Using Windows 7’s XP Mode — step by step

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	TOP STORY Using Windows 7’s XP Mode — step by step
	By Fred Langa Looking for a sure-fire way to keep your oldest Windows applications alive while living in a Windows 7 world? You’ll find it with Win7’s XP Mode, a free and fully functional version of XP Professional SP3 that runs entirely inside Windows 7.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/using-Windows-7s-xp-mode-step-by-step/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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Is the virtualised XP Pro SP3 a 32 bit version? I have a Win 7 Professional x64 and would like to run XP mode. Will that XP, in the 64 bit system, be a 32 bit version and will it still run 16 bit applications. Yes, I have one from about 1993 which still runs OK, without any compatibility modes, on any modern 32 bit OS and I have not yet found a decent replacement. It did not even need updating for Y2K and it is a calendar application. It worked OK.

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Yes it is 32 bit, and yes regular WOW will let some 16 apps run. Test carefully, Some 16 bit apps will crash the system if they try to directly control hardware! I recommend NEVER trying to run a 16 bit app as a virtualized window app. Being able to get access in the xpmode box is surprising enough.

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Yes it is 32 bit, and yes regular WOW will let some 16 apps run. Test carefully, Some 16 bit apps will crash the system if they try to directly control hardware! I recommend NEVER trying to run a 16 bit app as a virtualized window app.

what is “regular WOW”?

Being able to get access in the xpmode box is surprising enough.

not sure what you mean here

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Looks like an excellent article on the virtual OS approach that has been the only recommendation I have been given so far for a way to continue using NetMeeting. I need NetMeeting to interact with all the other folks at my company that are stuck with XP & NetMeeting until the next year or so when hopefully the IT deparment will finally upgrade us all to Win7. However, I only have Win7 Home Premium and loading a complete virtual OS just to get NetMeeting running seems like massive overkill / complexity. Does anyone know of a Win7 compatible version of NetMeeting or a similar program that will interoperate with other NetMeeting users? Thanks

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It’s worth mentioning that the massive vhd file gets changed every time you run the virtual machine. It might be an insignificant change, but it’s a change, and your backup software is likely to notice it and try to back up the “new” version. That’s time-consuming, and thrashes your drives pretty hard, and if it’s also saving “old” versions, you’ll run out of disk space in a hurry. Be sure you set your backup program to ignore the vhd file, or to back it up only rarely.

You will want to back it up, by the way … if the vhd file gets corrupted, it’s the equivalent of a hard drive crash as far as XP is concerned. Without a backup, you’ll have to go back to square 1, downloading and installing XP, and all the installed applications, all over again.

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1 – XPmode has two VHD files, the 1st is the base XP-SP3 installation and it should not change, the 2nd is a difference disk for the applications and patches you install.
2 – XPmode is specific to the person logged in – stored information in the c:userswhomever… If you have multiple people logging into a machine i.e. a typical office, Then modify the install to be in a shared directory like c:xpmode for the base VHD and c:xpmodeshared for the ‘Differencing VHD’. BE SURE to write down the user password for xpmuser so you can have the integration feature for users 2, 3, etc.
3 – After installing all your applications as the first user. logon as the 2nd and goto Virtual PC in the menu. Note that the work you just did is not there so create a new virtual PC (.vmc file) and edit same to point at that shared VHD. Bingo you have access to the virtual PC with all your applications.
4 – If you forgot to write down the password or want to change it, use the F8 safe mode login as ‘Administrator’ trick.

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Couple of years ago I bought an HP computer that was a Windows 7 downgraded to XP. Is this the same thing?

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Couple of years ago I bought an HP computer that was a Windows 7 downgraded to XP. Is this the same thing?

No. XP Mode only works from within Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions, as a virtual pc. The HP computer you purchased arrived with Windows XP installed rather than Windows 7.

Give the article another read to clarify.

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You say “Note: XP Mode won’t help keep older, Win7-incompatible hardware working.”
However, I installed XP Mode primarily to run an old H-P scanner that had no Win7/64-bit drivers available — I wasn’t able to install the H-P scanner/OCR software in Win7 using any number of tricks. With the WinXP mode, I was able to get it working — I now bring up the VM, mount the USB-connected scanner, and run the old software provided by H-P, as well as Acrobat (for scanning to PDFs).

