Windows XP Mode in Windows 7!

[Dv8ted2]

Nuked

[Dv8ted2]

Obliterated

[MJPollard]

chip-level virtualization from either Intel or AMD.

What does this mean for Intel CPUs? Is the minimum here the Core 2 Duo? Core 2 Quad? Core i7?

Started with some P4 CPUs. Most C2D and newer CPUs have it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#Intel_Virtualization_Technology_for_x8...8Intel_VT-x.29

Thanks, jagabo. Based on Intel's chart, it looks like I'm good to go, should I decide to go that way.

[SCDVD]

Watch out everybody; ROF is back with a new handle!

[Seeker47]

RLT69 and SCDVD: You said it a lot better than I would have, so no further comment needed, other than in response to this:

I use Vista on my own computer and like it but it not so simple for companies with expensive high-end software that does everything they need.

Yes, of course. Think of the many, many companies that still have 1000s of seats site licenses for W2K Pro or XP. If it continues to fulfill their business needs, and especially if a lot of them are just barely hanging on in this economy, that represents a gigantic ship's anchor, with a lot of resistance. Why would they be inclined to redo their whole hardware / software infrastructure, at great cost ? (And, as we know all too well, successive MS OSes keep raising the ante on what hardware is required to run them adequately.) That is why I think these MS-announced EOL dates may not be set in concrete. It is a lot cheaper to renew the service contract -- even if MS decides to charge them more for it -- than it would be to replace everything.

For my browsing VMs I have a snapshot of a safe build that I have them set to automatically revert back to whenever the VM is shut down (you can also hit a button to revert back on the fly). If I need updates I launch that clean VM, do updates to it only, then take a new snapshot to revert back to.

One thing to keep in mind when doing snapshots for a surfing VM is to make sure to keep your snapshots "clean". What I mean is don't snapshot something after you've been browsing just in case a cookie or a field is saved to the VM and then gets locked into the snapshot. More advanced users might create a separate virtual disk for their temp internet files (cookies, etc.) with different persistence so they can wipe that independently of the OS updates as needed (similar to the way some people put their OS on a different drive or partition).

Keep in mind that VMs don't have to revert to snapshots. Most of mine get powered on, used, then shut down as I need them. All of the changes made stay with them when I next power them on. That's the whole idea really is that it's a machine inside of a machine. It takes some playing with it to really start wrapping your head around the idea, I'm still explaining it to some of our engineers.

Interesting, and good to know. Would you happen to have a nice Guide on this subject, or a link to some ?

[Dv8ted2]

Deleted

[RLT69]

Watch out everybody; ROF is back with a new handle!

I was thinking the same thing!

I just see things in terms of business

I think that's the problem you don't. Because as EVERYONE else has stated, businesses are less likely to buy new software because they don't have the money or the current version is fine and there is not a business case to purchase the new version.

This is a simple fact.

[SCDVD]

This is hilarious. Dv8ted2, the only thing that you have made abundantly clear is that you know nothing about business. I suppose you thing P&L means Pick (nose) and Lick (buggars) instead of Profit and Loss. An officer in a corporation who authorized a needless or premature enterprise wide software "upgrade" costing millions rightly would be fired by the Board of Directors and stockholders for gross mismanagement and misappropriation of company funds. Security specialist? What in the hell is that? Is that kind of like a sanitation specialist? Whatever it is, it gives you zero background or knowledge with respect to an operating business and its financial planning and budget management.

[Dv8ted2]

Edit

[SCDVD]

Sorry everyone that it took this long to respond. I was drinking a cup of coffee when I read Dv8ted2's last comment and I laughed so hard I sprayed coffee on my monitor and had to clean it off. I then took a few minutes to email a link of this thread to a few business colleagues who could use a laugh. When you are busy running a business, it's good to take a laugh break occasionally.

I have to say, this is the most hilarious thread I have read on this forum for quite some time.

[MJPollard]

I normally would have stayed out of this mess, but I feel compelled to say, Dv8ted2, that nuking your posts in this thread was probably not the wisest thing to do. Not only does behavior akin to screaming "I'm taking my ball and going home, so nyah-nyah on you!" not reflect well on you, it validates the claims of your detractors and hands them further ammunition to use against you. Besides, you can't get rid of the text that others have quoted in their replies, so what did this really accomplish?

