Color us intrigued. The gang at
SuperSite for Windows have revealed what they know about a pretty awesome
Windows 7 feature: XP Mode, a virtualized copy of
Windows XP with Service Pack 3. It'll reportedly be a free download for Professional and Ultimate Edition users, a shame it won't be coming to all versions. Unlike many other Virtual PC options, the environment won't require a separate workspace so you can run the individual apps as you would alongside those native to 7 -- in the example pictured, that's Word 2003 in XP mode next to Word 2007. It all sounds vaguely similar to the XP compatibility mode found in Vista, but if we're understanding this right, XPM should make legacy compatibility much less of a hassle. We haven't heard any reports of it being found in the leaked
Release Candidate build, so if you're antsy to get a glimpse now, hit up the read link for a gallery.
[Thanks, Axel]
posted Apr 24th 2009 7:12PM
Wow, Windows 7 just keeps getting better.
This is very convenient. I just wish it didn't come with only Pro/Ultimate :(
yeah theres a lot of technology
Well, at least you can run your old programs that have a standardized UI like pull down menus, etc. Everything now is a heaping mess of less then unique garbage. Has anyone tried Messenger as of late?
It has the now 'Vista hidden' pull down menus File, Edit, Help, etc. sitting on top of a set of new pull down menus File, etc. that have totally different options, and messed up accelerator keys.
UI Designer meet Operating System... it appears that M$ is becoming less of a consistent operational system everyday.
Even the MCE developer guidlines indicate that developers should choose a (gaudy) different color scheme for their UI menus to distinguish themselves from M$'s MCE menus... to 'not confuse the user'. Result? A complete mess of an interface.
As Bob pointed out, trying to streamline usability has turned M$ into a mess...
http://www.cringely.com/2009/02/microsoft-has-pms/
this is going to be very nice for my business environment. I already wanted to switch soon to windows 7 but like always legacy support is a bitch.
Steveorevo, I agree. Everyone talks about hardware requirements and driver issues as the main problem with Vista but for me it was the user interface. They got rid of menus making options hard to find. They abandoned consistency and gave everything a unique look so nobody can find what they're looking for (just watch someone try and quickly find a button in IE). While XP presented information clearly and concisely Vista was about looks and wow and abandond functionality or usability. What could previously be done in 5 clicks now takes 20 because settings have been spread all over the place to their own windows instead of grouped into tabbed dialog boxes. The interface is wasteful of desktop space with things like glass window borders and ribbons. The ribbons themselves are inconsistent, wasteful and make options difficult to find. Everything about the interface was a step backwards
While the Vista interface looks very pretty in terms of productivity it was a big step backwards. What's worse is they've taken all the principles that made the Vista user interface so bad and extended them further in Windows 7. The new task bar and dock makes it hard to see if an application is running and impossible to see how many instances are running. The task bar is thicker wasting further desktop space while at the same time presenting information in a manner that is less clear. The new way of switching between applications is very flashing but slower than the old task bar. Dialog boxes like the theme selection box have further abandoned consistency and clarity for uniqueness and presentation.
I'm going to be ranked low for this but the fact is that the low adoption rate for Vista, particularly in businesses, shows that many other individuals and companies think it's a step back in terms of productivity and I suspect Windows 7 will be met with a similar response. Businesses in particular don’t want flashy interfaces, they want speed and productivity. This news about an XP compatibility mode in Windows 7 is good but it sounds like something of a botched solution. Why run XP on top of 7 as a virtual machine if you can just run XP? What they need to do is provide the option to have the complete XP user interface in Windows 7 without it running on a virtual machine.
Microsoft need to start listening to what users and businesses think of their interface instead of going off on their own trip and adding more ridiculous flash and wow at the cost of productivity. Until they provide an interface that focuses on productivity, clarity and consistency I'll stick with XP.
Remember that the upgrade path for 7 is different than Vista. You still get all the features of Home Premium with Pro. This is way better than skipping media center when moving up.
How can you say it takes longer to do sometime in Vista than in XP. Vista has search which works pretty well in my experience (fewer steps too). In my opinion it requires you to know exactly how to do something in XP while in Vista it tries to guide you to where you want which is a big help for novice users.
