Will obscure xindows XP software work on 7?

I'm getting a new laptop, and I should probably stop downgrading to XP and give windows 7 a crack, but I have a lot of obscure, specialized, older software (and games) that doesn't get updated. Will I be able to simply install them in windows seven and expect it to work? Like, if the software was designed to run on XP, and built before even vista existed, will it still run on windows 7?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

There's no guarantee, but the compatibility modes in Vista and 7 work very well. Also, if you opt for Windows 7 Professional, you can always run XP Mode.

 

I'd say in general, most will. The biggest issue with compatibility is usually drivers, if you need to use an older device with your computer. Software compatibility, like Lithus mentioned, is pretty good.

 

Also.. if the program is 16bit, it'll not run in 64bit windows 7 natively

 

Games that require any kind of 3d acceleration will not work in xp-mode.

Really, what you need to do is find people who have the software and have tried it, or find someone with a computer and test it.

 

I have seen reports that Sun's VirtualBox does support 3D when hosted on a Win7 machine. I have not tried it myself, but it might be worth investigating.

Gary

 

It works perfectly, and I think MS's Virtual PC software might support 3D.

 

Since Virtual PC and XP Mode use the same core software, I doubt it does. I was pretty stunned when an old game that didn't really use 3d graphics in any appreciable way wouldn't run in XP Mode

 

Chances are those games run in Virtualbox

 

To my knowledge, Virtual PC does not support 3D graphics acceleration. As for XP Mode, that is just a specialized installation of XP put into a specialized version of Virtual PC that is available as an optional install on Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate.

 

Actually the 3D acceleration is available on Windows and Linux hosts for Windows and Linux guests. So you can have 3D acceleration for games & Aero inside your Windows Vista guest running on your Ubuntu host, for instance.

Here is a slightly out-of-date tutorial, still applicable for v3.0: http://maketecheasier.com/enable-3d-acceleration-in-virtualbox/2009/05/21

3D acceleration is also available in vmware's VMware Player. http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_vidsound_d3d_enabling_vm.html

As noted, 3D acceleration is not available in Microsoft's VM product.

Close, but not quite right: XP Mode is a free, fully licensed copy of Windows XP in a VHD provided by Microsoft included as part of the premium price for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. The VHD runs inside Windows Virtual PC which is also free and runs on other editions of Windows 7.

If you have your own copy of Windows XP, you can roll your own XP Mode. This is especially useful on editions of Windows 7 which are not eligible to download the XP Mode VHD from Microsoft **cough**Home Premium** cough**. You do still need to have a processor with hardware virtualization enabled.

1) Download Windows Virtual PC from here.
2) Install Virtual PC.
3) Create a new virtual machine.
4) Install your copy of XP in the virtual machine.
5) Enable the integration features.

Viola - you have XP Mode, with the cool Auto Publishing features of XP Mode and seamless window integration.

--L.

 

Just installed windows XP mode under Win 7 Pro. I was wondering if any of you experienced a problem while installing a software inside virtual win XP?
I was installing Xilinx ISE, a hardware design software, and if I resize the Windows XP Mode, the installation process window just vanishes. Is it one of this mode flaws?

 

While I don't use XP Mode all that often, I haven't noticed the behavior you are describing. I used VirtualBox for about 3 years prior to XP Mode, and VirtualBox does allow dynamic resizing of the guest desktop via the host's window manager. I assume VirtualPC (the virtualization engine of XP Mode) is the same, though I have not personally tested to confirm. It's possible it could be an artifact of the RDP stream handling the remote session, but that's a pretty robust protocol that's been around a while so that seems unlikely. (Try moving the mouse around in the VM to force a repoll on the missing window - it's a long shot).

If you let the installation process finish, do you still have the problem with the installed software? If the answer is no, I'd just leave the VM window alone until you finish installing the software inside the VM.

--L.

 

Thanks for replying. Need to do some testing a bit more. But the seamless feature seems fine.

 

By the way, has anybody figured out a way to stop the XP Mode VM directly from seamless mode? Doesn't seem like MS provided a way to shut it down or hibernate it from Windows 7.

 

The biggest problem with running obscure XP games in Vista/Win7 is Directsound problems. Vista/Win7 does not have Directsound - it tries to give a level of support for this as a WASAPI session, but it can be hit-and-miss, especially on the more obscure games.

3D Soundback or Creative Alchemy, for Realtek or Creative soundcard users respectively, can fix this. It fixes many poorly programmed console ports, like Metal Gear Solid 2.

It's worth sticking with Windows 7 and seeing how you go, trying the above solution as well as other suggestions (such as VirtualBox) if you encounter problems.

 

I think just simply close the application.

 

awan2009 is correct. Closing the app window will cause the VM to hibernate. Restarting the XP Mode application or starting any other XP Mode application should be near native speed. A full shutdown (or restart) of the Windows 7 host will shutdown the VM, making it necessary to restart the VM the next time you launch a XP Mode application creating that initial application start up delay.

I haven't tried this, but you may be able to issue a full shutdown via cmd.exe inside the VM. Execute shutdown /s /f to shutdown, force quitting any running applications.

--L.

 

Hmmm intriguing, do you know if it runs Glide and 3Dfx games well?

 

I don't believe so. I'm fairly certain VirtualBox 3D acceleration only supports OpenGL and Direct3D. You might try asking about 3Dfx at the VirtualBox forums for a more thorough answer.

--L.

 

To shutdown the winXP in VirtualPC environment, you can click ctrl+alt+del and then choose shut down.

 

So in other words, short of terminating the process from Windows 7's task manager or shutting down the host, there is no way to close the VM directly from seamless mode because you always have to open the Virtual PC environment again first?

Seamless mode closes the Virtual PC window, so as far as I'm aware you can't further close that window to directly close the VM and send it into hibernation.

 

From the Virtual PC help file:

Learn something new everyday. I didn't know about the CTRL+ALT+END shortcut.

--L.

 

Hi Guys,
I just experienced slow performance when running an application with Windows XP mode-seamless mode. I used to run the application under win 7 and it run faster than this, but incompatibility of some features of that application with Win 7 lead me to use Windows XP mode. I set up memory to be 2048 MB and I have 4GB DDR3 with Intel i7 720QM.
Any ideas what caused this?

 

Thanks, that's precisely what I was looking for.

Well, first of all, there's all sorts of overhead associated with virtualization, and then there's the fact that Virtual PC only uses 1 core, and there's also the problem of Virtual PC having no control over host CPU scheduling, and then there's...

As you can see, for a variety of reasons, virtualized programs will never run at full speed. A hypervisor as primitive as the one in Virtual PC won't even get close, so try to avoid running resource-intensive programs in XP Mode.

Oh, if you must have full speed, your only option is to double boot.

 

just figured it out. Closing an application in seamless mode does not reduce the memory usage, well, at least it is what I experienced so far. maybe anyone has other thought?

Thanks for the opinion.
I have found the problem here.
http://www.sevenforums.com/virtualization/21575-xp-mode-slow-any-way-improve.html

fixed it by not accessing/using remote files (located at Win 7). I copied all necessary files that are used by the application into local my documents (win XP). Now the application performance is okay.