Back to the future: Windows 7 and its Windows XP Mode

David M Williams
Saturday, 25 April 2009 18:29

Business IT - Technology

This virtual Windows XP will be called Windows XP Mode, or XPM. It will genuinely be an instance of the Windows XP operating system but running within Windows 7.

Microsoft make this happen by using virtualisation technologies. Specifically, processor-based virtualisation support must be present on the underlying computer. So, do note there is a hardware requirement here – your CPU must offer native virtualisation support on its bare silicon.

While the lack of software based virtualisation means this feature won’t be accessible to the bulk of home users until they upgrade their hardware it does ensure that performance won’t be degraded by an additional software layer.

XPM will be part of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions. It will not be part of the Starter or Basic editions (or any other edition below the Professional version.)

Every license of these Windows 7 releases will include a license for Windows XP with service pack 3. That product won’t ship in the retail box and won’t be included on the Windows 7 installation media. It can be downloaded from Microsoft’s web site, presumably in conjunction with Windows Genuine Advantage to validate that a legitimate, licensed and activated copy of Windows 7 is being used.

If you have experience with Microsoft’s Virtual PC, VMWare’s range of products, Sun’s VirtualBox or any other virtualisation software you’ll be familiar with the concept of running a computer within a computer.

Yet, XPM will be different. You don’t actually fire up a Windows XP computer in another window, and load programs from there. Instead your Windows XP apps will run in their own windows alongside your Windows 7 apps. It’ll be Windows XP under the hood running some windows, and Windows 7 running others.

XPM will maintain just the one set of shortcuts, whether on your Start menu or Desktop. So, whether you install an app under XPM or Windows 7 you will kick it off from the same set of locations.

Virtualisation is clearly an important part of Windows 7. Microsoft have already spoken at length about how Windows 7 will let you create virtual hard drives (.vhd files) through the operating system, and then boot from these. This will make running multiple operating systems much simpler. There won’t be any need to worry about disk partitioning; just create virtual hard drives and boot from these, loading on whatever OS you want. With this latest news, you don’t even need to do that to run Windows XP programs.

Windows 7 is shaping up to be an impressive release with a remarkable and even innovative feature set. I’m sure Microsoft will be pulling out all the guns to make certain Windows 7 turns the tide of perception back around. Now they can definitely lure the Windows XP stayers with a promise of complete compatibility.