Revealing Windows XP Mode for Windows 7

[rge]

I just hope it works better than microsoft virtual pc, etc. I have windows 7 64 bit, and spent 3 days finally getting CiV II Gold edition to work. One of the many things I tried was microsoft virtual pc and one other virtualization method but cant remember at moment other one I tried. Both sucked horribly. Game played slow, really ugly crappy graphics, just was not the same.

Finally found a Civ II gold edition that was recoded by users to work on windows vista 64 bit via bit torrent. Only time I have ever downloaded and used something over torrent.

If windows 7 has the ability to run windows XP in virtual without horrendous graphics and unbelievably slow game play (and civ II is far from todays games requirements) that would be awesome, but after trying 2 virtualization of XP on 7 and both sucking horribly, I will believe it when I see it...though would be awesome if it worked well.

[Mungri]

Where can I find what the difference will be between Professional and Ultimate version?

[Biker]

Awesome news!

Suddenly migrating to W7 looks a whole lot more attractive

[RPGWiZaRD]

This is a really good addon from microsoft, totally support this move. Will be interesting exactly how much the performance hit is though.

[Shintai]

Have you actually read the article? Unlike MED-V it includes the xp licence, and it is desinged to be used by people who do not have accaes to MED-V. Oh and btw my first news post, so hello!

Yes, I ahve read it and MS only have 1 thing like this. And its called MED-V. or virtual PC...also its common you can install one guest for free on a virtualized host. only enterprise server and datacenter server differs from this with 4 and unlimited guests.

Everyone have access to MED-V. MED-V is the new MS Virtual PC.

MED-V for desktop, Hyper-V for servers.

XPM is built on the next generation Microsoft Virtual PC 7 product line, which requires processor-based virtualization support (Intel and AMD) to be present and enabled on the underlying PC, much like Hyper-V, Microsoft's server-side virtualization platform. However, XPM is not Hyper-V for the client. It is instead a host-based virtualization solution like Virtual PC; the hardware assistance requirement suggests this will be the logical conclusion of this product line from a technological standpoint. That is, we fully expect future client versions of Windows to include a Hyper-V-based hypervisor.

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. Instead, as you install applications inside the virtual XP environment, they are published to the host (Windows 7) OS as well. (With shortcuts placed in the Start Menu.) That way, users can run Windows XP-based applications (like IE 6) alongside Windows 7 applications under a single desktop.

Funny thats exactly the MED-V description

[Eastcoasthandle]

Looks like win7 RC will be available to the public on May 5
source

[zsamz_]

Looks like win7 RC will be available to the public on May 5
source

i already have it i'll test it soon

[Eastcoasthandle]

OT:
I wonder how many people are not using Win7 as their main OS as a result of PunkBuster not supporting it?

[Shintai]

OT:
I wonder how many people are not using Win7 as their main OS as a result of PunkBuster not supporting it?

0.001%? And 99% due to betastage.

[boredtodeath]

I was really excited about virtual stuff late last year until I researched it and found out that to run xp or vista in a virtual environment you need a host os to run it from. The host os has to be compatible with all your hardware that your going to use in the virtual os in order to use that hardware in the virtual os atleast thats what I've learned from researching vm crap. I was thinking of using linux as the host os and run a vm of xp so I don't have to own xp to use it but I don't think it works that way exactly and linux doesn't support some of my hardware or if it does the support is not so great and nobody is really interested in updating that support because they are too busy making yet another linux kernel.

If vista is the host os and vista does not support direct access to hardware then how will creative labs stuff work right in an xp vm? what about hardware acceleration of any kind? This is why I hate vista because m$ disabled some stuff to put in place some sneaky things that hollywood and the mafiaa wanted and no doubt paid for but seeing this news makes me think those payments from the mafiaa aren't enough to cover what m$ said they didn't earn this year lol. They remembered that the PEOPLE that use their software are the market that matters not some crook with a big check.

Really all m$ has to do is turn on hardware acceleration and stop playing around with hollywood and the problems will be solved.

[Bodkin]

OT:
I wonder how many people are not using Win7 as their main OS as a result of PunkBuster not supporting it?

Me, plus some bad news...

http://community.winsupersite.com/bl...t-so-much.aspx

I've gotten a lot of questions about whether XP Mode will be suitable for gaming.

Put simply, no, it will not be suitable for gaming.

First, this technology is aimed at businesses, not consumers. It's licensed only for Windows 7 Pro, Enterprise, and Ultimate. What Microsoft is trying to accomplish here is to remove the final deployment blockers for its most recent version of Windows. Those are compatibility related. Many businesses run older applications or, more important, custom apps that they built on older Windows versions.

[Shintai]

XPM/MED-V/Hyper-V for gaming should be pretty obvious that its a no go. Or advanced audio etc.

[Helmore]

If vista is the host os and vista does not support direct access to hardware then how will creative labs stuff work right in an xp vm? what about hardware acceleration of any kind? This is why I hate vista because m$ disabled some stuff to put in place some sneaky things that hollywood and the mafiaa wanted and no doubt paid for but seeing this news makes me think those payments from the mafiaa aren't enough to cover what m$ said they didn't earn this year lol. They remembered that the PEOPLE that use their software are the market that matters not some crook with a big check.

