Win 7's XP Mode

[MadImmortalMan]

Awesome. It's a free virtual machine to run XP inside your Win7 box.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

[Alatriste]

This I have to try. I have used Windows 7 only for a month and I'm already fed up with the number of old games that have problems with the new OS.

[DontSayBanana]

Quick note, just in case: only Professional and Ultimate users can use XP Mode.

[viper37]

And I was told it doesn't work with games...

[DontSayBanana]

And I was told it doesn't work with games...

What XP games aren't working with 7?  XP compatibility mode seems to work well enough, and DosBox fills the gap left by no DOS emulation left in the kernel; the only thing we seem to be losing out on is 16-bit support, and that had even been dropped by XP...

[Josquius]

How much less powerful does your computer count as being?
I mean...if you're running it emulated a lot of effort will go into doing that  right?

[DontSayBanana]

How much less powerful does your computer count as being?
I mean...if you're running it emulated a lot of effort will go into doing that  right?

Depends at what level the emulation's being done, and how much of the total operations delegated to the native system.  If you can get something passed through to the operating system as opcode, that runs faster than having to mimic it with additional code in the emulator.  Considering the similarities in functionality between Windows XP and Windows 7, I would imagine a lot can be passed through in opcode, so not that much of a performance hit.

When you think of video game console emulators, usually the problem that bogs things down is that they use both custom graphics and audio processors.  Remember the problem of using "software" renderers on PC games?  Video game emulators have got problems with that for nearly every subsystem.

[derspiess]

How much less powerful does your computer count as being?
I mean...if you're running it emulated a lot of effort will go into doing that  right?

Supposedly the processor required to do "XP mode" has some virtualization function built-in that minimizes the amount of system resources that are leeched. 

I will probably play around with this on my next system build (to which I'll move my Win7 Ultimate license).  Has anyone tried this yet?  Do you need to cough up an XP license to use it, or is that part covered by your Win7 license?

[MadImmortalMan]

Don't need an extra license. It's a freebie.

[viper37]

What XP games aren't working with 7? 

Any game not working with Vista.
Kotor I&II from the original CD won't work, IIRC, without some modification.
And I think the other one is SW Empire, for wich there is nothing to do to make it work.
Dawn of War doesn't work either, unless your re-buy it.

[DontSayBanana]

What XP games aren't working with 7? 

Any game not working with Vista.
Kotor I&II from the original CD won't work, IIRC, without some modification.
And I think the other one is SW Empire, for wich there is nothing to do to make it work.
Dawn of War doesn't work either, unless your re-buy it.

Ah.  True.

KOTOR/TSL don't work without mod; I had to get them up and running here.  The obnoxious part is that the fix is only about 250kB; Bioware could easily have patched it if they had felt the inclination.  Not familiar with the other two games you mentioned.