Archive for the ‘Windows 7’ Category
A look at Windows 7 XP Mode
What is it..
Since Virtualization has now become a part of day to day activities for most of our IT folks, what MS did in Windows 7 is they provided us an XP OS that could run as a Virtual Machine on Windows 7.
Most of the IT geeks might be thinking well so what new in this we can also run XP in a virtualized Environment on other MS Operating System such as server 2003, XP, Vista.
Well in those OS we did not have inbuilt support to run XP in a virtualized environment. But is Windows 7 there is comprehensive inbuilt support. For eg; If you install an application on Windows XP the installed application would be visible in the start menu of the host machine ie Windows 7 and one can also run the application from Windows 7. What 7 does is it start the VM in the back ground unknown to the user and runs the application from it.
Why did Microsoft introduce XP mode in windows 7
Whenever MS release a new OS Many businesses have to redevelop their essential applications because they cause compatibility headaches.
Some business now deliver those application through a Web browser, in principle relieving the operating system dependence. Unfortunately, these Web apps have all too often suffered the same fate as their desktop counterparts, leaving them locked in to a particular version of a particular browser.
Such Migration to a new Desktop OS serves as a huge restriction on what the company can do.That becomes an even bigger problem when the changes are essential, such as fixing security flaws or improving general security robustness.
Virtualizing the problem
With Windows 7, MS has provided a solution to the problem: Windows XP Mode. Windows XP Mode uses virtualization technology to let applications running on a virtualized copy of Windows XP and also shows up in the Windows 7 Start menu and on the Windows 7 desktop.
Windows XP Mode is a downloadable add-on for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise. It has two parts: the virtualization software itself, and a disk image containing a pre-installed, activated, licensed copy of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 preinstalled, complete with the glorious Internet Explorer 6.
But the new XP Mode is Hardware supported ie;It is only supported on Intel’s VT or AMD’s AMD-V processors. Hyper-V, has the same requirement, but for Virtual PC this is a new demand.
How to install Applications
To install XP-demanding software, you fire up the regular XP desktop. This gives the familiar virtualization experience, an OS within a window with no real surprises. Run through the installer, hit “next” a bunch of times, the usual drill. This isn’t, however, how applications are supposed to be used. Start menu icons within the VM are replicated to the Windows 7 Start menu, allowing applications to be launched without having to use XP.
Behind the scenes
Behind the scenes, this works using a variant of Remote Desktop technology called RemoteApp. RemoteApp provides the ability to export individual applications, rather than the entire desktop. It’s already built into Windows Vista SP2 (or SP1, with a hotfix), Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2; for Windows XP Mode, the capability is retrofitted to Windows XP through a hotfix.
This use of RemoteApp provides, in my testing, a slightly better experience than one gets through third-party software. The ability to put applications from a VM onto the host machine’s desktop isn’t new (VirtualBox has offered it for some time, for example, with its Seamless mode), but typically this has used screen-scraping: the virtualization software copies the contents of the window frame from the virtual machine onto the host. This means that anything interfering with or overlaying the window frame is also visible on the host. The RemoteApp solution is much cleaner; it’s both faster and less prone to glitching.
How should one use the the XP mode:
It’s not for games, it’s not for anything that’s too performance sensitive, it’s not for anything that needs hardware access.There’s no 3D acceleration; no OpenGL or Direct3D in the Virtual Machine. I wouldn’t want to run any graphically intensive DOS applications either.
If you have a piece of hardware that’s incompatible with Windows Vista/Windows 7 then Windows XP Mode might be of some assistance. The new Virtual PC adds USB passthrough support (allowing USB devices to be used within the VM), in addition to the serial port passthrough available in previous versions of Virtual PC. No such joy for PCI devices, however, so old/unsupported sound cards aren’t going to spring into life with XP Mode.
IMP Notes:
The virtual machine can only be open in one “mode” at a time. Either it’s hidden in the background with applications presented to the Windows 7 desktop, or it’s open in a window for installing software/configuring the VM. But not both. Attempting to do the wrong thing presents an error message
The so-called God Mode in Windows 7
By creating a new folder in Windows 7 and renaming it with a certain text string at the end, users are able to have a single place to do everything from changing the look of the mouse pointer to making a new hard drive partition.
Apparently people decided to call this “God Mode” because to enable this “trick” you make a folder called
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and double-click on it.
Now you can see the control panel With a slightly different view than you normally see it in.
The text ”GodMode” has nothing to do with making the trick work. You can call the folder “ILikePuppies.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}” and now you’ve discovered the magical “ILikePuppies” feature hidden in Windows.
Well, not really. What you’ve actually discovered are two things:
First, you’ve discovered a documented feature of the shell whereby filesystem folders can be easily made into namespace junctions, as described here on MSDN. Basically, any folder named <DisplayName>.<CLSID> will show up with just the <DisplayName> portion visible in Explorer, and navigating into the folder will take you to the namespace root defined by the <CLSID> portion of the name. This isn’t a user feature, it’s a developer feature.
The second thing you’ve discovered is the “All Tasks” folder. This is a special shell folder which is used as the source of the “Control Panel” search results seen in the Start menu. This folder was not designed to be browsed to directly, as the normal Control Panel folder (accessible via Start -> Control Panel) contains all the same items but with a custom view designed to be easier to navigate. The “All Tasks” folder has no custom view, so you just see the standard Explorer list view and little else.
Hope this post helps all of you!!!
