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Filed under: Windows, Microsoft

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 Release Candidate available

Windows XP Mode
Microsoft has announced the a Release Candidate of their Windows XP Mode package for Windows 7. We've mentioned Windows XP mode here once or twice before, but now it's a little closer to being ready for public consumption.

Built using Microsoft's Virtual PC product, Windows XP Mode actually runs a copy of Windows XP inside your Windows 7 installation. You can install older programs on the Windows XP virtual machine, allowing them to run in a more familiar environment. This is great for older games or programs that aren't yet compatible with Windows 7. Also, Windows XP Mode has new integration features that allow you to interact with the Windows XP system and applications more seamlessly than other virtualization packages provide.

The major potential downside to Windows XP Mode and the latest release candidate of Virtual PC is that they require your processor to support hardware virtualization to run. This means that, while Windows 7's performance enhancements will allow you to get the most out of older computers, processors that are more than a few years old won't be able to run Windows XP Mode. Microsoft provides a helpful page with instructions to determine whether your computer supports hardware virtualization, and in turn, whether you'll be able to run that old game from the MS-DOS days on your Windows 7 machine.

More details and changes from the last beta version of Windows XP Mode are available on the Windows 7 Team Blog.

Filed under: Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft releases free Windows XP Virtual PC images

Virtual PCMicrosoft has released two new Virtual PC images featuring Windows XP SP 2. One includes Internet Explorer 7, and the other has Internet Explorer 6.

The images should come in handy for anyone running Windows Vista who wants to see how their web page look in Internet Explorer under Windows XP. Of course, you could also run the disc image inside of Virtual PC if you want to try installing new software without risking any damage to your host operating system.

The disc images are under 500MB and expire on August 17th, 2007. The images are pre-activated, and include no product keys, so you can't grab a key from these images and use it to activate a full version of Windows XP.

These images will not work under Virtual PC for Mac.

[via CyberNotes]

Filed under: News, Windows, Macintosh, Apple, Microsoft

Virtualization: The OS cold war

MicrosoftVirtualization software, allowing you to simulate a "computer within a computer", is increasingly becoming a tricky subject. With products like Parallels Desktop, VMWare and Microsoft's Virtual PC allowing you to, in a way, mix and match operating systems, the licenses behind those operating systems are becoming more complicated and restrictive. Microsoft, for example, doesn't allow low-rent versions of Vista (Vista Basic, or Vista Home Premium) to be used within a virtual environment; If you want that privilege you'll need to cough up some extra dough for Vista Ultimate, Vista Business or Vista Enterprise. Not to be outdone, Apple doesn't allow OS X in a virtual environment at all, ever; Not on Apple hardware or anyone else's.

These kinds of license restrictions might have been understandable just a few years ago. Desktop virtualization was relatively new and, Apple's computers didn't have Intel processors. The world was a strange and different place. However, today all sorts of people run Windows on a Mac in a virtual environment, not just the ubërgeeks. So why has Microsoft decided to decree from on high that, if you want to run Windows in a window, you'll need to fork over extra dough?

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Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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