I’ve been trying out Windows 7 off and on through the different versions over the last few months. I haven’t used it exclusively but I’ve meddled in it, trying out 7000, 7057, 7077, and now 7100/RC. I won’t go into any details on Windows 7 itself since there are plenty of reviews and such out there already. I will say that it is noticeably faster and snappier than Vista, and I like how the new Taskbar works.
As of this week though, I finally got to try out the new “XP Mode” for backwards compatibly. Overall I like its implementation, but there are a few things I think they should change before final release. When you really examine it, XP Mode is really no different than running the other virtualization packages like VMWare Workstation/Fusion or Parallels Desktop. XP Mode is really Virtual PC running an XP virtual machine (a full OS in a self contained software machine) sprinkled with Microsofts Med-V virtualization running applications in a “coherence” sort of way to give the impression your running the application natively, but in actuality the XP desktop is just hidden. In other words, nothing groundbreaking.
Applications installed within XP Mode show up in your start menu in Windows 7, and when clicked, kick off (boot up) the XP virtual machine and run the application. The Windows XP desktop is hidden, but when you move your application window around, you can see it bleed through around the edges as it redraws the screen. VMWare Fusion does the same thing on my Mac with Windows in “Unity” mode. Not a big deal, but not quite “seamless”. The ramifications of this can be huge though since this now allows Microsoft to scrap all sorts of legacy code and rely on XP Mode to take care of any issues. This will severely help lean out Windows and the years of code carried between version to make corporations happy.
There are a couple things I would like to see changed based on my first impressions though:
1. I would like to see the ability to choose where to install an application. From within Windows 7 with XP Mode installed, if I start an application installer, I would like Windows 7 to ask if I want to install it natively, or into XP Mode. Instead, right now I have to startup XP Mode and go into the desktop of XP and install an application before it is displayed in my Windows 7 Start menu.
2. I haven’t tried too many applications yet (like Office) but the interaction with the native system (that being Windows 7) sort of works. If I download or try to save a file, the default location is my native desktop. If you try a different location though, you have to navigate your way through to your native drive that is “mapped” as if it were a network drive. In this case, I see a “Local Disk C:” which is XP, and a “C ON Windows 7 system”. Not the easiest way to go about this.
Those were the only major faults I could find up front. Keep in mind though, since it’s basically Virtual PC, you can tweak the settings for XP to give it more ram, more drive space, etc. You can even opt to install a different OS like your flavor of Linux. For now, I am only running this on my Macbook pro via BootCamp. I haven’t brought myself to wipe out my Vista desktop and install 7 yet. I also need to do some more digging to compare it to my workhorse VMWare Workstation where I spend most of my time. To be honest, nothing I run has had a problem with Windows 7 or Vista, so XP Mode might be a lose on me. Using it in corporate environments probably wouldn’t work either, but that’s where App-V and Med-V come into play. We shall see…