I’ve read about this before but it’s hard to comprehend what it really is until you’ve actually done something with it. Let’s go back a step because this is more than just the next version of Virtual PC.
When Vista hit the ground there was an immediate problem for domestic and business users. Lots of applications that worked on XP did not work on Vista. This led to people rejecting Vista. For drivers there was nothing that could be done. For applications we were told to look at “shims” in the application compatibility toolkit or App-V (then SoftGrid). I resorted to setting up a Virtual PC 2007 virtual machine running XP for those situations. I’ve even recently used it so I could use IE7 on some sites that IE* in compatibility mode wouldn’t work with. However, application compatibility engineering is a lot of work and not necessarily stable. Traditional VM’s wil confuse the typical office worker. Some IT pro’s will guffaw at that but trust me … my #1 rule in IT is “users are stupid”. It has served me well over the years.
BTW: I rencetly found some old NetGear 108 Mbps Wireless PCI WG311T wifi NIC’s that I could not get Vista drivers for work fine on Windows 7.
With the RC release of WIndows 7 we are getting a beta for:
- Virtual PC 7 (I guess that’s the name!): An updated version of Virtual PC that runs on x86 and x65 versions of Windows 7 as long as virtualisation assistance is turned on in the BIOS.
- XP Mode: A pre-built virtual machine running XP SP3.
You can run these legally on Windows 7 Business, Ultimate and Enterprise editions only.
The idea here is that you run an XP SP3 VM on your Windows 7 desktop. Most of your applications run on Windows 7. The VM will run behind the scenes. Administrators can install legacy applications in the VM. Any installed applications will appear on the Windows 7 Start Menu. You can run those legacy applications from Windows 7 without even seeing the XP VM. The applications are essentially published to the Windows 7 installation, i.e. when they run they are visible in a seamless Window, like with Citrix or TermSvcs RemoteApp.
Let’s have a quick look.
I’ve installed Virtual PC.
Clicking on Virtual Machines in the Start Menu brings you into the VM’s folder under your profile.
Notice that you can see the XM Mode VM I’ve installed?
That install drops a VHD into Program Files:
We’ll go back to the VM’s folder above. You can right-click on a VM to edit the properties of a non-running VM.
That should all look familiar. Bad news here: we still are stuck with undo disks instead of snapshots. The serious demo/lab community will still favour VMware Workstation over Virtual PC 7 because of this. No, Hyper-V will not do them because they are usually working on desktops or laptops that serve other roles.
Above is where the magic happens. Any installed applications in the VM will be published to the host Windows 7 operating system. I fired up XP from the start menu, logged in as usual and downloaded/installed WinZip.
I then shut down the VM, making it disappear from view.
Here’s the shortcut to start WinZip in the Windows 7 (host OS) start menu. I can click on that. The first time I do, there will be a slight delay to start up the underlying XP VM which remains invisible. I do get a notice telling me what’s happening.
XP boots up behind the scenes and then WinZip launches. It’s running in the XP VM but appears like it’s running on Windows 7.
I must say the wallpapers included in Windows 7 RC are 100% better photos than those in the beta release.
It’s not 100% seamless though. You still have to use your brain.
The user can’t simply navigate to the C: drive on the host OS like they would with a normally installed application. You have to treat this like a TermSvcs application with remapped local drives.
This brings me onto my next point: administration and architecture. You will probably need to join these VM’s to your domain to allow seamless access to network resources. I’d strongly recommend using as much folder redirection as possible. Avoid allowing roaming profiles mix between XP and Windows 7.
I suspect the MDOP tool, Med-V, is aimed at this. I haven’t really looked into it. Why? I’ll probably never work in an environment where there is Software Assurance and a budget for additional purchases per machine like MDOP.
I see XP Mode as being a stop-gap, a bridge, to get your applications from XP onto Windows 7. It’s not meant to be the forever-and-ever solution. Administratively, it would be a nightmare. Consider having a Windows 9 desktop running XP Mode and Windows 7 Mode virtual machines!!!
It’s a cool solution though and it will help out a lot of businesses in getting onto a newer platform.
And you’re not restricted to running just the XP Mode. You can go ahead can create other VM’s in the Virtual Machines folder by clicking on <Create Virtual Machine>.
The default location is in the profile unfortunately. I don’t like that. I prefer to store them in C:Virtual Machines.
You can allocate RAM (pre allocated at start up) and bridge the network in the wizard.
The advanced disk options in the wizard gives you the 3 normal VHD options we’re used to from Hyper-V. Pass through disks aren’t an option.
For more advanced configuration you should edit the settings of the VM after creating it, e.g. keyboard capture, NIC numbers and configurations, hibernate/shutdown as the close option, etc.
Edit #1:
I’ve just come out of a meeting where I learned that Virtual PC 7 and hence XP Mode will not be available for OEM installations of Windows 7. You will only be able to (legally?) install it on volume licensed editions of Business/Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