The windows 7 taskbar is the best taskbar microsoft has even produced bar none and it is fully customizable. If you find it takes up too much space make it smaller, find that you want greater distinction between running apps add text or better yet do want you are doing now and don't place shortcuts in the taskbar. You can still use the taskbar the way it always was ( even the way it switches) but now you get thumbnail previews of running apps, thats all that was changed or should i say added.
I'm wondered about this before.. Why didn't they just virtualize an XP compatibility mode in the first place and make Vista a completely new kernel and architecture without worrying about compatibility? Even with Windows 7, it appears this is just to guarantee compatibility with old apps... They could have used it as an opportunity to make major changes to the system without worrying about old apps
@De
"How can you say it takes longer to do sometime in Vista than in XP. Vista has search which works pretty well in my experience"
For starters, search no longer searches inside of ZIP archives, thats pretty major. How does
"Vista it tries to guide you to where you want which is a big help for novice users"
How does hiding the Help pull down menu in ALL applications help a user?
In matter of opinion it looks nice (if tie dye colors and textures is your thing), but it does waste space with thnker borders and now invisible options resulting in more key + click combos just to get to see where an option is.
Now that Adobe has made their own Window chrome for CS4 Apps, and ironically one that looks like the tried and true titlebar, min, max buttons of old WITH pull down menus that don't dissappear, it begs the question. What value does the Vista UI bring to Windows 7 and 'native apps', outside of clearly making it harder to use for novices?
I think the reason MS removed those menus was because they became very redundant. Most if not all functionally of an app can be done with interaction with the UI of that app. Most applications however give you the option to add back for you so wish.
Can you give me an example of an app that hides the help button.
Also you may disagree but i don't find hunting through pull down menus to be not very user friendly.
One of the problems that I see with Windows 7 is the size of the installation. For me, an x86 installation took ~7gb of space, and an x64 installation took ~11gb of space. Adding Windows XP virtualization will probably increase this even more. I really don't know why they can't make the operating system take ~1gb. Linux can do it...
@ MegaBite: partly it's the crapton of drivers that are included. Also, there are tons of little bits of functionality in Windows, they all take up space. You can always trim off the excess fat and cut the size in half without losing much of anything. And seriously man, when was the last time you looked at a linux distro? The distros that include all the bells and whistles are freakin huge.
As for me, I don't even have a fancy computer and I'm rockin 2+TB so I don't see what the big deal about a few GB is.
Who cares if the install size is 7GB-11GB? Storage is cheaper than it has ever been and if even your most basic $499 laptops come with a 320GB HDD, the more space used the better.
It is certainly good news. Although there are a few caveats:
- This is application virtualisation. This creates a confusing scenario where hardware that is incompatible with Vista may be passed through to the virtual XP. The virtual XP's kernel has compatible drivers and the device works. However, this means that this device can only work in XP virtual application, not in Windows 7 native applications. For example, I have a webcam for which there are no Vista (or 7) compatible drivers. I would still be able to use this in Windows 7, but only in Skype running in the virtual machine, not the version of Skype running on the Win7 kernel. This is a bit of a confusing situation for non-technical people.
- As the linked article says, this requires processor virtualisaiton support (such as IntelVT). If Microsoft are targeting this at business customers, they may need to relax that requirement. VMX is a relatively new technology, and there are still shipping Core2Duos that don't have this. This could limit the impact of the feature. However, it's clear why they did this - virtualisation overheads make it a bit of a poor solution for every day use. Processor support gives a better experience.
From the screenshots, this looks like what Parallels does when virtualising XP on OSX - it creates dummy applications that launch the VM and launch the application inside it, and use Unity mode to make it look like a native application. It's cool to get that for free with the OS, but I'm not sure the impact will be as massive as some here are claiming it to be.
This is simply the next version of Virtual PC which adds native host OS integration (removes the desktop and start menu/taskbar from the guest OS). This should in an ideal scenario work with any OS, esp Vista, but Microsoft is trying to sell if off as an exclusive Windows 7 feature for business reasons. VMWare Workstation 6.5 released in September 2008 aleady does this (called Unity mode instead of XP Mode) and isn't locked for Windows 7 hosts and Windows XP guests. Sadly, THIS WON'T GIVE ME BACK THE FEATURES REMOVED FROM WINDOWS VISTA OR WINDOWS 7 WITH NATIVE INTEGRATION. Users will still have to manage and patch this "Virtual XP".
