Coming Soon: Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual P

Coming Soon: Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PCMicrosoft 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.?



Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7. Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC.

All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7.

Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC are best experienced on your new Windows 7 PC. We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate


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. 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.

source windowsteamblog.com/Computerworld