Windows 7 gets built in XP mode

I hate this title requirement

In theory, this sounds like a good idea, especially if the transition between modes becomes seamless. For example, if you can launch a "window" that contains the virtualisation, whilst keeping the sidebar alongside your workspace.

A big mistake?

Or, I could just run XP. Or virtualised XP on Linux. If this is true, it's *extremely* dumb of Microsoft at a time when they are hoping to sell more units of Vista/Windows 7 than they did of XP. It seems that Vista was a bit of a dead horse (although with MS even dead horses sell millions of units) and Windows 7, which is touted as being the horse's salvation, actually turns out to consist of giving you back the old horse you had eight years ago.

I assume that the virtualised version of XP will either have to have mainstream support (and thus provide yet-another-extension to XP's life, albeit in a roundabout way) or will have to be unsupported (in which case you are no better off than just virtualising XP yourself.). Have Microsoft finally given up the ghost and admitted that the apps that run on Windows XP can't be run safely/securely/reliably/compatibly on newer platforms without just running XP in secret? I think that WINE and ReactOS may prove them wrong in the long run.

This seems to be a death throe of Microsoft operating systems - they can't make people move off XP so they carry XP indefinitely in a virtual machine? Where's the incentive to write Windows 7 apps if most serious Windows 7 users get full, real, XP compatiblity for nothing? Where's the incentive to upgrade to Windows 7 for the business user if most of their software runs identically on XP and they are in fact just going to be running virtualised XP?

I would assume that Microsoft have cocked-up, I mean "extended", the version of XP included such that it doesn't integrate as nicely into the system as they claim and thus can't be used by people to get a freebie XP environment that integrates into a more modern kernel.

All dues to them - they are at least giving people what they want finally. A way to reliably run XP-compatible applications on a modern system and take full advantage. Unfortunately, it's a bit late and done in very much a backwards way. Emulation environments such as this are useful when your underlying "new" infrastructure is *so* advanced that backward compatibility is absolutely impossible. So you move over to an entirely new driver model with support for entirely new types of hardware and then run your legacy apps in an emulation until you can convince your programmers to move you across to a native app.

But really, at this stage, (and announcing this so late just *reeks* of desperation to win some sort of attention for Windows 7 features) it's all a bit too little, too late.

If I *wanted* XP, I would just get a Windows XP or above license and virtualise it myself. Windows 7 has been touted to cure all Vista ills, which it's obviously not going to do. I think this is just final confirmation that Microsoft:

- Don't know how or why Windows XP was so popular.

- Can't replicate or move forward with the Windows XP-era API's (and thus should really be making new and better ones above and beyond driver model changes).

- Don't have the knowledge to extend Windows XP with what they've learned about security, etc. in the last few years.

- Don't understand how customers think.

- Has pretty much abandoned all the code it's written in the last eight years because it doesn't really improve things for the customer that much.

Thanks Microsoft - confirmation of what we all knew all along. Windows XP was your best operating system and you have no idea how to actually improve it in your customer's eyes without a marketing trumpet to blow.

Some people never learn

The biggest millstone around the neck of Microsoft, its developers and its customers, has been its insistence on legacy compatibility. Instead of making a clean break with the past in the name of a lean codebase and an advanced, stable architecture, it just keeps layering on thick gobs of backwards compatibility. And for what? So tight-fisted businesses can run antique software? Bad trade-off.

Apple knew they had to make this decision for OS X, and they grasped the nettle. True, OS 9 was a much bigger bag of washing than the NT-based 2000/XP but the pain was no less of an impact because of that. There was plenty of howling and indignant rage that the (somewhat) beloved OS 9 should be tossed out, but it was Apple's way or the highway, and most people chose Apple's way. The platform has been rejuvenated because of that.

@mage

but DX10 is the only reason most people have to upgrade, if they do a version of it for xp it'd pretty much kill win7.

if anyone else knows of a reason to upgrade from xp i'd love to hear it, i was nearly tempted by the ability to use more memory, but then i remembered that none of my games eat up the whole 2 gig i currently have on xp, so it seems a bit fruitless all in all.

Where have I seen his idea before?

All the best ideas in Windows were copied from the Mac, shame so many of them have been butchered along the way.

Interesting...

@AC - Probably yes, MS have said you can downgrade to XP from 7.

You will get a virtual image with XP installed in the compatability mode, with the ability to run the applications nativly on the W7 desktop. (think Parallels or VMWare fusion for Win7)

You will need a CPU that supports virtualisation though.

And probably a bucketload of memory. :)

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/25/windows-xp-mode-internals-part-1-overview.aspx

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/25/xp-mode-fun-ie-6-and-ie-8-side-by-side.aspx

@tony72

Another one for Virtualbox here. Very nice free virtualisation kit.

@Paul - should be possible

Both Parallels and VMware for OS X have this feature and can present XP or Vista windows seamlessly on the OS X platform.

VMware exist for the Windows platform, so I guess it is possible here to. But about Virtual PC I have my doubts; Microsoft has not kept this product up to the standards of modern virtualization products.

wooing small businesses

The only way you're going to attract businesses to Windows 7 is if you're going to thrown in a free PC capable of running it.

Times are hand and if old computers work and your software doesn't require Windows 7 (I'm guessing that most businesses are running XP, Office 2003 and apps like Sage) then why bother upgrading?

The PCs in my organisation are old (Celeron 2.4 with 512Mb of RAM) but they work and run all the programs we need them to so I'm not going to upgrade just for the sake of it.

Two lots of Windows updates then?

So installations will required two lots of Windows Updates - Updates for Win7 and WinXP - does this mean MS will extend the life of XP indefinitely in terms of updates, patches.