@ Richard
"The task bar is thicker wasting further desktop space while at the same time presenting information in a manner that is less clear."
Right click on the taskbar > Properties > Go to Taskbar Buttons Drop-Down Box > Choose "Combine when taskbar is full" > Check off ' Use Small icons' > Press OK
See, that wasn't so hard. :)
I am confused. Why does it need virtualization? I have Office 2003 installed on Windows 7 with no problem at all. I haven't had any problem running software I had used back from the XP days, what would you use this for?
smartest way to handle legacy support.
Mac OS X used to come w/ Classic. Same deal. Sometimes there is legacy software you just dont want to lose.
Agreed. Pretty smooth.
but it was free, for all users. of note, this means its pretty much as easy for said users to be virtualising windows in OSX or Linux just the same, it send a message.
Didn't you had to have a copy of the old mac os to run a program?
That's not analogous at all!
Classic and X are NOTHING ALIKE... Classic wouldn't run on X anyway you feed it to it.
7 is a progression of XP... XP code should generally run on 7 anyway..
@rcam
I don't know about earlier releases, but Tiger 10.4 and OS 9 were on the same disc.
It is pretty clever. Microsoft has the largest user base, AND is very reluctant to force change on people; backwards compatibility has left a ton of cruft in Windows.
If they use this model in the future in order to strip out legacy junk from the new OS, while still providing a way to use legacy apps in a virtualized environment, it could make the whole OS faster.
Ahhh classic mode... good times, good times.
yeah...thats spot on. my dad for example uses this CAD software at his work, and he wanted to be able to run @ home but he has vista on his laptop, and the program requires xp. Seeing that it was a 4500 dollar program he was willing to buy it himself.
For those people who want Windows 7 but secretly want Windows XP.
Scratch that, reverse it.
Long live XP !!! It just refuses to die.
I hear that. I've wanted it to die for a long time now, but it just wont.
Just like Jason
even windows 2000 is still fairly widely used by companies (not usually for workstations, but for testing equipment).
Windows 7 plus XP FTW!
I did a study group a while back. The first thing I noticed when booting up the PC they gave me was that it was Windows 7...Which got me excited. They had me testing out XP in a virtual machine space. Asking me what I would normally look to do and how it was different then my other virtual experience. Nothing really two exciting but when they asked me how much I woudl pay I got a quizical look at my face since the rest of the study gave me the impression it would be intergrated with the OS. I said around 149-199.
Are you kidding me? You DO realize that you could get a copy of XP for like $100 and that VirtualBox is free, right?
Are we supposed to believe your story?
Amen to the VirtualBox comment, check out seamless mode... I've been running that on both 7077 and Vista Ult. for a while now, same XP SP3 image, I used it for maybe two apps though, but nice to have it just in case.
firefox has a built in spell-checker. Its not perfect, but it picks up woudl.
Uhh... Win!
Sup Dawg! I heard you like XP, so we put an XP in your Windows 7 so you can Crash while you BSOD! j/k
/trollbait
Grumble grumble grumble, Mac. Grumble groan YELL YELL Apple. Scree grumble grumble groan bitch moan M$FT sux. Grumble bitch moan grumble Snow Leopard.
/trollbait response
Sent from my iPhone.
Hey Col. that was awsome!
Grumble grumble grumble, Linux. Grumble groan YELL YELL Ubuntu. Scree grumble grumble groan bitch moan M$FT sux. Grumble bitch moan grumble "Jaunty Jackalope". Scree grumble grumble groan bitch moan IT'S FREE!!!!
/trollbait response
That is a BRILLIANT move on Microsoft's part.
Yes, IF running visualized XP in Windows 7 is not slower than Vista on hardware.
Yeah, but vista has compatibility issues with some xp programs
So i herd u liek Win7.
:-P
The Win7 Beta is pretty sweet as it is. I'm glad to see MS is being serious this time. I dont mind spending the money to buy the OS, IF its done right. While Vista is pretty good now, I refused to buy it at launch. Win7 is shaping up to be much better out of the gate
Virtualization solves legacy app problems, let's just hope that from now on no OS is halted back in development for the purpose of maintaining compatibility with accounting software from 1998...
