One last improvement that I want to show you is shown in Figure H. Figure G shows an example of a warning message to this effect.įigure G: USB devices are used exclusively by a single operating system If you choose to use a USB device within a guest operating system, the host operating system will not have access to the device until you release it. I should mention that Windows 7 requires that an operating system have exclusive control over a USB device. WINDOWS XP MODE WINDOWS 7 OPENING PROGRAMS FROM DESKTOP DRIVEROf course the virtual machine does require a driver for the USB device.įigure F: Virtual PC now supports USB devices If you look at Figure F, you can see that you can gain access to a USB device simply by selecting the device from Virtual PC’s USB menu. This limitation does not just apply to Virtual PC, but it exists in Microsoft’s Virtual Server and Hyper-V as well. Obviously, this is not an earth shattering change, but it is handy nonetheless, so I wanted to at least mention it.Ī much more significant improvement is that Virtual PC now supports USB device access for guest operating systems! I for one, have always found it extremely frustrating that I have not been able to access USB devices from within my virtual machines. First, the latest version of Virtual PC features a Control Alt Delete icon that you can use to issue a Ctrl + Alt + Delete request to the guest operating system without having to go through any menus. If you took more than a casual glance at Figure A, you probably noticed two of the improvements right off the bat. That being the case, I think that it makes sense to wrap things up by showing you some of the improvements that Microsoft has made in this latest version of Virtual PC. As with previous versions of Virtual PC, you are not just limited to running Windows XP. By default, the Windows XP virtual machine consumes 256 MB of RAM, but the RAM and other system resources that are used by the virtual machine are adjustable.Īs I stated earlier, Windows XP Mode consists of a copy of Windows XP running inside of Microsoft’s latest version of Virtual PC. I know that some of you are probably wondering about system resource consumption. In fact, you would be hard pressed to tell that the application shown in Figure E was a virtual application.įigure E: This is what it looks like when you run a virtual application in Windows 7 Virtualized applications take a bit longer to load than applications that are installed natively through Windows 7 do, but aside from that, there is not much of a difference between running a native application and running a virtual application. If you look at Figure E, you can see that I have closed my Windows XP virtual machine, and that I am running my virtualized application through Windows 7. As you can see in the figure, you have a choice of either opening the virtual machine or running the virtualized application.įigure D: The Windows XP virtual machine must be closed before you can run virtualized applications through the Windows 7 GUI If you fail to log off, you will receive a message similar to the one that’s shown in Figure D. One thing that you need to know about running the Windows XP applications through the Windows 7 GUI is that you can only do so if you have logged out of the Windows XP GUI, and closed the virtual machine. An icon for this application appears on the Windows XP desktop. As you can see in the figure, I have installed a legacy application called PentaZip into the Windows XP virtual machine. To show you how this works, take a look at Figure B. I placed two icons onto the Windows 7 desktop for my screen capture program, but everything else that you see is what Windows XP Mode will look like after a fresh installation.įigure A: This is what the Windows XP virtual machine looks likeĪs I explained in the first part of this article series, the most significant aspect of Windows XP mode is that it allows you to run applications that were designed for Windows XP, either through the Windows XP GUI, or through the Windows 7 GUI. In case you are wondering, what you see in the figure is a default configuration. If you look at Figure A, you can see the Windows XP virtual machine running on top of the Windows 7 desktop. I never really showed you what it was like to use Windows XP Mode though, so I wanted to give you a little tour. In my first article, I explained that in its simplest form, Windows XP Mode was nothing more than a fully licensed copy of Windows XP running within the latest version of Microsoft’s Virtual PC.
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