Windows XP Mode

You may have heard some of the buzz about the availability of "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7. This is in fact just the new Virtual PC software, the upgrade from Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. One important thing to note is that this newly named Windows Virtual PC requires processor-based virtualization support (Intel and AMD) to be present and enabled on the underlying PC. The availability of this depends both on the CPU as well on the availability in the computers BIOS.

Windows 7 XP Mode consists of the Virtual PC software and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP (Service Pack 3). 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.

The difference with the current version of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (Windows Virtual PC is still in beta) is that you can install applications to the drive(s) available on your Windows 7 machine and the applications appear in a sub menu on the Windows 7 Start menu (Figure). Starting an application starts the virtual machine in the background, but you will just see the application itself, as if it was running natively on Windows 7.

Some people seem to think that this is the answer to Microsoft's woes in respect to the bad rap that Windows Vista received because of compatibility problems. I don't think this will help all that much. According to Microsoft, Windows Virtual PC will only be made (freely) available for the Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. Most home users will be getting Windows 7 Home Premium. So far it isn't clear if Windows Virtual PC will be able to be installed on Windows 7 Home Premium or not. If not, this would impact a large number of users who might otherwise have benefitted from it.

Windows 7 RC Performance

Windows 7's performance has noticeably improved with the RC release. On the same hardware Windows 7 outperforms Vista by a nice margin. The whole, system just feels more responsive, starting and shutting down Windows is faster, applications launch with less of a delay. My laptop resumed from sleep faster too.

Microsoft also made a change to the size of the paging file (swap file). Previously Microsoft would allocate 1.3 times the installed memory for the paging file. With the RC this has been changed to 1.0 times installed memory.

How to Get Windows 7 RC

Microsoft has promised to make the Release Candidate of Windows 7 available for download at least through July, without limiting the number of downloads nor product keys, so you got plenty of time to download the RC.

Now, some things you should realize:

• You should not upgrade your current "production" machine. By "production" machine I mean the computer you do all your 'work' on. When the final version of Windows 7 will become available, it will require a clean install from the beta (or RC).
• You should take the time to read the Installation Instructions, Release Notes and Things to Know
• Remember the Beta and RC expiration dates. As I noted, you'll need to rebuild your machine (clean install) using a valid version of Windows before the software expires. Windows will notify you that the expiration process is beginning and two weeks later your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. The Beta expires on August 1, 2009, and bi-hourly shutdowns will begin July 1, 2009. The RC will expire June 1, 2010, and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010. In both cases, you'll need to rebuild your PC to replace the OS and reinstall all your programs and data.

Windows Virtual PC Download

A separate beta, the Windows Virtual PC is available for download from Microsoft's Web site.

Microsoft also made instructions available how to configure your computers BIOS so that you can run the Virtual PC software. It has also made available some software utilities that will let you test your Intel or AMD CPU to see if they support hardware virtualization. See this page for more details.

Questions?

Post your questions/comments on our WindowsBBS Windows 7 forum.

  More of the included desktop backgrounds:

Previous Page