- A little helpful advice; prior to the release of Windows 7, which may save you some money: -

XP mode in Windows 7 is a free download of virtual PC software that emulates the XP hardware/software environment

There is a problem with XP Mode; several in fact: -

First, if you don’t have the Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition, then XP Mode just won’t work: It’s Microsoft’s way of getting you to pay more.

At this point you might be asking ”Why would I want XP Mode anyway?”: -

XP Mode will allow you to run a virtual Windows XP session, either or on the Win7 desktop or in a separate window. XP Mode is aimed people who have programs that ran fine on Windows XP, but won’t work on Vista or Windows 7 because of, mainly, the new system architecture, both software and hardware, and improved security associated with these operating systems.

- So if, say, you’re a business who wants to use Windows 7, but you regularly use programs that will only work in XP, and you don’t want to have to shell out for loads of new software on top of the operating system’s volume licence, you buy Enterprise Edition and use XP Mode where necessary. – I think that was the general idea.

BUT – What if you’re a home user and you’ve bought your shiny new machine complete with a preinstalled Home Premium version of Windows 7? You might be starting out in an online business, perhaps, and have software that you used to run on XP which makes Windows 7 cough and croak, or 7 simply refuses to run it in the first place. Oh dear; you’re screwed.

Oh; and just to rain even heavier on your fireworks, in the case that you did go out and buy Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition, there’s something else that you should know:

There are also hardware requirements associated with XP Mode.

XP Mode requires your computer to have at least 2GB RAM, as well as to be running a processor that has Chip-Level Virtualisation built into its architecture: In other words you’ll need an AMD processor that supports AMD-V, or an Intel processor that supports Intel VT. Celeron, Pentium, and Sempron processors are a no-go due to this. Also, even if your processor does have this feature, it may not have been activated, so check your BIOS to make sure.

- Or perhaps maybe not: You see there may nevertheless be a way to scrub round it using a free download from Sun Microsystems called Virtual Box. Virtual box is exactly what it says on the tin; or should that read “exactly what it says on the box”? – It’s a virtual box that runs inside a physical box, and it allows you to run multiple operating systems on a single physical computer without having to dual-boot or partition the drive. You can in fact have both operating systems running at the same time, and you can switch between virtual operating systems too; whether they be Windows, Linux, …I’m not sure about OSX; possibly not. –?

- So in the case of our fictional business person above, we download and install Sun Virtual Box, and we then load XP Professional within the virtual environment.

Yes I’ve done it myself. Yes it worked without any problems on my 3-core AMD Phenom-powered box with 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM installed at the time, running the 64-bit Windows 7 RC. (Incidentally I installed the 32-bit version of XP Pro inside the VM.) Do check that your box meets the minimum requirements before installing Virtual Box.

In conclusion, then, the way to avoid shelling out extra for a version of Windows 7 with XP Mode is to use something that’s free instead of XP Mode: -

Open Source – 1

Microsoft Proprietary – 0

Now I give no guarantees that this will work perfectly and flawlessly every time; so don’t try to sue me if it goes tits-up. Normally, however, it should, as far as I can see, provide a reasonable alternative to XP Mode. – What do you say? Over to you: Please comment.