XP Mode.. AnY BENEFIT at all?!


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I spent all morning hacking my Sony BIOS by modifying it in DOS to enable hardware virtualization, and now XP Mode runs, but its so slow. Is this how virtualization works? I have quad boot Win 7100 (64bit) WinXP (32Bit) Ubuntu (64bit) and Mac OS X Hackintosh 10.5.6. The virtualization take forever to boot, and I have a fast system. After a few restarts, it seems to be smoother, but why is it configured with 256 available RAM. I have 3GB physical RAM so should I give it at least 1GB? What other tweeks to make it faster and useable? The graphics redraws are so damn slow, worse than when running my nvidia on safe mode graphics. Geez, should I just wipe out the whole thing and keep my XP partition and boot it in there? I find it more convenient to run it that way. Any info appreciated. And the reason I thought virtualization was a good idea because my 64-bit Win 7 doesn't have 64 bit Windows drivers for the webcam, thats why I boot into XP partition still, to enable my webcam, but it seems like in the virtualized windows it only uses the Win7 drivers already on there as a mirror of all the ones available in the virtualized WinXP. Correct me if I'm wrong, thanks!

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The virtual machine is fine for me, but it isn't really a replacement for an actual Windows XP partition if you regularly use and need it. The virtual machine emulates certain hardware (S3 Trio Video Card, for example) that may make it feel slow compared with a native OS. Apparently you can change the available memory, but I've not been able to do this yet. I also believe the Windows XP image from Microsoft is the 32-bit version, which will help compatibility. Not really played around with it enough, but you may need to download more drivers (it downloaded quite a few updates after first installing, including Internet Explorer 8).

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Windows Virtual PC also uses the RDP protocol which I'm sure has a lot to do with how responsive the VM is. If anything, I've found the performance to be worse than what VPC 2k7 was (not to mention the video is rendered in 16-bit colors). Hopefully they'll improve it by the time it's released.

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It's free. That's the real benefit. I need a VM that's responsive and works how I want it. XPM fails on both counts. I was a VPC user since v3 but when I tried Virtualbox that was the end of VPC for me.

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The benefit is that companies can use it for compatibility reasons. It's not so you can run games at 100000 FPS.

The anit-benefit is that it require a lot more recourses than XP.

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The benefit is that companies can use it for compatibility reasons. It's not so you can run games at 100000 FPS.

I was planning to use this to run old games. Are you saying that would be not possible?

Games like Deus Ex and system Shock 2

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It's only of benefit if you have software that runs on XP and not Windows 7, not sure there's a whole lot of generally available software out there.

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I was planning to use this to run old games. Are you saying that would be not possible?

Games like Deus Ex and system Shock 2

Are they not compatible with windows 7??

A separate install of XP would run them much faster than using a virtual machine in windows 7(if they run at all).

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I installed it and ran it a few times. Mostly for curiosity's sake. Totally useless for me as I've yet to run across

any app that won't run on 7 RC. Nice to have for an emergency, I suppose. But otherwise, quite useless.

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Virtual mode doesn't have 3D capability, so no gaming would be possible. You could try Virtual box, but this will require you to own a legal copy of XP to install it.

Win7 should support most 3D games though...

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I was planning to use this to run old games. Are you saying that would be not possible?

Games like Deus Ex and system Shock 2

You can play Deus Ex without virtualization.

Also if people want speed then just go get Virtual PC 2007 SP1 which is also downloaded for free now.

Virtual mode doesn't have 3D capability, so no gaming would be possible. You could try Virtual box, but this will require you to own a legal copy of XP to install it.

Win7 should support most 3D games though...

That's not true, Virtual PC can directly use your Direct3D hardware to boost performance overall. not sure what Virtual XP allows you to do.

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tried the XP mode with all possible configs and 1GB memory on win 7100 RC x64, put it on a Ramdisk.

verdict= too slow and sluggish compared to win XP sp3 in Vmware with same config. Cant use it as a sandbox as everything is shared by default, not user friendly - CPU usage up vs Vmware.

needs more work and refinement.

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The anit-benefit is that it require a lot more recourses than XP.

Are the increased resources that big of a loss? Computers today are shipping with 4+GB of RAM and the base CPU offering is leaps above what ever was on the table when XP dropped.

