RSSTop 10 Windows 7 Features #3: XP Mode
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 26, 2009, 7:02 PM
In some ways, Steve Ballmer is proving to be a more capable Microsoft CEO than Bill Gates, especially recently. Whereas Gates' strategies have typically been associated with playing unfair, rewriting the rules, and being blatantly defiant about it in the process, Ballmer's strategy of taking away the argument -- eliminating the appearance of advantage and then still winning -- has been more effective, and more difficult to combat in both the marketplace and the courtroom.
Nowhere does the "Playing Too Fair" strategy make a bigger display of itself in Microsoft's favor than in its latest permutation of virtualization technology -- a move that many individuals (myself included) directly suggested the company should do, and the company then did. Since 2004, Microsoft has offered a no-cost way for users to run Windows XP in a kind of hosted envelope, one which users were delighted to discover worked fairly well in Windows Vista. But it didn't offer any real advantages -- to use a program that relied on XP, you had to work within that envelope, using networking tools to associate two machines running on the same CPU.
Meanwhile, business users were being offered an ingenious little tool (ingenious enough for some folks to infer automatically it wasn't Microsoft that created it) that extended the virtualization envelope to the main, physical desktop. SoftGrid let users run an application on a computer as though it were installed on that computer, without it actually being there -- it could be on a virtual machine, or on a virtual or physical system someplace else in the network. Users would not have to be informed of the difference.
This is where I said, "You should build that feature into the client OS, so that if a program required XP, it would still run without the error." And Microsoft's folks responded, "Yea, that's a good idea." And where I thought it was filed away with all the other "good ideas" we've had over the years.
But this one has come to fruition. It's not a completely integrated way of running XP alongside Win7, but if you think about it, perhaps it shouldn't be. Years ago prior to Vista, Microsoft's own staff members disputed with one another whether PowerShell should be part of the system. Its initial compromise -- distributing it as a free download, but not as part of the Vista package -- enabled spokespersons to continue saying PowerShell wasn't really a part of Vista. By that same logic, XP Mode is not a part of Windows 7. But there's no dispute going on among spokespersons today; XP Mode is being described as "a feature of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise." That may mean it's downloadable separately for free, although the company is saying that it may come pre-installed by OEMs on new PCs.
XP Mode, at first glance, looks like a slightly enhanced version of Virtual PC 2007 hosting an XP VM, dressed in the hue that Microsoft's Mark Russinovich has lovingly dubbed "Teletubbies Blue." Lurking beneath the surface here, however, is a vastly enhanced version of what VPC called "Virtual Machine Additions." With "Integration Features," there's a new, if limited, channel of communication between the Win7 host and the XP guest. One of the topics of discussion between these two parties is the changes that are made to XP's copy of the System Registry.
Those changes are often made on account of programs being installed, so the new Windows Virtual PC hypervisor monitors for those changes and takes notes. It does this so it can add whatever programs you installed in the XP environment, in the Win7 start menu as well, along with the necessary commands to trigger running those programs through the VM.
There's no instructions in the Windows 7 Release Candidate as yet for how to do this integration (documentation is often the last feature to be added to any software) but for once, that's not a big problem. It's very conceivable that any novice user can be instructed in this process, because at long last, Microsoft has avoided the usual tack of "wizardizing" its tasks in multiple-step, tunnel-like processes that draw out the simplest of functions into nightmarish, elongated marathon sessions. Instead, the company decided that a simple and direct, if not obvious, approach was warranted, and here it is: To install an XP program into your Windows 7 Start Menu, install it in the XP virtual machine first, and then exit the XP VM. Wait about 20 seconds.
During that time, Windows Virtual PC processes all those notes it was taking, and creates duplicate entries for newly installed XP apps in a subfolder of the Windows Virtual PC menu entry, called Virtual Windows XP Applications. You can move the entries here elsewhere or pin them to the Start Menu just like any other.
For our tests, we wanted to experiment with a program that technically should be capable of running in Vista, but just isn't. FrontPage 2003 is an orphaned component of Microsoft Office 2003 whose principal function appeared to be to mangle the World-Wide Web into a miasma of metacode with the objective of only being executable using Internet Explorer 4.0. There's only one reason why anyone would want to use it today, and it's a very legitimate reason: to rescue projects that businesses launched using FrontPage, thinking they would one day become profitable, so that their assets may be usable by more sensible applications.
FrontPage's dislike of Vista has been demonstrated on numerous occasions; although Microsoft tried to address them with Service Packs, they were never successful. In unrelated tests years ago on my systems here, Office 2003 Service Pack 3 worked fine for every application except FP 2003. So it is amazing to see the program actually running, and in working order, within Windows 7 as if nothing had happened.