[Soopafresh]

I bet this "XP mode" is targeted at business users who are resisting upgrade of all legacy programs to Vista spec.

A big "yeppers" to that...

[lordsmurf]

I missed the back-and-forth from earlier, but I see things both ways.

A -- People who still whine "XP is too bloated, I only use Win98 and Win2000" need to get with the times, a few cases excluded. XP is required to run a lot of decent software, including a number of lean apps based on .NET and other new tech.

B -- People who upgrade "just because". There's nothing dumber than buying something you don't need. I'd have to agree that most times these are kids (high school through college) who only play video games and type Word docs.

There is something to be said for having the latest updates, however. It really just depends on the conversation. For example: Adobe CS2 is years behind Adobe CS3, while Adobe CS4 has only incremental advances beyond CS3 (few areas excluded).

[Dv8ted2]

I normally would have stayed out of this mess, but I feel compelled to say, Dv8ted2, that nuking your posts in this thread was probably not the wisest thing to do. Not only does behavior akin to screaming "I'm taking my ball and going home, so nyah-nyah on you!" not reflect well on you, it validates the claims of your detractors and hands them further ammunition to use against you. Besides, you can't get rid of the text that others have quoted in their replies, so what did this really accomplish?

No, it was just people that did not know that XP mode was aimed at small to midsize businesses, and started launching personal attacks against me because they didn't support my viewpoint.

Most enterprises still have windows 2000 machines and still run applications in Internet Exploder 6. This represents security risks on many fronts, and my whole point was that Microsoft is trying to get people on more modern machines running operating systems that are kept up to date and still supported.

[Dv8ted2]

I missed the back-and-forth from earlier, but I see things both ways.

A -- People who still whine "XP is too bloated, I only use Win98 and Win2000" need to get with the times, a few cases excluded. XP is required to run a lot of decent software, including a number of lean apps based on .NET and other new tech.

B -- People who upgrade "just because". There's nothing dumber than buying something you don't need. I'd have to agree that most times these are kids (high school through college) who only play video games and type Word docs.

There is something to be said for having the latest updates, however. It really just depends on the conversation. For example: Adobe CS2 is years behind Adobe CS3, while Adobe CS4 has only incremental advances beyond CS3 (few areas excluded).

[rallynavvie]

I bet this "XP mode" is targeted at business users who are resisting upgrade of all legacy programs to Vista spec.

A big "yeppers" to that...

FYI for the enterprise software peoples here I also found out that in order to run "XP Mode" on your Windows 7 system will require SA. That was another big "**** you" MS gave me in our last meeting:

"The XP VM is great for Windows 7 developers who don't have the LOE to redesign all their legacy apps. It does require SA on those endpoints..." which cost just as much as the damn VECD licensing for our purpose anyway. M$ really needs to get their head out of their ass and stop looking at desktop OS licenses as being permanently tethered to one piece of hardware for the rest of its life. I'm sure you all realize that when you upgrade PCs you technically aren't supposed to carry over the OS to your new PC, you have to pitch it and buy a new Windows license key

[Seeker47]

a few cases excluded. XP is required to run a lot of decent software, including a number of lean apps based on .NET and other new tech.

Well . . . not so much. 2K can be retrofitted with much of that stuff, to the point where you don't give up much. Can't speak to the security aspects of this, but XP is basically just 2K given the facelift of an almost cartoonishly dumbed-down UI. 2K Pro was the standard for business, and I'm sure its corporate footprint is still HUGE.

(I'm finally just starting to make some serious use of XP. I like that it loads and shuts down so much faster than 2K. That's nice, certainly. I also like being able to use the IB-modded version of Shrink: 2K lacked a key driver or service for it that I think probably can't be retrofitted. But I could have continued to manage just fine with the original 3.2 version.)

There is something to be said for having the latest updates, however. It really just depends on the conversation. For example: Adobe CS2 is years behind Adobe CS3, while Adobe CS4 has only incremental advances beyond CS3 (few areas excluded).

I'm sure there are plenty of examples like that. I have a license for Adobe Elements 2.0, but never really used it much. People who do use Elements ("Photoshop Lite") tell me that ver. 4 was probably the best one they ever released, but the current ver. 7 has been so transformed that it became a hideous abomination.

