Windows 7 to have an 'XP mode'
Microsoft is trying to make it easier to sway users of Windows XP onto the latest version of its operating system.
For some time now, the company has been quietly building a "Windows XP mode" that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix.
By adding the compatibility mode, Microsoft is aiming to address one of the key shortcomings of Windows Vista: its compatibility issues with software designed for Windows XP and earlier versions of the operating system.
Details of the Windows XP mode, previously known as Virtual Windows XP, were first published earlier Friday by the Windows SuperSite blog.
The technology has not been part of the beta version of Windows 7 or previously disclosed by Microsoft, but is expected to be released alongside the upcoming release candidate version. Microsoft said on Friday that it will release it to developers next week and publicly starting May 5.
According to the SuperSite report, written by bloggers Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera, the XP mode won't come in the box with Windows 7, but will be made available as a free download for those who buy the professional, enterprise, or "ultimate" versions of Windows 7. The site also has some screenshots of the mode in action.
There had been rumors of a secret user interface, but until Friday, no mention of the XP mode.
Update: Late on Friday, Microsoft confirmed XP Mode in a blog posting.
"Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7," Microsoft's Scott Woodgate said in the blog. "Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC."
According to the post, "all you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7."
Microsoft said it "will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
In Apple's case, it was Power PC to Intel architecture not "Intel" to Intel" as in the case of Microsoft.
It was PPC to Intel that had "universal" apps written with code for both.
It was OS 9 to OS X that had virtualization, where OS 9 ran inside OS X so OS 9 legacy apps could run in OS X. So it has a lot of similarity to this.
It worked okay, not great...
The native Mac OSX applications are written for Cocoa instead of Carbon: http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/index.html
The virtualization mechanism was Classic (sometimes call Blue) which ran Mac OS 9 (including inits,etc) in a VM, but that could mix windows with native Mac OS X apps.
Finally, both Carbon and Cocoa are native Mac OS X APIs. Carbon is a C-based API, Cocoa is an Obj-C based API + application framework.
This is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about legacy apps without any recompiling being run within OS X or Windows 7. That requires virtualization. In OS X, it was the "Classic" environment (which does not run on Intel machines), in Windows 7, they will have an "XP Mode" which could, in theory, stick around forever, as long as Intel doesn't change their architecture and graphics chips continue to offer VGA/XGA emulation.
AFAIK, it was Capt. Crunch that helped during the transition from the Motorola 6800 series to the 6850 series while adding in compatibility with CPM applications. At the same time, Intersection, a precursor to Parallels was used to provide an auto-resident compatibility interface that assured micro-kernel level application consistency between old and future applications. This insured that the system could run software that had only been imagined, but never really developed or compiled.
lol
Your point is... well, pointless.
Downgrading was really never a big deal until Vista...
Only with a few "versions" of Vista. Most home users do not have upgrade to XP rights.
Businesses are a different story but then they always were.
I just can dual-boot both Windows 7.0 and Windows XP, or use VMWare or Virtual PC to run Windows XP Pro in a virtual machine. Pricewatch.com has Windows XP Pro OEM install disks for $99 to $139 depending on what version and who you buy it from.
"Which means home users are locked out of this technology and if the Gameheads want to run XP Classic Games, they have to buy at least the Windows 7.0 Pro version."
I feel the need to clear up some confusion on your part. The purpose of this is so that those that have compatability issues in corporations would have the option to run their legacy apps in a virtual machine. Some databases like Siebel have been notoriously slow in updating their products which has forced users to stick with XP because the OEM simply wasn't working on a new product (Siebel was sold to another company and has since had yet another change).
Home users or people playing games wouldn't have any need for a virtual machine at all. Games and such work just fine in XP, Vista, and Win7.
I just wanted to make sure there was no misinformation present making it sound like Microsoft was going out of their way to cause problems like this because of a misunderstanding you might have had.
I would think the easier solution would be to keep running XP. The way I see this, you will just be adding the overhead of Win 7 to XP. If Microsoft must push people into an OS they don't need and one that will only slow their computers down, they could set it up as a dual boot system. Let the user boot to 7 to play games and XP to do work.
No, they don't. Your games might but that's been far from my experience.
Autocad Lite 2006 is on the list of apps that Win7 runs without any compatability issues. Looks like you may want to go to Win7 if that was your only issue.
Not sure I understand that.