Great. The best of both worlds. The new and improved and the legacy.
BTW: Supersite posts are written by just one guy - Paul Thurrott - not a whole 'gang'. :)
Yes, though in this case the post was apparently penned by Thurott along with WithinWindows blogger Rafael Rivera...
Do we get to use the Energy Blue theme also?
I hope so, but either way, I find this interesting, and I am looking forward to Windows 7.
XP is going to last FOREVER.
XP is the new MSDOS.
it is going to last FOREVER.
Do we get the Energy Blue theme also? I hope so, but either way, I find this interesting. I am looking forward to Windows 7.
Windows XP--The Operating System That Just Keeps Living!
Definitely interested in purchasing right out of the gate now. Win7's looking HAWT.
I wonder if you're running Windows 7 64bit, if the VM is also 64bit, of if you get a choice. I haven't found too many programs that don't work well in Windows 7. Some I've discovered that you have to launch as Administrator, though.
A very nice feature and excellent that it is truly intergrated.
I'm guessing this is where the whole 'you can use XP on a 7 licence' thing comes into play. Don't see why they wouldn't include this on the other editions though. For example one could install XP on VirtualBox and get practically the same experience with the seamless mode enabled.
Virtualization capable hardware required.
Great! You get to pay more for the fancy trappings of the new OS only to run a VM for all your current apps since nothing works with the new OS. Fucking brilliant!
Here's a thought: DON'T BUY THE NEW OS. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND KEEP RUNNING XP LIKE YOU'RE ALREADY DOING.
WTF are you talking about? I've been using Vista for years now and I can't think of anything that doesn't run under it.
Yes you are so smart.. thats why im running programs from the late 90s on 7 right now as we speak. Too bad Apple's OS9-10 broke EVERY application. There are barely any that dont work between XP and Vista/7.
We wouldn't have technological progress if everyone was a neanderthal like you. Plus I think you missed the point... this is so you *can* run your old XP stuff within the new OS, so MS wouldn't have to pry your XP copy out of your cold dead hands every time you needed to do something on your nine year old hardware.
"Yes you are so smart.. thats why im running programs from the late 90s on 7 right now as we speak. Too bad Apple's OS9-10 broke EVERY application. There are barely any that dont work between XP and Vista/7."
You're....running programs from the 90's?
Er...
*checks calendar...
Windows users....
No seriously, its been one of the biggest knocks on MS that they maintain compatibilty with all these old clunky ugly legacy apps... it took them about 5 years to copy Apple on this one (a la Rosetta).
Peace out Photocopiers
Windows XP--the operating system that just keeps living on!
Anyway, I myself do not see why Microsoft limits this to Professional and Ultimate--no idea, maybe they think that this is only for business users?
I'd suspect that MS does not believe that PC's using lower levels of Windows will have the necessary virtualization hardware.
Yes, that could be the case as well.
my personal guess is that is using some part of the termional services code and using the Remote App type situation that you can run on Server 2008.
Remote App allows the user to launch a single application from a remote computer and have it appear to be running on the normal desktop of the host machine.
why only Pro and Ultimate?
Because these are the only two version of 7 that can HOST terminal server sessions.
so basically i think that they are using the terminal server to "host" the app from a virtual version of XP (which is running and just 'hidden' from the user) and using the Remote App technology to make it appear to run alongside the regular OS.
The cool thing about Remote App is that if you open an additional program on the same remote computer, it doesn't start a new terminal session but just piggybacks it onto the already established one.
The best use of Remote App I have seen is to run Outlook in a corporate environment.
Each user thinks it is running on the local desktop, when in fact it is running off a completely remote machine.
Same thing for other Office products.
Since when installed on a Terminal Server, you only need one office key for all users on that server, you now don't need individual licenses for all of the users if they use Remote App (unless of course you use 2007 which changed that).
Now if they can rip all the crappy MFC and COM stuff out of 7 and force you into a virtualized environment for old crap, kinda like Apple did with the move to Intel. I would love to see all this legacy stuff and the registry yanked out of Windows 7. It would be so much faster, stable and secure and less corruptible.
THey also need to make it so you can install legacy applications and it forces the install into the VPC
But, as long as this feature (the VPC XP) isn't in every version of WIndows it won't help that much.
