If you have not yet installed Windows 7 because, from the results of the compatibility test of hardware and software requirements, the concern arose that some programs, applications and drivers of printers or old devices, will no longer work as before, Microsoft has predicted on Windows 7, the XP Mode . It allows users who have Windows 7 with Professional and Ultimate editions to run other Windows operating systems in a virtual environment for free.
It is therefore a system to run the good old Windows XP inside Windows 7, thanks to the Microsoft Virtual PC tool .
To know more about virtual systems, I recommend reading the post on how to create a Linux or Mac virtual PC on Windows.
Therefore, if an application, a video game or a hardware device connected to the computer (such as an old printer or scanner) no longer works with the new Microsoft operating system, Virtual PC can be used.
In reality Windows Seven has shown excellent reliability and compatibility with almost everything but for less popular programs or for older devices that did not work with Vista, XP mode becomes important.
So let's see how to install XP mode on Windows 7 on any computer.
If at the beginning the Microsoft XP mode was only possible in the presence of certain hardware requirements, now the new version (March 2010) can be installed on any computer.
To install XP Mode on Windows 7 you can download, Windows XP Mode and Virtual PC . After installing these software, you will need to restart your pc.
After turning it back on, go to the Start menu and click Windows Virtual PC. Enter a password for the WM. Accept the License Agreement and choose whether you want automatic updates or not and after waiting for the upload, you should be able to use Xp Mode on Windows Seven .
As explained several times, a virtual machine works as a stand-alone system, that is, as if it were a different PC, which has nothing to do with the real PC on which Virtual PC is run. XP therefore becomes absolutely independent of Windows 7 and works as it has always been used to. You will therefore need to install the drivers, programs, antivirus and configure it as you did at the beginning. You can connect a USB stick and use it on the virtual XP, you can also surf the internet and get the viruses you want because they won't damage the underlying system.
The Xp mode, in this case, we mainly need to run old programs on Windows 7 and at this point there is the real news.
In fact, all the programs installed on the virtual Windows XP will also appear in the Windows 7 Start menu under a folder called Virtual Windows XP. This means that to run programs in XP Mode, you don't need to open Virtual PC first and then start the program but you can run it directly from Windows 7. The virtual machine process starts in the background, without seeing the whole operating system but only opening the application window. Put simply, you can use the software installed on the XP virtual machine, as if they were installed on Windows 7 .
The Securable compatibility verification tool is no longer needed, a small software from Gibson Research Company that does not require installation and quickly tells if the CPU supports hardware virtualization .
If there are problems you can use the Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization (HAV) Detection Tool and you can download it for free. In addition to checking again if the system is compatible, it also allows you to enable HAV on the Bios . If it is impossible, the Detection Tool should give indications to update the Bios software, if new versions exist.
Without installing hardware virtualization and running XP mode on Windows 7, you can, in the properties tab of executable programs, go to the "compatibility" tab where you can choose to start that program as an XP application . Also there is another way to virtualize XP on Windows 7 with the VMLite program (see at the end).
Although this feature is primarily geared towards companies that have proprietary applications that only work with XP, even more geeky and professional users may be happy to use this feature. The performance of programs started with XP Mode differs depending on the computer hardware and, perhaps, on laptops you may notice slowdowns.
Alternatively, if the official XP mode does not work well or if you do not have the minimum requirements seen at the beginning, you can also use another program called VMLite that does the same thing, without hardware limits.
This way you can run Windows XP on Windows 7 simultaneously.
If you have not yet updated from XP to Windows 7, it could be an interesting thing, virtualize your XP PC so as to keep it also on the new Windows 7, without losing anything even if, in this case, the programs already installed, do not appear in the menu Start Windows seven.