Next: What does one do with XP-in-a-box?
I agree with databaseben.........you sound like an atheist on yahoo Q&A &R&S .....rude and angry!
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|atheist == rude and angry? I can what the &R&S means and your comment still does not make any sense.
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|I am running x64 Windows 7 and using Cisco VPN client under XP mode. I'm a happy man!
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|@pctroll
and a moron that can't shut up:
http://www.microsoft.com...-4b77-be26-173f032f5159
Score: -1
|*laughing*
DbBen: XPM doesn't virtualize hardware!
PC_Tool: It was never meant to. That's not what VM's do. Do oyu even know what a VM is?
DbBen: Waah! Shut up! You're a moron!
Yeah...I think I get the gist of it.
Keep digging that hole you seem to enjoy dwelling in so much. (or, even better, get a clue and attempt to actually be rational once in a while?)
Oh, and thanks for the link to XPM, but...I already have it installed. Perhaps you should actually install Win7 and try it out. Or I suppose you *could* just continue running your mouth off about products and functionality you obviously know nothing about.
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|@pctroll
pctools, "BTW: XPM is *not* for consumers"
consider youself priviledge to install the wpm beta on your w7beta but deny it to "consumers".
seems to me that your firm advice contradicts what microsoft states. but maybe the advice doesn't apply to trolls.
with all your "laughing" how can you collect your tolls?
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|1. The average consumer is *not* a beta tester.
2. They need *all* of their products tested, even their enterprise products.
3. The ability to end-run the intended use of the product is irrelevant to the intended use of the product. Example: I can take a Audi TT mudding, that doesn't mean the TT is intended for mudding....does it? Of course not. Don't you love car analogies? I know I do.
Just because consumers who purchase these editions can use them, does not mean they are the intended target audience.
Now, try not to have an aneurysm while trying to wrap what gray-matter you do have around that explanation. I know it's likely beyond you, but well worth the try if you are successful.
*LAUGHING* (Though I am sure you'd prefer "LOL"...much more your speed, eh?)
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|im disapointed in Xp Mode. i was expecting a function where you could toggle or directly install an app into a hidden virtual XP kernal and the program fully integrated with W7 like a normal app. XP Mode is just a downloaded VM with a free XP serial key and didnt integrate any better than i'd do it myself without any mention of XP Mode. not needing an XP key is very nice and is the only selling point i really see in a business environment and even that could be offset with a few hardware VMs running on a remote server for users to RDP into for legacy software. this is a better method overall but not nearly as cool as i thought it was going to be.
i was hoping for an extended XP compatibility mode that separated the program into a virtualized XP kernal and didnt require loading up a full-fledged VM. also, requiring hardware CPU support is definitely a minus as almost all of our PCs are P4 and will be for the next few years. there's no reason to mass deploy anything better for office applications and web browsing under Windows XP...then again we wont be going W7 until we deploy new hardware anyway so that is sort of a moot point lol.
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|"our PCs are P4 and will be for the next few years. there's no reason to mass deploy anything better for office applications and web browsing under Windows XP...then again we wont be going W7 until we deploy new hardware anyway so that is sort of a moot point lol."
Now if only everyone here had that kind of reasonable logic. ;)
If you've got the hardware, great! If not...don't even give it a second thought. Pretty simple in our eyes, but it seems to be an insurmountable feat of reason and logic for many here who would prefer to, instead of just using what works, make up a bunch of absurd "issues" and "problems" with Win7 when they've never even used the thing.
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|*Only Pro SKU and above=FAIL
*Processor virtualization requirement=FAIL
*Ignoring Virtual PC development while going full steam ahead only with Hyper-V and enterprise virtualization=FAIL
*Other benefits of Virtual PC such as USB support, locking VPC to Windows 7=HUGE FAIL
*No official way around ridiculous Terminal Server licensing/simultaneous use of VM and RAILed (Remote app installed locally) app=FAIL
*No graphics hardware acceleration in VPC=FAIL
*Separate security protection and management required=FAIL
*No registry/file associations sync=FAIL
*No use of client side rendering in RDP7=FAIL
*Resizing requires re-entering credentials=FAIL.
What gets some users excited is a free copy of XP, but who doesn't have a copy of XP 8 years after its release? I WANT MY VIRTUAL PC 7 FOR VISTA AND XP!
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|Dude...relax.
Virtual PC 2007 is free to anyone.