Stupid marketing people...
Heu... if it make more people buy the pro version, its more money for Microsoft. But hey, stupid marketing people!!
Why god why would you get rid of COM?
COM is great! Not everybody wants to write managed code. Most people who disparage COM have no idea what it is or how to use it.
COM is a nightmare!
Who said anything about managed code?
I like the Linux / UNIX model. just tell the friggen program where the resources and services are. COM is a freaking nightmare.
What do you mean "where the resources are?"
Again I think you're not understanding what COM is.
COM gives you a solid and straightforward refcounting mechanism and interface-based extensibility model. And the frameworks built on it like ATL are really handy. Plus you get the flexibility of handling both in-proc and out-of-proc objects with the COM runtime handling most of the heavy lifting re: marshalling, server / process lifetime, caching, etc.
Oh, and lets not forget managed interop or scriptability / automation (IDispatch, etc).
I like this. This will require hardware capable of Virtualization, but that should be relatively easy.
I'll get Win 7 on the next workstation I build.
No it won't. MS has had this technology for many years, they shipped it in Windows Server a long time ago. CPUs have only supported virtualization for a couple years.
So virtualization hardware will make it work better, but it'll work without it.
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx
Sure as hell sounds like it to me:
XPM is built on the next generation Microsoft Virtual PC 7 product line, which requires processor-based virtualization support (Intel and AMD) to be present and enabled on the underlying PC, much like Hyper-V, Microsoft's server-side virtualization platform. However, XPM is not Hyper-V for the client. It is instead a host-based virtualization solution like Virtual PC; the hardware assistance requirement suggests this will be the logical conclusion of this product line from a technological standpoint. That is, we fully expect future client versions of Windows to include a Hyper-V-based hypervisor.
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/24/secret-no-more-revealing-virtual-windows-xp-for-windows-7.aspx
WinSuperSite seems to say so, MS seems to say otherwise.
I think I know who I believe.
Read the system requirements below.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5&displaylang=en
THIS IS MADNESS!
Seriously... can't wait...
"The gang at SuperSite for Windows..." That'll be Paul then....
How would the performance differ between running Windows XP on a virtual machine in Windows 7 vs this solution?
What would the performance loss be vs. running Windows XP natively?
Probably can't say without more info.
Hopefully, unlike a VM though, this will not require a virtual HD, or installation and 'fake boot' of XP every time you need it.
*Click!* and there's your XP desktop!
i seriously ask why they didnt just stick with XP in the first place and service pack the hell out of it ..
i mean Vista .. and still XP is around and now W7 and still its around and as bonus even as Virtual OS inside.
To compare that to Apple is lame .. cos apple would have already killed XP dead .. to focus on whats ahead not keep trillions of old OS's in the wild .. jeezz .. and you all sippin it up as if it was a revolution ..
Face it they can't let XP go or they are seriously screwed .. cos at least XP is workin and its working really well nowadays.
yeah i bet i get flamed now as a Apple Fanboy .. but this is more about MS actually going forward rather than stickin with old crap.
peace,
Try saying that when you have millions of customers that are dependent on that OS. Many companies stick to legacy software for quite a while, so much that in my job they are still using windows NT on some of the workstations. They consider that if it does the job there is no need to upgrade.
Because Microsoft wants to sell licenses of the more expensive OS.
You're misreading and misrepresenting the logic behind why Microsoft wants to do this.
1. They really wanted to move past the sales of XP licenses, those are sold, so they wanted you to move to the new OS, Vista. Not continue to sell OS licenses to those that still need them, but to all potential OS users.
2. Preliminary and subsequent, long term assessment, indicated that Vista was not always a reliable or desirable upgrade. The reviews were mixed, pro and con.
3. Many people did not want to, could not afford to, could not risk, moving to an OS that was receiving such ambiguous reviews.
4. Most people were able to do everything they basically needed with XP, i.e. the OS had matured enough, and the upgrade to Vista was not sounding as revolutionary or necessary as previous releases were. NT 4 was pretty amazing for it's robustness and application support. 2000 was a consumerization of the NT base so a broader range of applications ran well on it. XP was the complete consumerization of the OS, such that the features the general public wanted were coexistent with features required by businesses.
