Revealing Windows XP Mode for Windows 7

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Giving credit where credit is due, it sure seems like Microsoft is going the extra mile to make sure people like Windows 7 by implementing features like XP Mode. No more complaining about how “XP was so much better,” now you just run in XP mode.

XP Mode consists of the Virtual PC-based virtual environment and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3). It will be made available, for free, to users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions via a download from the Microsoft web site. (That is, it will not be included in the box with Windows 7, but is considered an out-of-band update, like Windows Live Essentials.) XPM works much like today's Virtual PC products, but with one important exception: As with the enterprise-based MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization) product, XPM does not require you to run the virtual environment as a separate Windows desktop.
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So the question now is: How is this any different than Compatibility Mode?
 
I wonder if this XP mode is sandboxed to protect your Windows 7 installation.

I also wonder if XP mode will still use Windows 7's UAC to protect it further.
 
No thanks. I'll use Sun's VirtualBox instead. It has USB pass through so you can, um, actually use your USB devices (printer for example) inside of the VM and it can also use VirtualPCs disk images.

For free.
 
Azhar said:
I wonder if this XP mode is sandboxed to protect your Windows 7 installation.

I also wonder if XP mode will still use Windows 7's UAC to protect it further.
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From what I read, XP and 7 will interact with each other. No idea where the interaction begins or ends, though.
 
I love how people are counting it out before they even see how it truly functions.
 
Navilor said:
No thanks. I'll use Sun's VirtualBox instead. It has USB pass through so you can, um, actually use your USB devices (printer for example) inside of the VM and it can also use VirtualPCs disk images.

For free.
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Except you have to buy XP to use it in Sun's VirtualBox. So it's not really free.

BTW, where did you find that USB pass-through doesn't work in Win7's VXP? I'm not seeing any information on that.
 
Sabrewulf165 said:
And it certainly doesn't use the Luna theme :p
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Actually, if you look closely at the image they provided, they are using Luna to an extent. Looks like they aren't using Luna for the start-menu or taskbar, but only for open application window which is open in XP-mode. Which for Office, makes sense, since many of the long time Office users didn't like the new UI.

Luna was such an aweful UI though, why prolong it's much needed deaths outside of an existance within a VMs.
 
Mubata said:
Actually, if you look closely at the image they provided, they are using Luna to an extent. Looks like they aren't using Luna for the start-menu or taskbar, but only for open application window which is open in XP-mode. Which for Office, makes sense, since many of the long time Office users didn't like the new UI.

Luna was such an aweful UI though, why prolong it's much needed deaths outside of an existance within a VMs.
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I think he was replying to the guy above him who was explaining why VXP was different from Compatibility Mode. Compatibility mode doesn't have the Luna theme ;-)
 
:eek: Oops, I just caught that Ahzar, thanks for pointing that out though... I'm still needing the morning coffee it would appear.
 
This seems more like Microsoft Application Virtualization instead of Hybrid Virtualization. I have a feeling that the XP "OS" is really not an OS, but a packager. Hybrid VT is the process of installing a full OS under your VT App and interacting with that OS to install/run applications. Application VT simply emulates an OS just for the app install (which creates a package) and then fools the running application it's working on a different OS than what it really is. All application interaction with the OS is done within the package itself.

MS could have done some nifty hacks in Win7 to allow 3D apps to pass through the packager to the host OS, which would be nice.

This is the only feature so far that mildly compells me to move to Win7, if MS implemented it correctly. And it's great that they're tailoring this for Businesses instead of Home; home users need to simply "move on" and forget the abomination that was XP. Businesses, OTOH, need this type of solution especially for backwards compatibility with in-house created applications that work great on their existing 2000/XP PCs, but are ready to upgrade the outdated hardware. It's cheaper to spend $700 on a new PC with Win7 Business and set up a package. I've done this with Windows Vista for a few clients already with raving success, but I've needed to buy Application VT software to accomplish this. Now, MS will be giving it away for free.
 
Navilor said:
No thanks. I'll use Sun's VirtualBox instead. It has USB pass through so you can, um, actually use your USB devices (printer for example) inside of the VM and it can also use VirtualPCs disk images.

For free.
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this will be free and it is setup so you can run any application with out the need to have it in a window yes that's 2 os's one desktop it even publishes xp stuff to the start menu. this is far beyond just a simple VM
 
Build 7100. Is amazing. If retail is anything like this build IDK why anyone would still want to use XP.
 
For gGod's sake why? Just let XP go. I can't stand all the whiney bitches that won't let go of XP. They're cheap asses plain and simple. They don't want to pay for a new OS. Vista was OK, about the same as XP for me, Windows 7 is simply a far better product than XP/Vista ever could hope to be.
 