System Requirements
* Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition ; Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
An x64-based or an x86-based computer with a 400 MHz or faster (1 GHz recommended) processor with L2 cache
Processor: AMD Athlon/Duron, Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium II, Intel Pentium III, Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core Duo, and Intel Core2 Duo
RAM: Add the RAM requirement for the host operating system that you will be using to the requirement for the guest operating system that you will be using. If you will be using multiple guest operating systems simultaneously, total the requirements for all the guest operating systems that you need to run simultaneously.
Available disk space: To determine the hard disk space required, add the requirement for each guest operating system that will be installed.
Virtual PC 2007 runs on: Windows Vista™ Business; Windows Vista™ Enterprise; Windows Vista™ Ultimate; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition; or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
But Virtualbox is still better, as is VMware.
XMP is enterprise-only in it's intent. The rest of us can still use traditional VMs.
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|Say Sumone Not sure but, you sound like one of those EPIC FAIL atheists. Pretty Angry there Dude.
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|Actually I like the feature I don't use it much but I have several apps that like to load virtual x32 drivers and the company that made the software has no plans to make an x64 bit version of the app or drivers. Before this nice feature the best way I found to get things to work was by creating a multi-boot system. Now thats no longer nessisary. At least with XP VM I'm able to run the programs with absolutly no problems.
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|talking about putting the carraige before the horse,
win7 is described in the below as if it were already on the store shelves.
at 445megs and who knows if a product key is required, the Windows XP Mode Beta can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com...-4b77-be26-173f032f5159
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|I do have to chime in here especially after trying this XP Mode out. Yes, the marketing and coverage of this new feature has been rather misleading.
MS and others would have you believe you can run a true stand alone XP inside Vista, er Win7, and have it be 100% 1:1. No emulation lag and as if you actually had XP installed on your machine as the sole OS. This is completely untrue.
XP mode is in fact the, not rather cleverly disguised, Virtual PC program. It does not do anything new that makes it run like a truly separate installed OS. For that to be true, it would find all your current hardware, install drivers and operate much like a PC with XP installed. It doesn't.
It still installs in to a "phantom" PC. With the hardware being all software emulated. It won't "see" your $500 GTX295 card but instead the standard Virtual PC "S3 Virge" video card or whatever POS it is. Same for the rest of the hardware. So you are NOT going to be able to run any modern applications that make use of robust 2D/3D functions.
Again this is counter to what has been implied. "..companies can run their software in XP mode if they prefer that environment and enjoy completely transparent operation..." How so? So if I want to fire up Adobe CS4 under XP Mode it will be transparent? Hell no! It's going to run like a pig.
Regardless of my interpretation of the marketing being done or my own opinions on this; one fact stands. I have MANY friends messaging me about how they are willing to give Win7 a try because they can, "run XP on it anyway", in case they don't like Win7. People are being mislead.
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|"It does not do anything new that makes it run like a truly separate installed OS."
...
It's not supposed to be separate. Not even *close*. You utterly fail to comprehend the intent...
It *integrates* into the Host OS to allow for backwards application compatibility between the host and guest OS. The programs installed on the Guest are shown in the Host's Start-Menu, as are their context-menu counterparts. This is the point and purpose. Streamlined, non-counter-intuitive backwards compatibility for the enterprise. That is it.
"..companies can run their software in XP mode if they prefer that environment and enjoy completely transparent operation..."
You are mislead solely because you have failed to understand the intent of the software. The "transparent operation" refers to the ability of XPM to place it's installed programs and their functionality in the Win7 programs menu and context menus.
You may *want* it to provide a separate installation of XP, but you are succumbing to the tried and true entitlement trend of seeing and hearing only what you *want*.
"I have MANY friends messaging me about how they are willing to give Win7 a try because they can, "run XP on it anyway", in case they don't like Win7."
Your friends are idiots. Get new friends.
FYI: Adobe CS4 works just fine in Win7 without having to use any compatibility modes. (tested myself on 4400+ x2 64-bit w/ 2GB RAM and 512MB ATi 2900HD)
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|@ pixelsmack - 05/27 2:32
the reason to virtualize xp is for the benefit of the consumer by way of utilizing expensive third party softwares without purchasing vista / w7 upgrades.
what i have seen is that hardware drivers for xp that are simply incompatiable with vista cannot be virtualized.
so at best a windows consumer can save money by virtualizing their expensive third party software but would have to spend some money to buy vista/w7 compatiable peripherials like printers and scanners - which is less expensive.
i think that most business's will leave well enough alone and continue to use the highly proficient xp o.s., their invested third party software and hardware.
