Comments on: More on Windows 7's 'XP Mode'

Microsoft offers more details on how it will use virtualization to try to combat a perceived Vista shortcoming--its lack of compatibility with software written for older versions of the OS.

[alizardx]

It IS difficult to figure out whether a processor supports AMD-V or not... it took me half an hour on the AMD site to find out that their quad core processors do and dual core has to be checked model by model.

M$ should pressure hardware OEM vendors to put a "virtualization YES" or "virtualization NO" line in all of their product ads. They have hardware engineers, let those engineers figure this out for the user base.

[AJ Pants]

This reminds of when you could still run Mac OS9 (classic mode) from within OSX. Damn that was a long time ago and more proof MS is about 8 years behind Apple.

[pilastr]

I remain confused. Claims abound that 64-bit Vista and Win7 are 99.9% backward compatible with 32-bit apps. So why is virtual XP necessary? To say some "older" apps may be incompatible is too vague to be of any use at all. Are we talking about 16-bit apps? Or software released before 2000?

It just seems like a contradiction to claim backward compatibility in one breath only to trumpet virtual XP in the next.