5. Microsoft really wants to assure people that Win 7 is a desirable OS upgrade, that everyone will want to purchase, to get features they cannot get from XP alone. However, they also need to address the fear people might have, that this could be a lemon, like some feae / felt Vista was. So, Microsoft offers Virtualization and XP and that serves as a Guarantee.
That is pretty much it.
6. The benefits this may have with regards to ability to remove Legacy Code and support are likely secondary to the initial desire to just sell some licenses to people who are afraid of the new release.
I have been really looking forward to windows 7 and since I am planning to get professional when it's released this is just the icing on the cake. Now if we could just have release dates and pricing, pretty please MS. :-)
Whoever designed Word 2007 should be taken out back, then stabbed, shot and cattle-prodded. It still takes me forever to find what the hell I want on the non-customizable tool bars.
Personally, i like Word 2007 soooooo much better than Word 2003, and much more modern and user friendly, although I don't agree with the whole .docx thing considering most Windows users (especially schools and businesses) use XP with Word 2003 which uses the format .doc like every other previous version of Windows (also Mac and other word processors are made compatible with .doc not the new .docx, so they've pretty much completely alienated Word '07 docs to OSs other than Vista). But if you still really like the look of Word 2003 and previous versions, I suggest downloading a free copy of Open Office, as it uses the same basic organization method as Word '03 did. It wouldn't be too much of a challenge as Open Office docs are compatible with a lot of word processors and otherwise you can just save your documents in Word format. I know that wouldn't be too much of a hassle for you considering you're probably already used to having to save your docs in Compaibility Mode in Word '07 to work with the rest of the world.
Agreed, Office 2007 sucks. I am still using Office 2003--on a Vista PC!
I agree with what others were saying about them screwing up the interface, I feel 07 much is much less functional, it seems like it takes more steps to do simple tasks in 03...though...I'm open to the fact that I just fear change, microsoft knows better and soon I will learn to love and embrace it the way I did 03. All Hail the Overlord!
Personally I like the ribbon interface in 2007, once you get over the initial change, it becomes very intuitive.
For example, if you use a drop down item from a button on the ribbon, after you've clicked it a few times, it promotes it to the top, so it then only takes one click.
For those who want 2007 with 5 million toolbars, you can get addons that give you that option.
Frankly, cascading menus drive me up the wall. It's great if the feature you want is in the first-level menu, but if you have to dig into flyouts, then it gets really easy to overshoot, or undershoot, and lose focus on the menu that you really needed. The ribbon very nicely takes all that away.
The most compelling reason that Microsoft gave when it introduced the ribbon (without the option of a roll-back) was that they were finding that 2/3 of the requests for new features were for things that were already there. The conclusion they came to was that the menu system was too dense and difficult to navigate, and I'm inclined to agree.
Bah. Every study MS did about Office 2003 showed that users had a terrible time finding things and clicked themselves into exasperation. 9/10 features people wanted were already there but they couldn't find them. The interface is just terrible - a parade of miserly icons and overly dense menus. People defending that interface do it in the face of all evidence that its real world use was a disaster. Thank god MS, for once, did not err on the side of caution and made a change where it was needed. It sure would have been easier to listen to the old fogies who learned one interface and dagnabit just want MS to churn out the same crap without rethinking anything. It is the kind of dead end thinking that hampered vista. Instead of stabbing the guy who ran the show they moved him to windows to bring the same kind of energy to its development and it shows. Win 7 is good but really they should have gone further and this feature indicates to me that maybe they will. Frankly this feature is less about windows 7, the vast majority of apps already run on it, and more about the day when they put all the legacy stuff in windows behind them and make the same kind of blowout leap they did from office 03 to 07. That will mean getting people used to virtualization.
"Whoever designed Word 2007 should be taken out back, then stabbed, shot and cattle-prodded. It still takes me forever to find what the hell I want on the non-customizable tool bars. "
Well done for your blind arrogance and brainless stupidity sir.
