32-bit XP compatibility mode in 64-bit Windows7

[Cameo]

I'm thinking upgrading my 64-bit Win7 Home Premium to the Ultimate
version just so I could use the XP compatibility mode to run some
programs that cannot run on Win7, especially not in 64-bit mode. I
wonder if somebody here has experience with running 32-bit XP apps in
64-bit Windows7 "Xp compatibility" mode and what is involved in getting
there beside upgrading to Ultimate, of course.

 

[brkkab123]

You don't need to upgrade to Ultimate to get Windows XP Mode. Use Anytime Upgrade to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. Professional can download Virtual PC & XP Mode just like Ultimate can.
The only real advantages to wasting money on Windows 7 Ultimate is BitLocker, BitLocker To-Go and all the language packs. If you don't want or need any of those, go with Windows 7 Professional through Anytime Upgrade in the Start Menu. Just type ANYtime in the Start Menu's search box at the bottom.

I'm thinking upgrading my 64-bit Win7 Home Premium to the Ultimate
version just so I could use the XP compatibility mode to run some
programs that cannot run on Win7, especially not in 64-bit mode. I
wonder if somebody here has experience with running 32-bit XP apps in
64-bit Windows7 "Xp compatibility" mode and what is involved in getting
there beside upgrading to Ultimate, of course.

 

[KCB]

I'm thinking upgrading my 64-bit Win7 Home Premium to the Ultimate version
just so I could use the XP compatibility mode to run some programs that
cannot run on Win7, especially not in 64-bit mode. I wonder if somebody
here has experience with running 32-bit XP apps in 64-bit Windows7 "Xp
compatibility" mode and what is involved in getting there beside upgrading
to Ultimate, of course.

I don't think you need to upgrade for simple compatibility modes for any
Windows OS, back to Win95.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Make-older-programs-run-in-this-version-of-Windows

Do you mean XP mode on Windows Virtual PC? This is like having an XP
computer built-in to Windows 7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx

 

[bettablue]

I don't think you need to upgrade for simple compatibility modes for any
Windows OS, back to Win95.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Make-older-programs-run-in-this-version-of-Windows

Do you mean XP mode on Windows Virtual PC? This is like having an XP
computer built-in to Windows 7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx

If you are talking about Windows XP mode, you don't need Windows 7 Ultimate.
The minimum you will need though is Windows 7 Professional. By running in
XP mode you are not really running Windows XP over Windows 7, but you will
be running your older programs as though they were on XP. The instructions
are very easy and all it takes is to first, make sure you meet the minimum
system requirements, then download the Virtual PC and finally, XP mode
itself. Hope this helps.

You can find a lot more about Windows XP mode here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

You can download Windows XP mode here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

 

[brkkab123]

Exactly, Vitual PC/ XP Mode inside Windows 7. XP Mode is 32 bit. Just make sure to have over 4 gbs. of R.A.M. in your computer. Preferably 6 gbs. X.P. Mode and 7 will be running simultaneously and the more memory available to both the better.

You don't need to upgrade to Ultimate to get Windows XP Mode. Use Anytime Upgrade to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. Professional can download Virtual PC & XP Mode just like Ultimate can.
The only real advantages to wasting money on Windows 7 Ultimate is BitLocker, BitLocker To-Go and all the language packs. If you don't want or need any of those, go with Windows 7 Professional through Anytime Upgrade in the Start Menu. Just type ANYtime in the Start Menu's search box at the bottom.

 

[Cameo]

WRONG! You are running an actual, activated copy of XP Pro SP3 in a
virtual computer inside of Windows 7.

but you will

They are actually running in a real version of XP Pro SP3 OS.

The instructions

Downloading "XP Mode" is actually dl'ing a free, activated copy, of XP
Pro SP3.
I hope this helps to clear up this much misunderstood concept of XP
Virtual/Mode.

Hope this helps.

Yes, it helps but I still wonder if this is possible when the Windows 7
is 64-bit and I want to run 32-bit XP in it. None of you addressed this
question. As to getting the Ultimate version, I was just considering it
because of its HD encryption capability.

 

[Bob Hatch]

Yes, it helps but I still wonder if this is possible when the Windows 7
is 64-bit and I want to run 32-bit XP in it. None of you addressed this
question. As to getting the Ultimate version, I was just considering it
because of its HD encryption capability.

I run XP mode in my Win 7 Pro. I've installed a couple of programs to
test them for friends and they work. Will yours work, I dunno.

What programs are you trying to run?

--
"Never argue with an idiot, they will knock you
down to their level and beat you with experience."
Unknown

http://www.bobhatch.com
http://www.tdsrvresort.com

 

[Cameo]

Of course it is. In fact, I'm running two XP (32bit) in two Windows
7/64 bit.

Thanks. This is the answer I was waiting for. So after upgrading, what
are the steps to make my 64-bit Win7 Pro capable to run 32-bit Win Xp
apps? Do I need my original XP DVD for licensing?