Not sure it matters it if uses 100MB more RAM than XP native or whatever...

tried the XP mode with all possible configs and 1GB memory on win 7100 RC x64, put it on a Ramdisk.

verdict= too slow and sluggish compared to win XP sp3 in Vmware with same config. Cant use it as a sandbox as everything is shared by default, not user friendly - CPU usage up vs Vmware.

needs more work and refinement.

That's why they call it BETA ;)

Also, people remember...

Allow business users to run legacy custom line-of-business (LOB) applications on future versions of Windows (thus simplifying their upgrade potential)

It is not designed for the average joe to use on a daily basis to run his games or whatever else you XP loyalists think it is good for.

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Are the increased resources that big of a loss? Computers today are shipping with 4+GB of RAM and the base CPU offering is leaps above what ever was on the table when XP dropped.

Not sure it matters it if uses 100MB more RAM than XP native or whatever...

That's why they call it BETA ;)

Also, people remember...

Allow business users to run legacy custom line-of-business (LOB) applications on future versions of Windows (thus simplifying their upgrade potential)

It is not designed for the average joe to use on a daily basis to run his games or whatever else you XP loyalists think it is good for.

No, this isn't a beta. This is the release candidate. There's probably going to be little change in terms of performance between now and the time it's released.

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Used it yesterday whe ni couldnt find any 64 Bit drivers for a scanner at work

was perfect no hastle solution to a problem, i forsee much use from this :)

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No, this isn't a beta. This is the release candidate. There's probably going to be little change in terms of performance between now and the time it's released.

XP mode is still beta. I find it sad+funny that people are expecting XPM to work like magic. Realise this - It is just virtualization under the hood, it is not going to perform any different. If your programs work in 7, don't bother with XPM.

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It won't be much useful for individual users, because of the need of extra maintenance/tuning work and bad graphics performance. The only use I could think of is for deprecated non-game applications, really old devices(printers, scanners etc.), and for third-party activex controls that are not compatible with vista or ie7/8(*ahem* like some online banks in China).

However for SOME business environment it could be very useful in the migration path to Windows 7 for your local department. For example, your department just bought some nice desktop pcs for the developers and visual designers, and for many usablity/performance/eye-candy reasons out there you geeks would never want to downgrade to xp, but somehow your company got some reporting/statistics/messenging programs which were incompatible with vista/win7, then virtual xp is for you, period.

As for large corporation, I would assume that they will wait until all the softwares/hardwares are vista-capable before migrating to Windows 7, since anyone with some IT experience can imagine the maintenance nightmare they could be running into with this virtual xp solution......

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Hmm Im with Uncle Spellbinder on this one.

Installed it for fun but seriously I havent run across any of the software we use here at work that wont run in Windows 7.

For the most part my experience is exactly the same except I have a nice fancy new GUI compared to everyone else in the department.

Now if they would only upgrade our damn ADC to Windows 2003 already so I could get my domain policies applied when I log in!!

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As I stated in another thread, I was quite happy with it and the options Microsoft is overall giving us. Using XP Mode, I can install the driver for my wireless USB adapter. Problem is, the internet connection created within XPM doesn't go outside the walls of the virtual machine. That is, I can't use the internet connection on Windows 7.

If anyone here works for 2wire, tell them I said "Hurry!"

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Tried playing Splinter Cell Choas Theory today. This program was designed to be launched under 95/98/me/200/xp errory.

XP Mode is 100 % junk!

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Tried playing Splinter Cell Choas Theory today. This program was designed to be launched under 95/98/me/200/xp errory.

XP Mode is 100 % junk!

XP Mode wasn't made for you. As many have said many times, XP Mode is for businesses who don't have compatible applications for Windows 7 but still want to make the transition. If you're at all serious about running games, you would NOT be running them in a virtual environment.

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On my system there is a slight hesitation opening up files and programs. The memory setting by default is 250MB I believe and since its beta those settings can't be adjusted. I could be wrong. I use to mess with VMware quite a bit running several OS including windows 98, Server 2008 and even a OS X 10.5 Leopard image which was fun. The difficult part for MS won't be selling this to the XP consumers who are considering buying 7 but implementing this on their computers if they don't know their PC's processor has virtualization capability. I don't believe this is required with VMware.

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How do you shut XPM down, that way you can change the memory from 256MB to something else...because it's hibernating and will not let you change the memory settings -- or any settings for that matter -- while it's running?!

EDIT: Nevermind, found it.

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