Windows 7 XP mode

Windows XP Mode provides an additional and very important layer of compatibility for Windows 7, which is also a great additional layer of malware protection as infection of virtual machine in which XP mode is running does not affect main Windows 7 installation.

This also gives you an opportunity to run older versions of XP software on computers with newer chipsets that are not supported by XP.  Windows XP Mode requires the Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate editions of Windows 7. It provides

• One click launch of Windows XP Mode applications
• USB support

Once installed, Windows XP Mode is identical to freshly installed XP machine (and has IE 6 installed ;-) and as such there no differences in setup. During setup, a tutorial runs to help users understand how to work with Windows XP Mode.

When you run Windows XP Mode the first time, you can run Windows update and install all the nessesary update.

After that you can install applications one by one. Installed applications will automatically appear on the Windows 7 Start Menu. Thereafter, users can start applications in Windows XP Mode simply by clicking the application shortcut on the Start Menu. As an example, if your Web applications have compatibility problems with Internet Explorer (IE) 7 or IE8, you can install IE6 in Windows XP Mode as a workaround. Users can then start IE6 from the Windows 7 Start Menu to seamlessly access IE6 in Windows XP Mode.

One very important for me feature of Windows XP mode is that cut and paste works across virtual machine to Windows 7. So you can browse sites in XP mode, but cut and paste text to your Windows 7 applications.

Windows XP Mode requires hardware virtualization support in the CPU, such as Intel virtualization or AMD virtualization. Virtualization support must be enabled in firmware. Although Windows XP Mode provides a fully functional Windows XP environment, it is not meant for graphics-intensive applications.

As with regular Windows XP you need to install some programs that make malware infection less likely. That includes Windows Security Essentials. These anti-malware programs are separate from those running in the native Windows 7 environments.

Structure of virtual machine

Information is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Microsoft\Windows virtual PC\

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20121201 : XP Mode Back Up ( XP Mode Back Up, Dec 01, 2012 )
• 20121201 : 7 XP-mode Program Files folder - Microsoft Community ( 7 XP-mode Program Files folder - Microsoft Community, )
• 20121201 : Planning for Disaster Recovery Using Virtualization ( Planning for Disaster Recovery Using Virtualization, Dec 01, 2012 )
• 210426 : ERROR - Could not register the virtual machine ( ERROR - Could not register the virtual machine , )
• 210426 : XP-More ( XP-More , )

Old News ;-)

[Dec 01, 2012] XP Mode Back Up

mumm629

I want to make a back up of my XP Mode. I have it configure and several legacy software installed and it work very nicely on my Dell E6400 w 4gb of ram and 64bit Windows 7 Pro.

What files do i need to copy over to my USB Hard Drive and what are their locations?
Is there an automated way of doing this built into Window 7?

How would i restore this if my os blew up and i had to do a clean reinstall of windows 7?

John Paul Cook January 16, 2010

Open Windows Explorer and browse to %USERPROFILE%/Virtual Machines. This is the default location of the vmcx files. You will see a Windows XP Mode.vmcx file. This XML file contains the full paths to the files that make up your virtual machine. The default full paths are:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vhd

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vmc

When you navigate to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines, you may see additional files depending on the state of the virtual machine (i.e., is it hiberated or not). My XP Mode vm is hibernated, so these additional files appear:

Windows XP Mode.vmc.vpcbackup
Windows XP Mode.vsv

The vmc and vmc.backup files are XML files that contain full paths to vhd files. If you restore to a different path, you'll have to edit the XML files so that all file references are correct and consistent. Windows 7 does not have an automated backup specific to virtual machines.

Steve Jain, January 17, 2012

It would also be wise to backup a copy of the XP Mode base.vhd. If you can't get an exact copy of it to match to your backed up child VHD, it will be useless. This has already been an issue with XPMode RC to RTM. C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\Windows XP Mode base.vhd.

eranisme eranisme

You can use XP-More to make copies of your XP Mode VM (as well as any other Windows Virtual PC VM). It's free and portable, and will save you the manual work. God knows why such functionality was not built into Windows 7.