M$ really needs to get their head out of their ass and stop looking at desktop OS licenses as being permanently tethered to one piece of hardware for the rest of its life. I'm sure you all realize that when you upgrade PCs you technically aren't supposed to carry over the OS to your new PC, you have to pitch it and buy a new Windows license key rolleyes.gif

You sure got that right ! Just coincidentally, a few minutes ago I finished migrating the 80G HDD that came in this latest system (a non-starter, if ever there was one) over to a decent-size one. This is all within the same PC, but it's none of MS' business, in any case.

[Dv8ted2]

but XP is basically just 2K given the facelift of an almost cartoonishly dumbed-down UI.

That is a drastic oversimplification. XP had more drivers out of the box, and a built in firewall as well as other features.

[lordsmurf]

I would have agreed Win2K was better than WinXP .... in 2002.

Those days are long gone, in 2009 using Win2K is like running a marathon with a broken foot. You'll get there, but it will likely be slow and painful. After SP1, definitely after SP2, surely after SP3 -- XP is about as far away from 2000 as it gets.

I always turn off the stupid candy-coated/cartoon-like GUI, be it XP or Vista. It's set to classic look and feel, classic Start menu, etc.

[MJPollard]

I always turn off the stupid candy-coated/cartoon-like GUI, be it XP or Vista. It's set to classic look and feel, classic Start menu, etc.

So do I. I don't care for XP's "Fisher Price" themes*, and I absolutely loathe Vista's Aero Glass look (which some apps, like Acronis True Image 2009, are starting to emulate all on their own *sigh*). It's too bad that we won't be able to do that with Win7, based on what I've read.

* I will make one exception to this. There's a theme patch running around out there, based on Windows XP Media Center if I'm not mistaken, that provides a glossy black version of the "Fisher Price" theme (similar to Media Player 11). THAT is much more tolerable, but since it's not in regular XP...

[RLT69]

No, it was just people that did not know that XP mode was aimed at small to midsize businesses, and started launching personal attacks against me because they didn't support my viewpoint.

Seriously

OK, How about this:

Sticking your head in the sand does not help your cause. Technology innovates and improves. People that do not update their software to accommodate the changes in technology are their own wost enemy. It is not Microsoft's fault that developers do not want to update their software.

Parts do wear out and these companies are in business to sell products and make money. If you are not going to buy new products, then you do not really hace a leg to stand on when griping.

Now that kind of sounds like an attack to me. A really uninformed attack.

You wouldn't accept the fact that there could be reasons why various businesses would not buy new software.

It was your callous and indifferent posts that caused the responses.

[lordsmurf]

When it comes to web browsers, I fully agree with this: "People that do not update their software to accommodate the changes in technology are their own wost enemy."

If you're still using IE6, I think you're an ass.

[Baldrick]

I have just upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate(Evaluation copy) on my Macbook and it works much better then Vista so far. Haven't tried that much software yet but everything seems to work fine so far...firefox and filezilla.

On my desktop computer I still prefer winxp though.

[Dv8ted2]

No, it was just people that did not know that XP mode was aimed at small to midsize businesses, and started launching personal attacks against me because they didn't support my viewpoint.

Seriously

OK, How about this:

Sticking your head in the sand does not help your cause. Technology innovates and improves. People that do not update their software to accommodate the changes in technology are their own wost enemy. It is not Microsoft's fault that developers do not want to update their software.

Parts do wear out and these companies are in business to sell products and make money. If you are not going to buy new products, then you do not really hace a leg to stand on when griping.

Now that kind of sounds like an attack to me. A really uninformed attack.

You wouldn't accept the fact that there could be reasons why various businesses would not buy new software.

It was your callous and indifferent posts that caused the responses.

Maybe I should have put ten smilies on the back of my statements. As formerly have run my own business, I know there are circumstances in which you can't spend the money to update hardware and software, but there are some companies that have the damn the torpedoes, spend the money anyways approach.

If companies are smart, they lease the hardware, so it can be switched out every three years, so that 2GB of RAM is a non-issue.

My comments were in no way meant to be callous. I know the ways of the Enterprise, and I know there is red tape. I would have to agree with Smurfy though. There is no justification for still using Internet Exploder 6. Even if you are using Active Directory to enforce group policy, there are enough security holes in IE6 to drive a semi through.