Lebowski said:
For gGod's sake why? Just let XP go. I can't stand all the whiney bitches that won't let go of XP. They're cheap asses plain and simple. They don't want to pay for a new OS. Vista was OK, about the same as XP for me, Windows 7 is simply a far better product than XP/Vista ever could hope to be.
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Better business migration.

VXP will not come installed on Win7. You have to do it yourself. So you don't have to have it.
 
Sounds like a great idea to me. I wonder if they will release this any time during the beta for people to look at it.
 
You mean a version that allows for un-signed drivers in 64-bit mode???
 
In a lot of respects, this is a "portable" XP for Windows 7, which virtualizes on an application-basis, and not the entire OS itself. Note in the screenshots that the application window is what you see, not an OS window as you'd find with using actual virtual machine software like VMWare or VirtualBox - I don't even mention VirtualPC anymore because it's effectively dead. With no VT-x support, and no updates for several years now, what we're seeing with XPM is totally different from VirtualPC.

It's more akin to Coherence mode in Parallels - to be honest it's more of what's already been stated: application virtualization based on a specific OS environment, but it doesn't require the entire OS environment to be created...
 
nicknations said:
I love how people are counting it out before they even see how it truly functions.
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^ Agreed.

Only the clueless anti-MS fanboys count a key component like this out before even reading more then a title. It's one of the most important virtualization changes in a desktop OS in years, and is not simply just some crappy sun VM install running over win7.
 
This is already proven to work(Med-V and App-V). It is simply a free implementation of something that you normally only get with Software Assurance. It is well beyond compatibility mode, it actually creates a thin VOS, wherein the application runs.


Neat thing is, you can make these virtual bubbles available for download to your users. How many apps out there wont work out of the box with Win 7 / IE8? Not a problem now, just run virtual IE6 and put a shortcut with a URL to the old app on the users desktop.

It actually eliminates our one big concern about moving to Windows7. Now we don't have to spend $100+ / PC just to make sure some of our legacy apps will run under Windows7 :D
 
Joe Average said:
In a lot of respects, this is a "portable" XP for Windows 7, which virtualizes on an application-basis, and not the entire OS itself. Note in the screenshots that the application window is what you see, not an OS window as you'd find with using actual virtual machine software like VMWare or VirtualBox - I don't even mention VirtualPC anymore because it's effectively dead. With no VT-x support, and no updates for several years now, what we're seeing with XPM is totally different from VirtualPC.

It's more akin to Coherence mode in Parallels - to be honest it's more of what's already been stated: application virtualization based on a specific OS environment, but it doesn't require the entire OS environment to be created...
Click to expand...

Actually if you look at the screenshots that the article links to you can see that you can load an entire desktop, or you can just run the programs.

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/xp_mode_pre_shots.asp

So it is similar to Parrallels in both ways that can just run the programs, or you can actually bring up an entire VM desktop.
 
give me a break... all this is is VirtualPC... and big woopdedo on the virtual desktop... Virtualbox has been able to do that for a long time. It is free and guess what? It supports OpenGL and some Direct3d. None of the others do that. I have ran OpenArena and Diablo 2 in XP on Virtualbox. Thanks, but no thanks.
 
Doctor X said:
give me a break... all this is is VirtualPC... and big woopdedo on the virtual desktop... Virtualbox has been able to do that for a long time. It is free and guess what? It supports OpenGL and some Direct3d. None of the others do that. I have ran OpenArena and Diablo 2 in XP on Virtualbox. Thanks, but no thanks.
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But this one comes with a FREE copy of XP to go along with it.
 
Doctor X said:
give me a break... all this is is VirtualPC... and big woopdedo on the virtual desktop... Virtualbox has been able to do that for a long time. It is free and guess what? It supports OpenGL and some Direct3d. None of the others do that. I have ran OpenArena and Diablo 2 in XP on Virtualbox. Thanks, but no thanks.
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Virtual Box has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to 3d support and performance. You can't say this is worthless untill you see how it performs. And you don't have to pirate or buy a copy of XP to do it, which is a big plus for some.
 
Well, for one thing there is a major issue with VPN client software for x64. SecureClient is really pissing me off on this one...

Lebowski said:
For gGod's sake why? Just let XP go. I can't stand all the whiney bitches that won't let go of XP. They're cheap asses plain and simple. They don't want to pay for a new OS. Vista was OK, about the same as XP for me, Windows 7 is simply a far better product than XP/Vista ever could hope to be.
Click to expand...
 
Lebowski said:
For gGod's sake why? Just let XP go. I can't stand all the whiney bitches that won't let go of XP. They're cheap asses plain and simple. They don't want to pay for a new OS. Vista was OK, about the same as XP for me, Windows 7 is simply a far better product than XP/Vista ever could hope to be.
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Since I can't seem to edit my above post to include a reply to this..

There is no real reason unless you're running hardware over 3 years old, not to be on Vista / Vista64 from a usability perspective. Anything in the Core2 Era runs it fine, and it is much better in areas of security then WinXP can hope to be.