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Fred Langa’s article claimed that ” For those versions, or in any case where Microsoft’s XP Mode doesn’t work, there are other alternatives I’ll discuss at the end of this article.”. I can’t find alternatives discussed at all – I think he forgot.

I have Windows 7 x64 home premium, which doesn’t have an XP mode option. It would need a rather expensive upgrade to get that, and I’m unwilling to pay out without considerable confidence that the software, and printer drivers, that I used to be able to use will again be available. It might be cheaper just to buy another printer.

In any case, it would be nice for Fred Langa to cover these other options, since my guess is that the vast majority of users have Win 7 Home Premium, so his article will not have been much use to them.

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Fred Langa’s article claimed that ” For those versions, or in any case where Microsoft’s XP Mode doesn’t work, there are other alternatives I’ll discuss at the end of this article.”. I can’t find alternatives discussed at all – I think he forgot.

He did give links to VMware and Virtual box. But there is even a free *Microsoft* alternative – Virtual PC 2007. Works fine in Windows 7 Home Premium, though you do get a warning about it not being supported when installing.

All three of the above give one a Virtual PC in which XP or other OS can been installed. They do *not* include the Windows XP installation! – you have to supply that yourself. (An advantage of XP Mode in W7 Pro is that a virtual XP, installed and pre-activated, is included.) If you have a Windows XP boot disk that can be activated you can certainly roll your own.

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Hi Fred and All:

Well, after failing to get XP-Mode to support my old, old PrintShop Deluxe (which runs great on my XP machine, but not on Win7 — to no surprise), I finally gave up and tried VirtualBox (see my Thread: “Print Shop Deluxe install fails in XP Mode“). To my delight, PSD installed and runs fine. But, it was a real challenge to get VirtualBox installed, with WinXP, and now I cannot update to any XP service pack. WinXP Service Pack 0 (none) installs fine, and activates fine over the internet, but no matter what settings I tweak on VirtualBox, it locks up or exits before successfully completing the install of ANY XP service packs. And, if it fails in the middle, one has to start over from scratch. No way to re-run just using the extracted files. I did manage to get a little further on one try by using the mouse to continuously move the VB window around the screen while the SP was running (thinking that maybe it was timing out on inactivity in the VBox window), but it still failed; just later in the process… These are all using TechNet downloaded ISO files burned to CDs, which are legal for me, and have been validated. I even uninstalled VirtualBox and reinstalled it (after re-boot) and reinstalled WinXP, to no avail. I have tried applying either 1A or 2 (which should work bypassing SP1A) — can’t do SP3 without at least 1A installed. And I can’t access Windows Update to get any of the other expected o/s updates until I get SP3 installed. Catch 22 x 22 x 22…!

The service packs seem to start out just fine, extracting their contents to the hard drive, but fail generally at the point where the extracted files are being applied. My PC is a Gigabyte m/b with AMD Phenom Core-6, 8 GB of ram, with 500-GB & 2-TB SATA drives, using the built-in interface and Gigabyte drivers. All the Win7-64-bit functionality works just fine, and all m/b and drive diagnostics I have run pass with no issues. I have not overclocked the CPU. VirtualBox seems to recognize the ram, cpu and drives just fine, and can access the internet (although I have yet to get a network printer to install correctly — a minor issue). The VirtualBox partition is just 10GB so I shouldn’t be running into any issues with partition size, either. And, this is the latest download of VirtualBox (v.4.1.4).

Haven’t seen anything like this on the Oracle (OTN) forums, so I’m not sure what else to try. Any ideas? Fred: Have you done much with VirtualBox?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. TIA.

Rob

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Where there’s a will, there’s a way to port to Win7 HP. One has to have a friend or somebody with a system with at least W7 Pro so XP mode qualifies, then the favor is to install XP mode there, then install VMWare Player, another virutal machine program. That has an option to import XP mode into VMWare Player; I’ve done it several times and it works very well. Once that’s done, the virtual machine folder maintained by VMWare Player is easy to copy and move anywhere and run on any compatible system also running VMWare Player, which of course, includes W7 HP.

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From my perspective, XP is getting very difficult to aquire so getting it via XP mode is like the last excellent renewable resource left…my guess is it won’t be included in Win8.

