Microsoft have opened the beta for XP mode for Windows 7 to the general public. You can download the beta here, describing it as…
Windows Virtual PC provides the capability to run multiple Windows environments such as Windows XP Mode from your Windows 7 desktop
This new fetaure is an important step towards completely dropping all 16 and 32 bit legacy code from Windows, and thus, making making Windows smaller, quicker and less in need of patching. Thus, it’s a good idea and we should all be pitching in.
XP Mode will run on Windows 7 Professional and above and will run a full, licenced version of Windows XP in a virtual machine. The difference this time is that you can have ‘XP mode’ applications in your Windows 7 Start Menu and running along-side normal programs on your desktop.
Windows 7 already greatly improves program compatibility from Windows Vista and XP Mode is a great leap forward to plug any existing holes with at least 32 bit software. For anybody still using 16 bit software, is there any?, there’s the full free version of Virtual PC.
As a final note, it can’t be forgotten that this is the first time Microsoft has ever given away full free licensed versions of one of its operating systems.
