Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

Posted on: Fri, 01/07/2011 - 08:00 — us104_techdish

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Now a little over a full year since it was first released, we see many users in the shop who still haven't adopted Microsoft Windows 7. Why is this? Well, aside from the costs and not necessarily needing to upgrade, we've fielded many questions from our customers about whether their software they run on Windows XP will still run on Windows 7.

While many software titles, such as legacy versions of Microsoft Office, Quicken, web browsers, etc.; have released patches and updates to make them compatible with Windows 7, other publishers have either chosen not to support Windows 7 at all, or require you to purchase an upgraded piece of their software built specifically for Windows 7.

For those of us who want to pay for the software upgrades, that's all fine and dandy—and you'll usually get lots of new features from the new versions as well. But, if you're not ready to purchase upgraded software yet, or are one of the unlucky ones whose software is not supporting a Windows 7 release, well, you're still in luck.

Enter Windows XP Mode, a free feature available for users of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise. Basically, this software launches in a virtual environment that allows all your old Windows XP programs to run inside of it, just like they always have. While doing this, you may feel a hit on your system's performance (this does require some extra "oomph" to run), but hey—it might beat paying to upgrade your software.

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