The man who headed the Office 2007 team was promoted to the head of Windows development to help create Windows 7. You're effectively saying the guy who has now helped develop potentially one of the most popular OS's since XP (8 years in the buisiness is an age) deserves to be shot for being a genius. The changes in Office 2007 were necessary because, like folk said above, productivity sucked unless you knew exactly where every option is, and then wanted to search and/or plough through menus every time you wanted to use the same function. Just like the jumplist/MRU list on an app-by-app level that is in windows 7, functions moved to the top when you use them in office 2007 - we almost shouldve guessed that an app-by-app based MRU would come into play sooner or later. It was a necessary change, just like Vista - the tech in Vista was sound, just badly implemented and a bit to boisterous for most of the software out here. The VXP implementation in Windows 7 looks like we might finally be rid of the majority of the compatibility bloat in Windows 7, meaning less bugs, vulnerabilities and a faster OS. I'm just hoping that this is the precursor to something awesome come Windows 8; one step at a time.
On a sidenote: If Windows XP stops getting updates (this June for most I believe?), will that not introduce potential security vulnerabilities? Only one thing I could think of would be that the virtualised apps are in fact sandboxed, but that still means theres a chance of the virtualised apps becoming corrupted and/or unusable due to the entire underlying VM getting hosed. I guess we'll find out.
I don't particularly see a point in this... What I'm more interested (because I've had issues with this) is running 32bit in 64bit environments (because so far, I've had crapola of a time with many utilities which won't run in XP64, or Vista Extremium 64)
YES!!! totally right. i don't know how many times my Vaio x64 bit has been incompatible with Windows software because of the fact it is 64-bit, thus leading me moping to the shitty Dell desktop "family computer" that is 32-bit (it's actually not that bad but I hold a grudge on Dell) to download whatever it is and then use it from there. You're brilliant.
This might indeed be a great way to improve 32-bit support.
I know the current version of VirtualPC doesn't support 64-bit clients, anyway, though this new Win7 feature is apparently based on the upcoming version of VPC, and that might change.
Even so, x64 XP was a relatively rare animal. I doubt Microsoft would be using it if their goal is to actually IMPROVE legacy compatibility.
Wow, this may be one of Microsoft's best decisions in years! I definitely look forward to Windows 7, as just more and more quality features are added, seamlessly integrating the best from Vista, the best from XP, and many new innovations. When I first saw this though, I admit I kind of wondered why they chose to use XP in a virtual machine over Vista. Microsoft will probably explain this by noting the similarity between the Vista and 7 operating system environments and that Windows 7 will be overall compatible with most all Vista applications. However, we really know that they chose to use XP because it is probably their most viable and secure operating system to date, praised by consumers and professionals alike, and isn't bogged down, hogging resources, lowering computer potential, causing errors and computer problems, or booting up too slowly... it is about as close as Microsoft has come to "just working." There are a good many exciting features in Vista that are not out-of-the-box available with XP, but there are probably more repeat/useless applications than useful ones. For example, Windows Sidebar, Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery, etc. are all useful applications in Vista, but Windows Calendar, Windows Contacts, Windows Defender...the list goes on... are all pretty much just taking up space, as the majority of customers either have no general use for these applications or has already found a preference for an equivalent application. That is why it's so great that in both XP and 7, many of the nonessential apps are being/have been left out of the OS and similar applications (often better) are there, but in "available for download" form from Microsoft's website (i.e. Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery...) if you so decide that you want them. Of course, if there isn't some particular app available for download from MS, you can bet there will be an equivalent from some other company that will probably be better (i.e. Google Gadgets or Yahoo! Widgets in XP, since Sidebar is unavailable).
As far as the "resource hog" thing in Vista goes, I pretty much got mad at how slow it made my new computer seem at times, as well as when an application would screw up and open in a Classic style format, obviously pointing out that Vista's graphical design (aero, etc.) was just an overlay that was hogging my resources. I started to envy XP a little and decided to revert to the Windows Classic theme (under Personalize), which is no Luna, of course, but pretty well illustrates the user interface of Windows XP Professional, like on the desktops at school (perhaps they're also in Classic mode, or maybe it comes like that? not sure). Regardless, it has significantly inproved performance, although it appears that it had little effect on start-up time. :(
But, wow do I ever digress, I look forward to this feature in 7. :)
improved**
Can't remeber if its still there in Vista, but try disabling the "Themes" service. It forces it to use Classic.
Also have a look through the other services, set to manual those that aren't required at startup.
Same for 3rd party apps, if its not essential dont load it at startup.