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|@ PC_Tool
I did not try or say that I was trying to run CS4 under any compatibility mode. I know it runs fine under Win7. What I was saying is if a user wanted to run CS4 under *XP mode* it would be slow as hell.
As for the rest of highly insulting reply, I hope you get anus cancer and die.
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|"What I was saying is if a user wanted to run CS4 under *XP mode* it would be slow as hell."
Why on Earth would be the point of *that*?
FYI:I insulted your friends not you. I didn't call you a moron, I claimed you'd been mislead. One would think if I was trying to insult you I could have done a bit better of a job.
But thanks for the death-wish. You can really tell something about the kind of people you're dealing with when an anonymous comment from the internet starts making them wish people dead. Yeah...you've got it together.
*laughing*
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|@ PC_Tool
""What I was saying is if a user wanted to run CS4 under *XP mode* it would be slow as hell.""
Because for the very reasons you pointed out. Many people are not understanding/mislead as to exactly WHAT this XP Mode is.
People think that they can just fire up XP under Win7 and have it be 100% XP-day-to-day-all-is-well.
And my harsh reply was meant in gest. [as most internet postn' humor is]
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|"Because for the very reasons you pointed out. Many people are not understanding/mislead as to exactly WHAT this XP Mode is."
Where are these "people" you refer to? Because I can say in all honesty, I know *no-one* who thinks of a VM as a snap-in for a bare-metal installation.
Hell, it's not even being *marketed* to the consumer. The only people who know about it now are the folks using the RC and the techs reading tech-blogs. These people know the difference. They've used VMs before. They know the limitations.
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|there is no ingenuity involved here. just more marketing tricks.
its nothing more than virtual pc - REPACKAGED to be dedicated to winxp with a few added features not in the standard vpc. none of which forces hardware drivers that are exclusive to winxp to be compatiable and piped through the vista hardware system.
however, there are questions that beg to be asked:
like why would anyone want to upgrade to vista, only to then turn around and install virtual xp or on a seperate drive for dual booting?
and like why not keep it simple and avoid the bloated disk, degredation in cpu to ram performance by simply keeping the computer either dedicated to winxp or to vista?
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|I was under the impression that you were talking about XP Mode in Win7 and then you started mentioning Vista. Are you so clueless that you are unaware that XP Mode is (at least currently) only in Win7? Or are you being a jerk (ala a real %^&*(%) and a troll and trying to imply that Win7 is really Vista?
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|"its nothing more than virtual pc"
"with ... added features not in the standard vpc."
So....it's nothing more than Virtual PC....but it *is* more than Virtual PC? How cute.
"none of which forces hardware drivers that are exclusive to winxp to be compatiable(sic) and piped through the vista hardware system."
This is for application compatibility...not hardware compatibility. You do know what a VM is, don't you?
"like why would anyone want to upgrade to vista, "
Vista? XPM is part of Win7...not Vista. Do you even have the slightest idea what you are talking about here?
"and like why not keep it simple and avoid the bloated disk, degredation(sic) in cpu to ram performance by simply keeping the computer either dedicated to winxp or to vista?"
Because that would be *totally* pointless in offering the enterprise customers a solution to allow them to use their current software while taking advantage of the new/improved management capabilities of Win7/WS2K8?
Clueless, thy name is DatabaseBen.
Sorry your hardware vendor didn't see fit to make drivers for Vista/Win7. We get it it. It sucks. Now please stop posting about hardware incompatibility (which very few if any of the rest of us seem to be experiencing any longer) in threads that are *completely* unrelated. You obviously have no idea what XPM is intended to be used for, what a VM is, and apparently don't even know what OS you are talking about.
Get over it already. Stick with XP./..upgrade your fraking printer...whatever. Just stop pretending you know *anything* about *anything* regarding Win7. You don't. We all know it. You've proven it with every post you've made in every Win7 topic you've posted in.
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|@morriscoqx
yes, win7 is nothing more than a tuned up version of vista. that is why it may be considered a "free" upgrade to vista users.
secondly, i run xp in virtual pc in vista and ran w7 in virtual pc in vista as well.
vista ~ win7, tomatoes ~ tomahtoes.
the bottomline is that anyone who is going to invest money by upgrading to w7, may as well invest more money into buying their favorite software ready for w7 and their hardware that is compatiable with w7 because that is the nature of the game.
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|@pctroll
just shut up.
your derogatory comments are indicative of your poor character.
Score: 1
|*laughing*
Ooh...he thinks I am a troll....
