Windows 7 gets virtual 'XP mode'
Microsoft Corp. will unveil an add-on to Windows 7 that lets users run applications designed for Windows XP in a virtual machine, the company confirmed Friday -- the first time Microsoft has relied on virtualization to provide backward compatibility.
Dubbed "Windows XP Mode," the add-on creates an XP virtual environment running under Virtual PC, Microsoft's client virtualization technology, within Windows 7, said Scott Woodgate, the director of Windows enterprise and virtualization strategy.
In a post to a company blog, Woodgate said the add-on is part of the pitch to convince businesses to migrate to Windows 7. "All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode," said Woodgate. "The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7."
Details of Windows XP Mode (XPM) were first reported Friday afternoon by Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, two prominent bloggers who are also collaborating on a book, Windows 7 Secrets, due out this fall.
According to Rivera's Within Windows blog -- Thurrott published a nearly identical write-up on his SuperSite for Windows -- Windows XP Mode will be offered as a free download only to users running Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise, the three top-priced editions of the new OS.
Windows 7 Enterprise is available only to companies with volume licensing agreements.
Windows XP Mode (XPM) requires processor-based virtualization support and is based on the next-generation Microsoft Virtual PC 7 virtualization technology, said Rivera, who also disclosed that Microsoft will include a fully licensed copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) with the add-on. That, in effect, gives Windows 7 users a way to run older applications without having to pay for another operating system license.
Rivera also touted, as had Woodgate, the ability to run Windows XP applications directly from the Windows 7 desktop without having to first open a separate virtual machine window.
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Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
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Windows 7 XP mode add on
My problem is not that my applications are not compatible w/ Vista. It's that some of my apps don't support IE7. Haven't tried IE8 "compatibility" mode yet. I would have been on Vista 12 months ago if not for the IE issue. Vista's issues are highly inflated fodder for pontificating poops.steve c.
sclark@lexmark.com