Really all m$ has to do is turn on hardware acceleration and stop playing around with hollywood and the problems will be solved.

I'm not sure where you got that from? My Auzentech X-Fi Forte (Creative Labs X-Fi chip) does hardware acceleration of my games music in Windows 7 and in Windows Vista. They got rid of hardware acceleration through the DirectSound layer to more closely mimic the way they do sound on the X-Box 360 (part of the reason, there is more to it), but you can still have hardware acceleration of your audio through the OpenAL API.
Long story short, you're talking nonsense here.

[duploxxx]

VirtualBox now supports OpenGL 3D hardware acceleration in 32-bit WinXP VMs. Direct3D support is being added in a future release. I haven't tested the feature, but it may be worth investigating.

vmware workstation 6.5 does that also

Support for DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 3D graphics

but didn't try that out yet how good it is.

[zanzabar]

Where can I find what the difference will be between Professional and Ultimate version?

pro is equivalent to vista biz and ulti is ulti, so u get media center on top of pro. and pro will be the one to get since ulti is a limited edition product now

[Bodkin]

XPM/MED-V/Hyper-V for gaming should be pretty obvious that its a no go. Or advanced audio etc.

Whats the problem with hyper-v, could a driver allowing 3d graphics not be written? I kinda thought that was the point of hyper-v, expandibility...

[Shintai]

Whats the problem with hyper-v, could a driver allowing 3d graphics not be written? I kinda thought that was the point of hyper-v, expandibility...

Its not about what it can do as such. Its about the performance of it. Plus I dont think any GPU could support it yet in full performance. Maybe in 5-10 years in the future we can do it fluent. Right now virtualization focus is on "server" related things. And graphics aint one since servers contains a RageXL or G200 GPU

[Cooper]

Its not about what it can do as such. Its about the performance of it. Plus I dont think any GPU could support it yet in full performance. Maybe in 5-10 years in the future we can do it fluent. Right now virtualization focus is on "server" related things. And graphics aint one since servers contains a RageXL or G200 GPU

Wrong
http://www.nvidia.com/object/sli_multi_os.html

[Helmore]

pro is equivalent to vista biz and ulti is ulti, so u get media center on top of pro. and pro will be the one to get since ulti is a limited edition product now

Not completely. With Windows 7 each version will be a superset of the other. In other words, all features available in Home Premium will also be available in Professional, which does include media center for example. Just check here for a reasonably complete rundown:
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

[Bodkin]

Wrong
http://www.nvidia.com/object/sli_multi_os.html

Oh, burn :P

[Shintai]

Wrong
http://www.nvidia.com/object/sli_multi_os.html

Look again. Plus its quadro cards.

SLI Multi-OS works in association with Parallels Workstation Extreme virtualization software and Intel’s VT-d technology, assigning both the host and guest virtual machine its own dedicated GPU

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1238408514209.html

Thats not really virtualization when you have to dedicate HW for it that the host cant use. Its another messy hotfix solution from nVidia.

[Mungri]

OT:
I wonder how many people are not using Win7 as their main OS as a result of PunkBuster not supporting it?

Im not using it because its still a Beta?

I enrolled in the Vista beta program, and had two beta CD's sent to me.

Both were incompatible with my graphics card / motherboard and wouldnt work in more than 16 colours !!!

I am aware that Windows 7 is already a lot better then Vista was at launch, but I would prefer not to bug test another OS. Vista is stable and running wonderfully for me, except of course for the old games

Thoigh I will admit I regret buying Vista now, because it was hardly any benefit over XP except for looking nicer. I bought it just for DX10, and have hardly played enough DX10 games to justify the spend.

[ColonelCain]

OT:
I wonder how many people are not using Win7 as their main OS as a result of PunkBuster not supporting it?

I only learned this AFTER I installed Win7, when I tried playing BF2. Even with the latest, up to date PB, it will kick you after 10seconds, claiming some kernal error.

PB is a fat, lazy turd. While the concept of not having cheating is appealing, PB has made it comparable to DRM, considering you have 2 PB services running on your PC all the time.

[Bodkin]

I only learned this AFTER I installed Win7, when I tried playing BF2. Even with the latest, up to date PB, it will kick you after 10seconds, claiming some kernal error.

PB is a fat, lazy turd. While the concept of not having cheating is appealing, PB has made it comparable to DRM, considering you have 2 PB services running on your PC all the time.

Could not agree more, PB is a great idea, but theire exacution is very unproffesional, espacaly the updater, finding it alone is beyond most people.

[RaZz!]

XPM/MED-V/Hyper-V for gaming should be pretty obvious that its a no go. Or advanced audio etc.

why is it obvious? other virtualization environments are able to handle it as well. i mean, it's not that i would expect e.g. crysis with dx9c + sm3 to run decent in a vm, it's more like older games which don't care if the cpu is a quadcore with 3,2ghz or a singlecore with 1,5ghz, or if the gpu has 15000 3dmarks in 3dmark06 or 1000...

on the other hand, a friend of mine is playing age of empires 3 on his macbook pro with parallels. and it runs great.
it's about time ms does smth similar.