Who gives you the right to tell the truth around here? CNet is for Apple and Open Source trolls and fanbois! Sometimes you might get the impression that there are Windows fanbois here (a.k.a. appologists, per the Apple and Open Source zealots) but they are typically the level headed ones who really don't care what tech you use; they just get sick of the attitude of the others (and their fantasies that talking trash about everything else but their prize tech will somehow get the world to convert from whatever else they are using).
Your comments are spot on. MS is BAD no matter what they do. Ok, back to reality...
Agreed - from my experience as a developer I can tell you it is the software companies that screw the things up. They don't care whether or not their piece of s***t is compliant and compatible as long as it runs and customers don't ask. You can't blame M$ for trying to improve their OS but they're guilty for sure, for not scrutinizing developers enough to write future proof apps...
So what Amazing things do you do anyhow?
As for games, if you have a steam account, do a name search and see the games I play. Funny thing happened the other day... friend of mine phoned and complained that he couldn't get the latest MS Train Simulator to work under Vista...
Actually not. Virtual PC unless its closer to a hyper visor then a virtual client like VMWare workstation, will impact the performance of high end apps. since this is running ontop of the host PC you will never get native speeds. It may get close and realistic performance hits will in many cases be negligible, however things like CAD\CAM and things like Inconnux uses are highly specialized and require a native environment. However they very much are the exception instead of the rule. MS is trying to please as many people as possible. They aren't going to please everyone and frankly, shouldn't. trying to please everyone is expensive as heck. Let such people stay on XP. there is not problem here. At some point either the software will catch up or the processors will get fast enough to make up for the impact. Say in 4 years when everything is 8+ cores and XP can only support 2....people will move eventually.
"By removing the onus of legacy application compatibility from the OS, Microsoft can strip away deadwood technology from future versions of Windows at a speedier clip". This is a great move for them.
AmigaDOS was based on Tripos and the BCPL language, which are like ancient versions of Unix and C Language in the way that they operated. When Steve Jobs launched Next, he picked the Mach kernel and BSD Unix because it gave him an environment superior to the Macintosh and very much like the Amiga had, but one better in that it was Unix based, and thus more stable and faster.
When Microsoft wrote Windows NT 3.1 it had an OS/2 1.X emulation and POSIX emulation layers, but only ran text code not GUI code from OS/2 and POSIX/Unix. I think they dropped it around NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. It seemed nobody had use of running text only OS/2 and POSIX code on NT.
It is the main cause of all the massive bloat and a significant contributor to Windows security woes.
you obviously don't use any legacy apps
guess what, come people do
On either platform, adding RAM is cheap and simple.
PS - the only reason OS X needs so much memory to run Word is because it's a resource hog. Excel isn't, but Word is. Don't know why.
The reason for this is because the companies that run this software have to rely on it working 100% of the time, every time. If there's some obscure bug that drops a penny (or a million pennies) here or there, you're screwed. So, they test this stuff for years before they finally certify and allow it to run on a new OS. With the approach Microsoft is taking, companies will find it much easier to upgrade everybody because the Finance department can run these kinds of apps on XP while their other software is running on Windows 7.
With Vista, MS was left with the problem of how do we sell an OS to people who are perfectly happy with what they have. Security has always been MS biggest PR problem. But security always has the same trade off: we can make it more secure, but you're not going to like it because higher security always comes at the expense of ease of use. Almost all of the perceived problems with Vista were caused by tighter security and a gross failure to educate the end users about how to deal with it. It's perfectly possible to turn off the Vista admin privilege checking to the level of XP, but it's not at all clear how to do it.
One problem is that Windows users are accustomed to running their personal account with full administrative privileges. No linux geek would ever dream of doing that. It's convenient, but it's an open door to malware. Users who came up through Win95 or Win98 were never aware of user privileges because those systems' security was a joke. If they used a workstation on a Windows network at work, they probably had a better idea, but they probably hated it. Most people regard security as a hindrance to productivity.
It's not just in software that we get the phenomenon of "improving" that which doesn't really need it. After all, they have to sell something to stay in business. The very core of advertising is to create a need where one did not exist before, instead of identifying a need and fulfilling it. And bigger, better, badder system software drives the hardware business. We need new hardware just to run the new systems.
But, most businesses' needs are met by a stable OS (XP) and MS Office (2000). The only way to get them to buy new stuff is to blackmail them with threats of obsolescence. And businesses are getting somewhat sick of it. (Personally, it keeps me employed.) You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place.