 

[Joe Morris]

Yes, it helps but I still wonder if this is possible when the Windows 7 is
64-bit and I want to run 32-bit XP in it. None of you addressed this
question. As to getting the Ultimate version, I was just considering it
because of its HD encryption capability.

The "bitness" (what *is* the best word for that?) of a host and a virtual
machine don't have to be the same. I can run an environment with a 32-bit
host and a 64-bit client, or vice-versa, in addition to 32/32 and 64/64
pairings. 32-bit XP runs quite cheerfully on a 64-bit Windows 7 host,
modulo the performance hit of having two operating systems competing for the
same resources.

Since last August I've been using a 32-bit XP host to run functional and
compatibility tests of both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 RTM. It's not
perfect, and final phase tests are done on bare metal, but I have yet to
find any problems related to 32 vs. 64 bit clients. (I'm talking about
VMWare here, but my point is that there's nothing in virtual machine
concepts that requires host and client to have the same bus width.)

Some of my users made use of XP Mode in my POE's field test of 64win7: the
Cisco VPN client we use didn't originally work in a 64-bit environment, so
the users installed XP Mode, installed the Cisco client, and from there
talked to the corporate network via the VPN.

Nothing, of course, comes without cost. In the case of XP Mode you've got
an entire operating system that's running at the same time your apps in the
host are also consuming resources (memory especially unless you've started
adding memory beyond the 32-bit limitation of ~3.5 GB). Then you've now got
an additional system that you need to keep patched and protected from
malware.

It doesn't appear that the OP is in an enterprise environment; for users who
are there are additional problems with any VM environment (Virtual PC or
VMWare) such as the security configuration, domain membership, auditing, and
other related administrivia.

Joe Morris

 

[Cameo]

On 6/17/2010 5:06 PM, Cameo wrote:
All you need do is dl everything from Microsoft...the free virtual PC
software and the free, already activated, copy of XP Pro SP3 to run in
the virtual pc.
Good luck!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

Great! Thanks a million.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The "bitness" (what *is* the best word for that?) of a host and a virtual
machine don't have to be the same.

Data width.

Perhaps you could also say access width or data access width.

 

[Joe Morris]

Data width.

Perhaps you could also say access width or data access width.

But "data width" isn't catchy enough to provide the advertising types with a
cute name to make consumers think that they've been offered a magic bullet
that will solve all of the ills of the computer age. Besides, the Madison
Avenue types would abhor the idea of using a phrase that actually means
something.

And "data width" is but one of the characteristics measured by bit count; I
would argue that the more significant architectural metric is the address
bus width, where 64-bit systems have the ability to utilize more than the
(nominal) limit of 4 GB of physical memory. (64-bit operating systems don't
necessarily have the ability to use the entire 64 bit bus; Windows 7, for
example, can use up to 192 GB in the Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise
versions.)

Joe Morris

 

[Sir_George]

You asked a question and Gene provided an answer. Other than a "Thank You"
this post was unnecessary in my opinion.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You asked a question and Gene provided an answer. Other than a "Thank You"
this post was unnecessary in my opinion.

I was thinking pretty much the same thing

 

[Joe Morris]

I was thinking pretty much the same thing

Gene: since you seem to feel that my posting in response to your reply was
inappropriate, I'll apologize to you here.

I do hope, however, that you saw the first paragraph as a humorous comment
on the way that advertising for the latest-and-greatest techno-toys uses
techno-babble; that was behind my original question asking for the best word
for "bitness."

Your posting correctly pointed out that data width could be characterized as
"32-bit" or "64-bit"; I didn't disagree with that but pointed out in the
second paragraph that there are other attributes such as address bus width
which share the "32-bit" and "64-bit" characterization.

It's possible that we've got a terminology problem here. Did you use "data
access width" to mean the size of the address bus? I didn't, but if that's
the case I can see why you saw my reply as redundant.

Joe Morris

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Gene: since you seem to feel that my posting in response to your reply was
inappropriate, I'll apologize to you here.

I do hope, however, that you saw the first paragraph as a humorous comment
on the way that advertising for the latest-and-greatest techno-toys uses
techno-babble; that was behind my original question asking for the best word
for "bitness."

Your posting correctly pointed out that data width could be characterized as
"32-bit" or "64-bit"; I didn't disagree with that but pointed out in the
second paragraph that there are other attributes such as address bus width
which share the "32-bit" and "64-bit" characterization.

It's possible that we've got a terminology problem here. Did you use "data
access width" to mean the size of the address bus? I didn't, but if that's
the case I can see why you saw my reply as redundant.

Joe Morris

I guess we should just relax about this. No point any of us being upset or
worrying. Having said that, I'll now babble on about my reaction

All I originally meant to do was to answer the one question ["The 'bitness'
(what *is* the best word for that?)"] in a useful way, and my initial
reaction to your response was that you were raining on my (very small)
parade. That's why I agreed with Sir_George - his reply echoed that initial
reaction.