7 XP-mode Program Files folder - Microsoft Community

April 7, 2010

Steve4157:

7 XP-mode Program Files folder?

Can I access the XP-mode's Program Files (for backup) when the vm is shutdown?

where can I find those program files?

Shawn B Keene:

The VM's hard drive image is stored in a VHD file. You could (in theory) mount this file into Windows 7 and explore it, but mount it as read-only so you ensure you do not make any modifications to the file.

To accomplish this:

• Type disk management into your Start menu, then press Enter.

• Highlight your primary hard drive, then click Attach VHD from the Action menu. Choose your XP Mode VHD file. Be sure to select read-only.

[Dec 01, 2012] Planning for Disaster Recovery Using Virtualization

A catastrophic failure of a main datacenter or the simple loss of the servers in remote site is an IT Departments nightmare scenario. Planning how to restore services as quickly as possible with the minimal data loss is a key IT task. Virtualization technologies offer the ability to simplify some of that planning. Being able to take a copy of a virtual image and redeploy it on another server drastically reduces the downtime and potential data loss.

Taking a copy of an existing virtual image and deploying it on another server as a backup drastically reduces the downtime and potential data loss.

The resources on this page are designed to help you plan and use these protections systems to create a disaster recovery scenario for your organization.

Getting IT services back up and running after a disaster is often determined by how fast new hardware can be sourced and then how fast the backup processes work. When individual servers are involved this can be a complex process. Creating virtual images as a disaster recovery policy, either from physical machines or from existing virtual hosts, can speed up the restore process.

The scenario described on this page is designed to provide a template for your disaster recovery plan. It may not match your needs exactly, but it should get you to right resources to make the best decision for your organization.

ERROR - Could not register the virtual machine

From XP-More discussion forum

Mar 9, 2011

digitalwiz

OS: Windows 7 Enterprise

Created a virtual Pc with XP professional. I can duplicate one working copy of this virtual pc using XP-More. The original and the copy both work. I can open borth of them at the same time with no problems. I then created a second duplicate Virtual PC. When I try to open the second duplicate I get an error:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Could not register the virtial machine.

The virtual machine configuration could not be added. Another configuration with the same namealready exists. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried this several times using diffrent names. I can only create one duplicate working copy.

Thank you in advance for your help.

xpmore

Hi digitalwiz,

Try the following:

1.Go to the VM folder, where the vmcx files are (say C:\Users\digitalwiz\Virtual Machines or so).

2.Delete the vmcx file of the erroneous duplicate.

3.Go to the folder where the vmc files are (say C:\Users\digitalwiz\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines or so).

4.Double click the new duplicate's vmc file. The vmcx file is mostly a shortcut to the actual VM stuff, so deleting it is safe. When you launch a VM via its vmc file, if no vmcx file is found, one will be created.

So once the VM is launched, you should have no problem using the created vmcx from point and onward.

XP-More

XP-More is a tool that helps manage Windows 7 Virtual Machines (XP Mode and any other). Specifically, it makes duplication of VMs a no brainer - no more raw XML editing and manually duplicating files.

documentation

Installation
Just run XP-More.exe as is. It's portable, no installation needed.

Usage
Using the tool is quite straightforward. Following operations are available:

• Launch - starts the selected virtual machine
• Duplicate - create a copy of the selected virtual machine
• Create new - create a brand new virtual machine
• Delete - delete the selected virtual machine
• Edit - open the VM's settings window
• Set Parent Disk - A VM can have a parent VM. This allows you to rebind a parent after moving it.

When XP-More is launched, it first looks for the VMs folder. If it doesn't find the folder, the user is asked to specify its location. In order to remain portable, XP-More stores the given folder in an alternate data stream, which is basically a "shadow" of the executable. This way, if the executable is moved, the settings move with it, and if it is deleted, the settings are deleted as well.

Minimum requirements
Windows Virtual PC is available on Windows 7 Professional and above. Therefore, that is the minimum requirement. It might work with other versions, which have Microsoft Virtual PC installed, though this is untested. Running the tool requires .NET 3.5 (which comes with Windows 7).

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