Better than being an imbecile. :)
BTW: XPM is *not* for consumers. It is for businesses (hence it being available on enterprise, professional, and ultimate editions only) If you actually had a clue, you'd know that. :)
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|Kinda useless to all but the laziest of sysadmins. If you haven't tooled your apps for vista/7 yet, then what motivation will this be to get you going? You still must test, but you also must train.
Might as well just suck it up and migrate to 7, pay the MS tax, move on.
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|"If you haven't tooled your apps for vista/7 yet, then what motivation will this be to get you going?"
It's not, and that's totally not the point,
The point is to allow them *more* time, not push them to get it done *faster*.
"You still must test, but you also must train. "
Train what? You access the programs the same way you always have. Heck, you can even drag XPM porgram shortcuts to the desktop and include installed XPM program functionality in the Win7 right-click context menus (tested with WinRAR). For all intents and purposes for the user, the experience is fluid. It is exactly like using any other program installed on the system.
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|FTFA: "Here is where we encountered some problems: With Windows Virtual PC, printers are supposed to be shared by means of a virtual USB connection, accessible from a menu bar command in the hypervisor -- something the user doesn't see if she's running a seamless app. So while printing from the virtual XP worked fine through the hypervisor window, it did not work from a seamless app window because the seamless XP guest does not include the hypervisor menu."
Train. Test. Do you see where I'm going with this? You will still need to test all your apps, programs, etc with the Hypervisor. You might as well just do this testing/tweaking on Vista/7. The reason corps haven't moved to Vista isn't because they can't get apps working, it is because they have working apps that have 8+ years worth of tweaking to get work and that investment is tossed with a new OS.
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|Althrough XP Mode sounds like a good idea, I have to wonder.
When the XBox 360 came out, it had to emulate XBox Classic games, rather then actually run them directly... Fair enough, the console had changed quite a bit... but the problem was and still is that the emulation is far from perfect. Many games do not run correctly, if at all.
I definately do not want my Windows XP and Windows Vista programs and games to become a thing of the past. As I said, XP mode sounds good... but we won't really know just how good until Windows 7 goes gold.
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|Wrong.
Run XP in *any* Virtual Machine and you can find out *now* what works and what doesn't.
The XP VM in Win7 is just that...a VM.
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|So we are running everything in a Virtual Machine, yes? I can do that on Ubuntu and not have the extra garbage called windows 7, Replacement for Vista ME.
When are you going to learn.
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|When are you going to learn what you are talking about?
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|Thanks for the hearty laugh.
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|..
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|Too bad Win7 is such a slow OS. I mean really on the same machine Win7 is a slug compared to WinXP and that's just with the OS loaded. I certainly am not going to buy a new computer just to run this at a decent speed.
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|Slow? Please post specs on your machine. It's been quite peppy for me.
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|Amusing as this is, it's not only *old*, but been dis-proven *many* times.
You are either trolling, or have hardware issues. I am running it on a single-core 1.6Ghz CPU with 1GB of RAM and an ancient 200M Mobility chipset and it runs just fine...with Aero enabled.
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|There must be something wrong with your machine then, or you've done something wrong; it is blazing fast on mine and that's even with all visual effects enabled. I'm running the 64 bit RC on a Athlon dual core 4400+, and dual nVIDIA 7900 GTX cards in sli mode. Everything works seamlessly, the nVIDIA pre-release drivers installed flawlessly and believe it or not it's snappier than XP. I've tried a couple different versions of Linux and it's been nothing but a nightmare trying to get video drivers to work to realize full accelerated graphics performance.
This is shaping up to be an excellent effort by Microsoft. I'm sold on it already.
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|Wow, that first paragraph sounds like it was dictated by Monkeyboy himself, as he readies an autobiography. As much as I did not like the Gates strategies, no one could make an assault on his intelligence, and the ability to be a guiding force. With Ballmer, no such cogent arguments are possible.
As I said, I wonder if Ballmer did not dictate that first paragraph himself.
As to the XP mode of Windows 7, it is a teddy bear for those too timid to stand up and say that Windows XP was just fine thank you - we'll continue using what works without crutches or bandaids.
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|This my first coment in long while. I'm going ditch XP and get Win 7 when it comes out. Great thing I skip Vista. My system win 7 with aero runs awesome. I'm on Single Core P4 2.66 with 1.5 gigs of ram with 865PCD 8x agp motherboard with Visiontek ATI HD 26000 Pro 512meg DD2.And also I have PCI XFI Champ with I/O drive bay. I have no issue with windows 7 it runs great so far right now I'm doing dual boot with xp and windows 7. I'm plan try linux once I buy windows 7 :) and get rid of xp on my other partion drive. I like how windows 7 does better job on sound properties.
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|