[RLT69]

Maybe I should have put ten smilies on the back of my statements. As formerly have run my own business, I know there are circumstances in which you can't spend the money to update hardware and software, but there are some companies that have the damn the torpedoes, spend the money anyways approach.

If companies are smart, they lease the hardware, so it can be switched out every three years, so that 2GB of RAM is a non-issue.

My comments were in no way meant to be callous. I know the ways of the Enterprise, and I know there is red tape. I would have to agree with Smurfy though. There is no justification for still using Internet Exploder 6. Even if you are using Active Directory to enforce group policy, there are enough security holes in IE6 to drive a semi through.

It's not a matter of putting smiley faces but acknowledging that there are situations where upgrading/purchasing new software/hardware is not reasonable. If one company spends blindly, it doesn't mean all companies should.

Again, you don't know what kind of purchasing agreements companies have to justify saying, "leasing is the way to go." We have a very aggressive procurement department. We don't lease our equipment. Is that wrong? Depends on the agreements we have in place.

Again, without knowing the reasons for using IE 6, you cannot say, "There is no justification for still using Internet Exploder 6." There can be very good reasons for not rolling out a different browser, software compatibility being a major issue. Rolling out updates in large corporations takes time, a lot of time. Updating to IE 7 or 8 is not automatic when you have systems validated to run on IE 6. The point is, the knee-jerk reaction, "You're an ass for running IE 6," is just asinine without knowing the reasons why IE 6 is being used.

That's the point we've been illustrating. You can't assume there is no good reason for using X,Y,Z without understanding the reasons.

[lordsmurf]

There is no legitimate reason to run a near-10-year-old browser for primary web surfing. It's stupid beyond stupid.

[Dv8ted2]

Again, you don't know what kind of purchasing agreements companies have to justify saying, "leasing is the way to go." We have a very aggressive procurement department. We don't lease our equipment. Is that wrong?

There is no right or wrong answer here. Everyone believes in different things. Your approach obviously works for your company. I just know that if you lease the computers, you are not stuck with thousands of pieces of obsolete computer equipment. The refresh cycle stays current and the computers are more up to date.

YMMV

Again, without knowing the reasons for using IE 6, you cannot say, "There is no justification for still using Internet Exploder 6." There can be very good reasons for not rolling out a different browser, software compatibility being a major issue. Rolling out updates in large corporations takes time, a lot of time. Updating to IE 7 or 8 is not automatic when you have systems validated to run on IE 6. The point is, the knee-jerk reaction, "You're an ass for running IE 6," is just asinine without knowing the reasons why IE 6 is being used.

That's the point we've been illustrating. You can't assume there is no good reason for using X,Y,Z without understanding the reasons.

Let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[rallynavvie]

There is no legitimate reason to run a near-10-year-old browser for primary web surfing. It's stupid beyond stupid.

I would almost completely agree with that statement for consumers. For businesses on the other hand...

[stiltman]

There is no legitimate reason to run a near-10-year-old browser for primary web surfing. It's stupid beyond stupid.

That's because you are a one man operation. Scale that thinking up to 100, 1000, 10,000 or more and you'd lose your job

I would almost completely agree with that statement for consumers. For businesses on the other hand...

Forrester's market share stats illustrate how enterprises are sleeping through the browser wars:


•IE is the corporate browser of choice, with 78 percent of enterprises using it as a default;
•IE 6 has 60 percent of the enterprise market, with IE 7 clocking in at 39 percent;
•Firefox has 18.2 percent of the enterprise market;
•Chrome has 2 percent;
•Safari has 1.4 percent.

The problem: Information workers live in browsers all day. And companies are giving them the equivalent of a Yugo.

Why? Companies are worried about custom apps that may fail on new browsers and security and compliance. In addition, companies limit the ability to upgrade. Seventy percent of companies restrict browser choice and Web content. Forrester notes that "IT control trumps technology populism."

[thymej]

Sorry to change the subject but, those who have installed the RC1, how do you like it? I'm liking it. Feels better then the beta. IE8 is working better. IE8 hanged a lot with the beta for me.

I have not checked yet if the XP mode is availiable for the RC1, but I want to try the XP mode on a few kid games I have that only work in XP. Currently the one kid game I want to try works okay in a VM I build myself.

Thymej