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One Way to Get Around a Locked-up XP Mode

Perhaps this tip will prevent other folks from having to solve a recurring problem I encounter. I use XP Mode to run an old copy of Adobe Photoshop. Occasionally Photoshop hangs the machine. No clicks work, including clicking the Ctrl-Alt-Del menu item in an attempt to bring up the XP task manager. I have to use Ctrl-Alt-Del on the keyboard to run Windows 7 task manager in order to end the XP Mode task.

When XP Mode is ended that way it hibernates. The next time I run XP Mode, even after a Windows 7 reboot, XP Mode reloads the frozen state and can’t be used. Deleting the file “Windows XP Mode.vsv” solves the problem and allows XP Mode to run normally again. On my system the file is here:

C:UsersAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindows Virtual PCVirtual MachinesWindows XP Mode.vsv

Also, if you want to end XP Mode rather than hibernate it, you can do so by pressing Ctrl-Alt-End and then selecting “Shut Down”.

Jon

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That’s a good tip, none of the VM programs cover what to do in the case of unexpected shutdown…I’ve forgotten a time or two that I had the VM running on a remote system in which I was shutting down/rebooting the host and subsequently the VM won’t run and the error code is vague. Turns out in VMWare there’s a similar procedure, to delete all files in the affected VM folder with the .lck extension.
I mention VMWare Player in this case since if I do install XP Mode, I usually import it to VMWare right away since the containing folder and its integration into other systems is more straight forward, dependable and versatile than XP Mode itself…still needs a .lckectomy to get it going again sometimes though.

BTW, how old is the version of PS? I have 7 and it works on W7 no problems…pretty old but not super old.

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BTW, how old is the version of PS? I have 7 and it works on W7 no problems…pretty old but not super old.

Super old. Version 4.0, 1996 I think.

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With very few exceptions, the VM should run and behave just like a regular install.
I guess I don’t understand what you’re getting from TechNet, just the SP packs and you have a very old copy of XP on disc? Or you can only get the original XP from TechNet?

Anyway, perhaps there is something about the version being too old or perhaps not, but I would seek alternative versions that would obviate at least that possibility. To do that either update your XP SP0 to at least SP 2 via slipstreaming, or Paragon’s GoVirtual program can be used on another install of XP to virtualize it so you can use it as a VM also. And finally, it may have been mentioned before and you don’t qualify but you get a free copy of XP virtual if you have W7 Pro or higher installed.

Also in VMWare Player there is a set of tools that once installed, helps the VM perform much better, graphically (1920x1200x32, no problem) and such; if VirtualBox has something like that its a good idea to get them installed first.

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Thanx, Infinicore. To clarify: the versions of WinXP on Technet only have the original WinXP, then all the service packs to update it. I do have Win7-Pro, but haven’t looked for XP Virtual, as I have unused copies of XP available.

Actually, between the time of my posting and your reply, I did try using a previously slipstreamed WinXP OEM SP3 with an unused key in a repair-in-place attempt, but even though it shows SP3 in the MyComputer Properties display, it doesn’t seem to act like it, and now I’ve run into a problem that apparently sometimes happens when you do a repair-in-place whacking out one of the DLLs needed for Windows Update. And neither the manual fix nor MS FixIt will correct the problem. Its getting too late to do any more on it tonight, so what I’ll plan to try is to use that slip-streamed WinXP CD in a fresh install and hope THAT works. I’ll post my results when I get back to it.

Thanx again for your suggestion.

Rob

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Hi All:

Well, I prepared the slipstreamed TechNet WinXP Pro to SP3 CD, but as it turned out when I fired up VirtualBox with the existing WinXP OEM SP3, it started to receive Windows Updates automatically, so I didn’t need to nuke the setup after all. Unfortunately, I still am often getting the “VirtualBox has stopped” messages, so it took about 6 re-boots of the VirtualBox to finally complete installing all 75-plus updates still outstanding. Fortunately, each time it picked up where it had been interrupted. So, I’ll need to look into that further, but at least I have a working setup and all the latest patches and virus s/w set up.

Thanx to all for your suggestions and comments.

Rob

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Hi All:

Well, I decided to try creating another virtual machine, using the slip-streamed WinXP-Sp3 install CD, using TechNet files. What a difference! Not only did the install go without a hitch, but the whole rest of the WindowsUpdate run of over 100 patches ran with no failures. So, I guess the message here is that VirtualBox only like Sp3 if WinXP is what you want to use as a virtual machine. Wish I’d done it this way in the first place.

Thanx again to all for your suggestions. Best wishes.

Rob

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