Of course, you are quite correct that the data path width and the address
bus width could be different, although I *believe*[1] that is uncommon at
best. For precision, we certainly could always use those two terms in their
respective appropriate contexts.

And looking again at your post, I now can see that your first paragraph is
indeed a bit of irony, satire, sarcasm, or sardonicism. Your choice - I
can't always distinguish those

[1] Yes, it's an act of faith, if not an auto da fe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_de_fé

 

[Joe Morris]

I guess we should just relax about this. No point any of us being upset or
worrying.

Agreed. If we ever meet, we can buy each other a beer. You aren't in the
DC area, by any chance?

Of course, you are quite correct that the data path width and the address
bus width could be different, although I *believe*[1] that is uncommon at
best. For precision, we certainly could always use those two terms in
their
respective appropriate contexts.

Not knowing your involvement in IT, I'll suggest that the misunderstanding
might come from where we got onto the computer bandwagon. My background was
(and still is) computer engineering; I've been in the field for almost 50
years (and have the missing hair and gray beard to prove it). In Ye Olde
Dayes a good programmer had to know a lot about the computer that would be
running a program he or she wrote; time-critical code paths were frequently
hand-tuned to squeeze a couple of CPU cycles out of the transit time, and
knowing how data moved between core and registers was vital to knowing where
to squeeze...thus my (perhaps too nitpicky) diffrentiation between names for
data and address bus width.

And terminology, especially in a young field, has a nasty habit of changing
its meaning while you're not looking. Case in point: the word "hacker",
which at one time meant someone who could program something (usually
considered by "experts" to be impossible or at least very difficult) in an
elegant fashion. Today the word has highly negative connotations, except
for the original hackers.

[1] Yes, it's an act of faith, if not an auto da fe.

<groan>

We now return you to discussions of Windows 7, now in progress.

Joe Morris

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Agreed. If we ever meet, we can buy each other a beer. You aren't in the
DC area, by any chance?

The other coast, sorry. Tell ya what, you can have a beer and pretend it's
on me, and I'll do the same

Of course, you are quite correct that the data path width and the address
bus width could be different, although I *believe*[1] that is uncommon at
best. For precision, we certainly could always use those two terms in
their
respective appropriate contexts.

Not knowing your involvement in IT, I'll suggest that the misunderstanding
might come from where we got onto the computer bandwagon. My background was
(and still is) computer engineering; I've been in the field for almost 50
years (and have the missing hair and gray beard to prove it). In Ye Olde
Dayes a good programmer had to know a lot about the computer that would be
running a program he or she wrote; time-critical code paths were frequently
hand-tuned to squeeze a couple of CPU cycles out of the transit time, and
knowing how data moved between core and registers was vital to knowing where
to squeeze...thus my (perhaps too nitpicky) diffrentiation between names for
data and address bus width.

I do remember a cohort going through a program for the PDP-1 (I think it
was a -1, but I might be confused 44 years later) looking for a way to save
a few bits here and a few bits there so he could add some code to a
program. I was lucky - I didn't have to code that machine.

And terminology, especially in a young field, has a nasty habit of changing
its meaning while you're not looking. Case in point: the word "hacker",
which at one time meant someone who could program something (usually
considered by "experts" to be impossible or at least very difficult) in an
elegant fashion. Today the word has highly negative connotations, except
for the original hackers.

The first machine I programmed on didn't have a clock frequency - it had a
cycle time, which was two microseconds...

Of course, I'm just being weird above - but the manuals actually did quote
a cycle tine and not a clock frequency. RAM was called "core", and that is
what it was...

"Tine" is a typo, but I left it unchanged to make us think of tuning forks

[1] Yes, it's an act of faith, if not an auto da fe.

<groan>

We now return you to discussions of Windows 7, now in progress.
OK.

Joe Morris

 

[Gary H]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:13:23 -0400, "Joe Morris"

[snip]

And "data width" is but one of the characteristics measured by bit count; I
would argue that the more significant architectural metric is the address
bus width, where 64-bit systems have the ability to utilize more than the
(nominal) limit of 4 GB of physical memory. (64-bit operating systems don't
necessarily have the ability to use the entire 64 bit bus; Windows 7, for
example, can use up to 192 GB in the Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise
versions.)

That would be "address width", not "data width". There are very
different things.

BTW, I've spent a lot of time programming computers with 8-bit data
width and 16-bit address width. The 8088 used in early "IBM clones"
had 16-bit data width and 20-bit address width.

 

[Mark Lloyd]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:02:38 -0400, "Joe Morris"

[snip]

It's possible that we've got a terminology problem here. Did you use "data
access width" to mean the size of the address bus? I didn't, but if that's
the case I can see why you saw my reply as redundant.

Joe Morris

Yes, it is address, not data that's relevant here. People really get
stuck on improper terminology.

I remember when very few people had an internet connection, and people
kept using the term "half duplex" inappropriately. It didn't seem to
matter that the common modem standards (Bell 212a, etc..) use full
duplex 100% of the time, and can't do otherwise.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one
young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion." --
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)