a "snapshot" you can resurrect it at any time. If you simply *must* have Win7, well, you can run that as well. (And it will probably run XPM!)
jpdemers@...
29th Apr 2010
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Only those versions of Windows 7

I just bought a laptop with Home Premium. I have XP mode in my OS. Maybe the reality isn't what they are saying at Microsoft
Rick_S1
29th Apr 2010
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RE: Windows 7 demo: Windows XP Mode

I was initially intriqued by Vista which came with a new Toshiba laptop purchase last year. Consistent with the overall public opinion though, Vista essentially appealed to me as an attempt by MS to dismantle some of it's best Windows features into smaller pieces and then present them as somehow new and better. I never did fully embrace the mess that replaced Display.cpl which, though not perfect, had most everything display oriented in one place. I got the impression after discovering that Active Desktop was gone that, once again, MS's definition of improved is basically an operating system with bigger icons than the last one, plus SLOW. So, big icons and slower have been the standard since 95 (still their best system). So MS sent me a security patch thru WU that I thought I had turned off and after the ensuing registry corruption, and being caught away from home base without my usual STUFF, my only alternative was to put on a Windows 7 RC I had on disk. It wouldn't do a upgrade without the desktop and the partitioner in the RC didn't work so I had to do a custom install over the existing and rely on Windows to store my old data in a Windows.old folder.
That was hideous mistake finale'. Ooops. Where's the Windows.old folder with all my stuff. I knew I should have learned how to restore a backup registry.

Anyway, I only lost about years worth of stuff but I had an opportunity to check out Windows 7. True to reports, it did run faster and smoother than Vista all the way up to the point at which the RC evaluation period expired. At that point, as I understood it, the RC was supposed to restart the machine every 2 hours as a reminder to go out and spend real money for a retail copy.
Maybe MS thinks a blue screen is the same thing a restart, I don't know, but that's what I kept getting so I was, in fact, seriously motivated to run out and buy something. It just wasn't Windows 7. So I went out and bought XP Pro again. See it again for the first time. It screams. I could have run it on a virtualized Windows 7 but since 7 was just a reworked Vista, and Vista had a registry that was around 8 times the size of XP's, I just couldn't help but think that running a different OS virtualized on top of a reworked version of a bloated dying cow might prove trickier than just running XP outright. I'm back to happy and will remain so until MS figures out a way to send me another security patch with built-in OS vaporizers. BTW, I've since noticed that turning off Windows Update doesn't turn off Windows Update in XP. While it does stop the installation process, the machine still goes online for the updates even with the feature disabled. I found that kind of unsettling. Check the windowsupdate.log for proof. Why would it need to go online if it's supposed to be disabled. Maybe it likes to keep the OS vaporizers local just in case you accidentally enable Windows Update when MS is short on cash.

Anyway, I'll use XP until it becomes obsolete by not being able to run new and improved MS applications. At that point, I'll probably buy an Apple.
timothyfryer@...
29th Apr 2010
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