I would never buy an MS "Home" version of a system for my home machine. It's obvious that they just sell a hobbled version so that they can charge more money for the Professional version. But ultimately, if you intend to do anything other than send pictures of the kids to the gramps you're going to want the full version. If and when I decide to install Windows 7, I'm going to have to upgrade ALL of my hardware and spend the better part of a week getting all of my files and programs set up the way I want it. Not something I'm looking forward to even disregarding the expense (time and money).
OK. I'll stop ranting now.
The fact that MS is making an XP mode really just confirms that, as a home user, I might not want to risk moving to Windoze 7.
If they have to revert to XP for full compatibility, why not just stick with what I have that's working really well anyway?
Wondoze 7 will have to be really "Wow" to get me to change from an o/s that's been so stable for me. Kept up to date, with 3rd party virus protection and a hardware firewall, I haven't had much to complain about.
When I stop using the software I own now in favor of software that definitely works well in Windoze 7 then I'll think about changing.
Except for for A/V and various graphics programs hardware acceleration doesn't prove to be terribly important for a lot of legacy applications that businesses would need to run that have compatibility issues. Even without great graphics acceleration there are a LOT of legacy applications that should run rather well even with a bit of virtualization overhead.
Merely because this isn't useful for those wanting to run their older CAD program doesn't mean that this is useless.
Of course, I never said it would be useless, I'm just not convinced it's necessarily more useful than XP in a VirtualPC image.
This is great idea, too bad microsoft is only offering it to businesses...
"riend of mine has the last Microsoft Train Simulator and he is PISSED that it doesnt run in Vista.."
Why is it always 'a friend' that's mentioned in these situations? And why is it so terribly difficult for people to search online for answers? I spent less than 30 seconds by typing in "microsoft train simulator vista" in Google and hit numerous sites that had the same concern- Train Simulator wouldn't run in Vista out of the box. But you know what? Every one of those forum questions had the same answer- Simply run the updater in an account that has admin rights- which you would have had to have anyways to do the install in the first place. Run the updater with admin rights and it works fine.
How hard was that? And you know what, it's even in the Microsoft site. It's in their knowledge base online too.
Sometimes I wonder why it's so hard for people to read the manual too, but then your post explains it all right there.
infact Vista is selling pretty well amongst average consumers
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpcustom=Windows+Vista
better than mac i might just add
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Mac
Dear businesses,
Please pay us money for Windows 7 and we'll let you keep running stuff in Windows XP. Which you already own.
Sincerely,
Microsoft
@Angmarr lol even at that site it shows that 63% are still using XP... Vista is still not even HALF of the systems that XP has... even after a couple of years. that is my definition of FAILURE.
Tisk, tisk, tisk, Microsoft! Do the home users not matter?
Think of it this way- it doesn't do much good to offer titanium wheel rims for a Yugo.
The reality is most home users simply would never use this feature. The more enterprise features that they give away in the cheaper home version and the less likely they will get people to buy the more profitable business versions. They could slightly increase the cost of the home version to include more of the business features that a some home users might use, but the vast majority of home users would rather pay less than get features they don't need.
Most systems sold have Hardware Virtualization set to off, so that the system runs faster. Virtualization can slow down a system depending on what is being run.
So would a 64 bit OS running a viturallization of a 32 bit OS be able to run these older 16bit apps.
And saw no USB controller. Thank you.
- by Otto Holland April 24, 2009 7:58 PM PDT
- Many comments here are correct but a few are off line. Virtualization comes in two types from Microsoft. There is virtual PC and Hyper-V; by the way, make that three. The third is Microsoft Virtual Server R2 that was the first virtualization for Servers.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 4 pages (158 Comments)People should note that Hyper-V runs on 64bit technology; that means at the hardware level and the OS MUST be 64bit as well.
Laptop computers mainly don't support full 64bit unless for course the home user opt for 64bit XP or Vista.
In the server room, this is a different kettle for fish. All new servers are 64bit hardware and Windows 2008 comes standard 64bit. I have deployed 6 Hyper-V servers this past week on a Dell 2900 Xeon with 8GB RAM. Each Hyper-V was given one processor core and 512MB RAM. They are all Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition. Fact is that the 2003 ENT on Hyper-V runs faster than they would on their own hardware. My estimates so far is that Hyper-V is shockingly fast while I am able to add more RAM and teak as I need.
I am testing Windows 7 in the enterprise and found only one app that it does not run. I am able to use touch screen on an old monitor that is far from USB or Plug N Play aware. Sweet!
This virtualization they are talking about is not for the home user but geared for the enterprise. The added cost to enable the download is something the home use have to worry about but that is not what this is really about.