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In a previous tip titled Virtual Bliss, I extolled the virtues of virtualization as a means of enabling you to test buggy prerelease (beta) software in a safe environment without the need of dedicating to use or possibly corrupting any of your production machines. But virtualization is more than just a tool for testing software -- you can actually run production software right within the guest operating system running in a virtual machine on a box with Virtual Server or Virtual PC installed. Why would you want to do that? To keep your legacy apps running properly!
As each new version of Microsoft Windows arrives, old apps designed for earlier versions of the operating system get even older -- and often less likely to run properly in the newest version of Windows. Sure, you can try using the Program Compatibility Wizard in Windows XP's Help and Support, or you can try configuring the Compatibility tab manually on the properties page for your program's executable. Or if you're adventurous, you can download Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) and use it to diagnose possible compatibility issues and create shims to correct them.
Or you can just install Virtual PC on the desktop computer of every user who still needs to use that old app, create a virtual machine, install an old guest OS that the app still runs fine on, and install the app within the guest OS. Then when the users need to run that legacy app, they fire up Virtual PC, start the VM, launch the app, and presto -- the app runs just fine.
Of course, you could also try upgrading to a newer version of the app. But what if the vendor doesn't have a newer version yet? Or the vendor no longer supports the app or is no longer around, but the app is still critical for your business processes? Or your company developed the app in-house years ago and no one wants to touch the code? You'd be surprised (though you probably aren't) at how many old apps like this are still running on corporate networks, and still need to be running for the company's business processes to function properly.
So it looks like the truth of the matter nowadays is that old apps never die, they just get virtualized!
One more thing -- Windows Vista Enterprise will include Virtual PC Express, so if you still have lots of desktop legacy apps that are critical to your business operations then this feature could help tilt your business toward considering early adoption of the new platform when it becomes available near the end of this year. Not only that, if you're currently a Software Assurance (SA) customer then you already have access to an early release version of Virtual PC Express that you can use on your current XP desktops to start mitigating your app compatibility problems.
