Windows 7 XP Mode

The primary reason that I installed Windows 7 RC on my desktop was to try out what is called XP Mode. I read some articles about XP Mode and it looked like it is just a virtual machine created with Virtual PC; however, some things sounded a lot better that my understanding about Virtual PC.

I immediately see about 3 problems running a Windows XP virtual machine on top of Windows 7. First of all, system requirement for running a vm. Some systems may have enough power to run, some may not, considering vms need their own security suites/antivirus/antispyware software. Second, XP license for virtual machine activation. Third, file/desktop sharing between host and guest system because this may be very confusing for non-technical users when there are 2 different desktops.

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Windows 7 RC First Impression

When Vista came out, I was one of the early adapters to migrate from XP to Vista. Migrating to Vista was quite a challenge especially with my hardware including Creative X-Fi sound card, Microsoft WebCam, and an old TV tuner card with bt878 chipset. Its notcibly slower performance was another barrier. It actually took many months to correctly install all devices on Vista with my hardware – it just became quite stable system a couple months ago.

When Windows 7 Beta was announced, I did not even bother to look at it because of my previous experience with Vista. However, a couple days ago, I was reading an article about Windows 7’s XP Mode somewhere and found myself a bit instrested in trying RC version for XP Mode. This will be another article at a later time.

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