Win7 is just Vista Sp2 - actually all I want is Windows XP SP4.

Sounds like MED-V

Hmm, sounds rather like MED-V - one of the newer components of MDOP (The Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack), but normally only available to SA customers.

Is Microsoft at last accepting that we should be able to virtualise multiple copies of Windows on the same PC without having to pay for extra licenses?

stop complaining about new windows just because everyone else does

Why do you people complain about windows 7 being like xp with just minimal differences and some appearence changes WHEN windows xp had the same minimal differences from windows ME. Seriously stop complaining just because everyone else is.

XP compat

The reason some xp apps cant run under vista or 7 is the new code base doesnt allow for any app to run with admin privledges or any direct hardware access less ya go thru the HAL or directx, less its manually SU, many apps ASSume they have admin rights so install services or starts or stops them without going thru the proper api, or were taking shortcuts that vista or 7's security wont allow.

This was and still remains the biggest problem with XP that ALL apps run with admin privs and can therefore do anything they want it also made it harder for MS to close certain security breaches. Vista and 7 dont have this problems its why ive only seen a few vista or 7 based pc with bad spyware or virus infections, that arent removable without the need for safe mode, most spyware simply cant function without admin since it doesnt get it .it doesnt work, so many anti vista peeps dont relize how much nicer it is not to have to worry about that.

The virtual PC soultion is a good one as it sandboxes the xp app that doesnt follow spec retains security and compatibility, thats of course if they implement it right, lol

@Paul

VMWare Workstation has "unity" mode. That is the equivalent of VMWare Fusions interact or whatever it is called. Basically minimises the VM out of the way and integrates the menu with the apps into the host. The VM then behaves just like any other program... all but one that needs at least a dual core CPU (preferably quad) and a tonne of memory ;)

And yes.... the bloody Vista sidebar would still be viewable... honestly though: do people actually use it?! It's one of the first things I get rid of!*

* When forced to use Vista.

@ Duncan Robertson

No ivory tower here, and I don't even run a network (at least not any more). I'll retract my use of the word "tightfisted" (although it *is* still the perfect description for some businesses who refuse to invest in their tools) but the basic problem remains unchanged. Microsoft has a choice when it comes to forward-looking development or backwards compatibility, and they choose compatibility every time. This is clearly a problem within Microsoft. But at the same time, how long do businesses really expect Microsoft to keep extending the life of an OS which is, in software terms, ancient when it comes at the expense of being able to develop for the future?

If someone's business depends on software which is so poorly maintained that it *requires* an 8 year-old operating system, then I would suggest that they have a slightly bigger set of problems...

Copied from Apple?

Yeah, right!

I suppose that if you pretended that the Windows support under OS/2 never existed then you *might* be able to pass this sort of thing off as an Apple idea.

But it did, so you can't.

oi! that's my idea!

Hey cool! I've been using that trick for a while with my clients. Run Linux, BSD, or some other reliable operating system and run WinXP (using a client's existing license) in a virtual machine for those apps that tried to lock my client to Microsoft. I've replaced a lot of Vista that way, and it's been solid. When the VM blue-screens, nothing is really lost, and VM "backups" are just a cp away.

And why might I ask

would any company want to shell out top dollar for a new OS that does the same job as the old one only not as well?

@Richard Drysdall

With a large enough application set there will always be some legacy apps which don't run under the new OS. Given how massively used Win XP has been (and for many years) I would expect there to be MANY apps which need to make use of the "XP mode".

Bear in mind that (excluding Vista) the last major upgrade most companies did would have been from NT/2000 to XP, around 7 years ago. I happen to know that some companies STILL to this day have Citrix or some similar back-end to run legacy NT applications.

There is a massive difference between how PC's were viewed 7-10 years ago and how they are looked at now. Whereas back then, in a lot of cases they were treated more like an accessory to help people work, I think it is safe to say that now most companies rely almost exclusively on desktops of some variety rather than on paper communication.

Add to that the change in sheer numbers of PC's involved and now an OS upgrade becomes a massive undertaking. All MS are doing is removing one more potential reason why people might not upgrade to Win 7.

Oh FFS.. MS...

Stop making silly, incremental little Operating Systems with no tangible benefits that noone with a real life cares about. Windows XP SP2 works, period. Well done, here's a cookie, now go away and don't come back until there's some really good reason to do so, like, oh I don't know, when we start using organic processors or something, which really NEEDS a fundamentally new type of O/S, and then actually make something REALLY new.

Windows Vista, mm shiny - pointless. Flaky. Why bother unless you're the sort of person who buys a Mac because they `look nicer`.

Windows 7 - Erm, OK. Whatever you say.

Windows 8 - Oh I see what you're doing, clever. Oh look at the weather, let's go outside and have some fun.

@andy gibson, Re: Sage

We've just been told that to run Sage 50 efficiently, we need to upgrade all our machines to the lastest spec and include gigabit networking to the desktop...all for an accounting package!

The sooner they move to MySQL the better...bloody DTA files!

You're all wrong! It parallels not with Parallels, but...

Rather the Classic Environment in the early very expensive beta versions of OS X, which ran OS 9 and all of the pre-Carbon apps in their very own sandbox. A lot of people were hard pressed to give up their Adobe Photoshop 5 and such, which could not run at all, let alone natively, under OS X.

It's kind of interesting, really, and clever as well. Apple managed two major architectural shifts and and even a couple of important OS changes, making the process as invisible to the user as possible. For developers on, on the other hand... In any event, this is a good thing for Microsoft to take from the playbook, as long as, like Apple, they don't make it a chore to use for the end user.