Revealing Windows XP Mode for Windows 7

[Bodkin]

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.

http://community.winsupersite.com/bl...windows-7.aspx

Game changing? End of windows compatibility woes...

[Mungri]

Awesome news, so no more need to dual boot.

Alpha Centauri will work on Windows 7's XP Mode right? And all other old games that are Vista incompatible?

I admit, I have reinstalled XP three times just to play Alpha Centauri

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Awesome news, so no more need to dual boot.

Alpha Centauri will work on Windows 7's XP Mode right? And all other old games that are Vista incompatible?

I admit, I have reinstalled XP three times just to play Alpha Centauri

I miss that game! Sid Meier was the man!

This is awesome news!

[Mungri]

I miss that game! Sid Meier was the man!

This is awesome news!

http://www.game.co.uk/PC/Strategy/Tu...pha%20centauri

http://www.game.co.uk/PC/Strategy/~r...commended=GAME

http://www.game.co.uk/PC/Action/Adve...tes/?s=pirates


SMAC + SMAX, Civ III Complete, and Pirates, all for £9.99 =D

Sorry for the offtopic, but I cant live without Sid Meier games and SMAC is pretty much the only reason I still dual boot onto XP, and also for old Dos games via Dosbox.

*Crosses fingers that all the old dos games will work in Windows 7 too*

[Bodkin]

the first thing i thought of when i saw this was retro games

Cant wait to play through little big adventure again without dosbox/dualboot.

[RaZz!]

this sounds nice!

however, the most important question is: will the vm feature hardware accelerated 3d graphics? seeing that unreal tournament doesn't even start on win7 64bit this would be awesome and i'd migrate to win7 immediately after the release. - but if 3d hardware support isn't included i'll have a hard time and most likely stay with xp :/

btw: the screenshot reminds me of published citrix apps in seamless mode

[Gogeta]

this sounds nice!

however, the most important question is: will the vm feature hardware accelerated 3d graphics? seeing that unreal tournament doesn't even start on win7 64bit this would be awesome and i'd migrate to win7 immediately after the release. - but if 3d hardware support isn't included i'll have a hard time and most likely stay with xp :/

btw: the screenshot reminds me of published citrix apps in seamless mode

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.

[Mad1723]

Awesome idea, this'll probably bring the improvements faster for the next generations of OS since compatibility won't be an issue anymore. It's a bit sad for those who purchase Home Premium and under though, but still is very good news!

[cky2k6]

i was about to give a meh, until i actually read the article (helps, doesn't it...). single desktop vm is totally awesome. its like a compatiblity mode that actually works, lol.

[Katanai]

If games do work I don't expect them to run fast or the system to be anywhere near stable. It's hard enough to keep XP or Vista from crashing, I just can't imagine the amounts of bluescreens you get when they run at once.





This could work though. In Win7 SP3 that is.

[One_Hertz]

Will that have proper working IPX like XP?

[zanzabar]

If games do work I don't expect them to run fast or the system to be anywhere near stable. It's hard enough to keep XP or Vista from crashing, I just can't imagine the amounts of bluescreens you get when they run at once.





This could work though. In Win7 SP3 that is.

Awesome news, so no more need to dual boot.

Alpha Centauri will work on Windows 7's XP Mode right? And all other old games that are Vista incompatible?

I admit, I have reinstalled XP three times just to play Alpha Centauri

win7 has a huge amount of hyperV in it and the ability to mount and boot from a VHD file, so for games if its broken in win7 then u boot from the virtual XP VHD and it works fine by using a boot loader driver in the hyper visor to emulate a a hard drive just like a ram drive bios would. it works in the beta but u have to use power shell (rc should have a gui). so its just a free copy of xp to boot to just in case u need it instead of having to make your own vhd

[RaZz!]

If games do work I don't expect them to run fast or the system to be anywhere near stable. It's hard enough to keep XP or Vista from crashing, I just can't imagine the amounts of bluescreens you get when they run at once.





This could work though. In Win7 SP3 that is.

i'm playing older games in virtual pc 2007 on a regular basis why should there be problems with that? age of empires 2 for example runs like a charm on a winxp vm. even fullscreen is no problem at all.
since virtual pc 2007 only supports one vcpu per vm performance is always limited to one core of your cpu.

dunno about other virtualization programs though.

[SoulsCollective]

...SMAC is pretty much the only reason I still dual boot onto XP, and also for old Dos games via Dosbox.

Eh? DOSBox works fine on Vista, been using it since I first installed.

On topic, excellent news, and a very smart move from MS.

[rozzyroz]

awsome idea. ive been staying away from using my copy of vista because virtual box didnt have graphics acceleration.

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.

can't wait for some performance numbers...

[Zaskar]

If games do work I don't expect them to run fast or the system to be anywhere near stable. It's hard enough to keep XP or Vista from crashing, I just can't imagine the amounts of bluescreens you get when they run at once.





This could work though. In Win7 SP3 that is.

Ehh, what games out there that are incompatible with anything past XP that would even remotely stress a modern computer? It would be like running the dos based games in XP, the hardware has advanced so much it didn't matter.

[ColonelCain]

Hmm... I wonder if CAL and CUDA can be run through it?

Also, is it x64 XP, or x86?

[YukonTrooper]

How does a virtual OS affect performance? Say I wanted to switch to XP to play games that run better on XP, then switch back to 7 to crunch/word process/look at barnyard :banana::banana::banana::banana:.

[saaya]

thats a joke... they just killed off xp support so there will be more and more issues coming up id think, no propper drivers for new hardware, bugs, vulnerabilities...
so we are supposed to buy 7 to run xp then? pfff... try again ms

[BababooeyHTJ]

Does this mean that I can run 16-bit apps on Windows 7 x64 via this xp compatibility mode?

[zanzabar]

i think that its more for businesses with 16bit and old propitiatory apps, but that they would still benefit from 64bit and the new os for the other apps. and MS has exchange 14 coming out thats great atleast and office 14 with 64bit support for those 4GB word documents

its just like what virtual PC dose but people didnt want to pay for it, and it lets every1 demo boot from vhd, and thats nice.

[Shintai]

Ehm...this has nothing to do with Windows 7. And its not included with Windows 7. This is MED-V! And it works precisely the same way on Vista.

[Bodkin]

Ehm...this has nothing to do with Windows 7. And its not included with Windows 7. This is MED-V! And it works precisely the same way on Vista.

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!

[Hornet331]

you can do the same on VMware in unity mode.

thought its cool the get a free xp licence o already got a few myself.

[Helmore]

thats a joke... they just killed off xp support so there will be more and more issues coming up id think, no propper drivers for new hardware, bugs, vulnerabilities...
so we are supposed to buy 7 to run xp then? pfff... try again ms

They did not fully kill XP support, there will still be support for XP until somewhere in 2014-2015. BTW, you only get this feature with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (and Enterprise), in which it is an extra download. It won't come installed by default.