Business is an entirely different entity, which is also the core area where MS makes money. Business typically has older software, some even still on DOS level ERP systems, that simply won't run well at all on Vista. This is where the XP-lite solution in Pro / Enterprise Win7 comes into play, the side effect is it also can alleviate some software conflicts with older consumer software on a brand new OS.

As for buying a new OS, most people will if it is decently priced. I really hope that MS has some type of rebate for those that were on Vista Ultimate. As well, what MS also has to wake up to is multi-PC ownership, and licensing their software as such. Office home is a good example of this, and they should also have "OS Home" with 2-3 licenses as well. Make it reasonable, like OS cost + 30% each additional copy, and people will buy multiple legit installs instead of pirating Vista, or XP, or etc.
 
Doesn't this just add extra bloat to the os to begin with? I don't ever see myself using "xp mode." It's an obsolete os, get over it.
 
tacosareveryyummy said:
Doesn't this just add extra bloat to the os to begin with? I don't ever see myself using "xp mode." It's an obsolete os, get over it.
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That's why this "feature" is not included with Windows 7 by default and is a manual download and installation after the fact. Would do people well to read and learn more and understand this...

It does NOT come with Windows 7 by default, you have to go get it later on when Microsoft makes it available after Windows 7 is officially done and released.

It's not designed primarily for your average Joe (not me, I assure you) consumer; there are reasons this technology is being implemented and overwhelmingly those reasons are directed towards business and commercial clients that may have software that runs fine on XP-based platforms but not Vista or Windows 7.

Some businesses have a significant chunk of money invested in some types of software that provide for their very infrastructure and they are not about to just dump all of that and go full steam towards Windows 7 - a lot of that old "Designed for XP" or previous versions of Windows software will never be updated to run on Vista or Windows 7. That alone represents a very important reason why this XPM will be a major benefit to the adoption rate of businesses and commercial clients for Windows 7.

They can move forward while still maintaining the backwards compatibility they absolutely must have without needing to spend another penny on another OS or mixing their core technologies - XP is proven, and even now it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
 
It's always good to have some kind of backwards compatibility for applications or especially older games. And when it's a built-in feature, it's much easier and less hassle to use. I hope this is implemented well. Virtual machines can really be useful.
 
DarkStryke said:
Since I can't seem to edit my above post to include a reply to this..

There is no real reason unless you're running hardware over 3 years old, not to be on Vista / Vista64 from a usability perspective. Anything in the Core2 Era runs it fine, and it is much better in areas of security then WinXP can hope to be.

Business is an entirely different entity, which is also the core area where MS makes money. Business typically has older software, some even still on DOS level ERP systems, that simply won't run well at all on Vista. This is where the XP-lite solution in Pro / Enterprise Win7 comes into play, the side effect is it also can alleviate some software conflicts with older consumer software on a brand new OS.

As for buying a new OS, most people will if it is decently priced. I really hope that MS has some type of rebate for those that were on Vista Ultimate. As well, what MS also has to wake up to is multi-PC ownership, and licensing their software as such. Office home is a good example of this, and they should also have "OS Home" with 2-3 licenses as well. Make it reasonable, like OS cost + 30% each additional copy, and people will buy multiple legit installs instead of pirating Vista, or XP, or etc.
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If you are running mission critical apps on outdated and antiquated software hardware you deserve the eventual flogging you'll get when it craps the bed on you.
 
Lebowski said:
If you are running mission critical apps on outdated and antiquated software hardware you deserve the eventual flogging you'll get when it craps the bed on you.
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Seems you skipped a few posts after yours.

Businesses.

Let me emphasize it again.

Businesses.
 
What is with some of you people? If you are not going to use it then just friggin ignore it! :roll:

Personally, I am not sure if I'll ever need it, but running a virtual application is extremely appealing. I will certainly get Windows 7 Pro just for this.

There is a lot more information if you check out the links from the main article.

VPC first boots Windows XP. XPM then communicates with Windows XP and automatically (and silently) walks through the painful OOBE process, individualizing the virtual machine with details providing during install (e.g. username, computer name). Finally, XPM bootstraps the Windows XP install with various drivers and components necessary for XPM to work smoothly. For those familiar with VPC or VMware, this step is similar to installing the “integration components” or “tools” package included with the virtualization suite.

After all is said and done, you’ll be presented with a rather boring virtual machine view. It is here you’ll install your applications. Applications that install a shortcut to the All Users Start Menu will have their shortcut automatically published to the host machine within the Virtual Windows XP Applications folder (see above figure). For less well-behaved applications (or inbox applications like Internet Explorer 6), you can simply create a shortcut manually and it will (eventually) appear in the host Windows 7 environment.
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http://www.withinwindows.com/

Screenshots:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/xp_mode_pre_shots.asp
 
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