Windows 7 To Include "Windows XP Mode" 364
Z80xxc! writes "Paul Thurrott's WinSuperSite reports that Windows 7 will include a built-in virtual machine with a fully licensed copy of Windows XP Professional SP3. The VM runs in a modified version of Virtual PC, and applications running in the VM can interact directly with the host operating system as if they were running on the Windows 7 installation itself. While details are scarce for now, it looks as if this feature will only be available as a (free) addon for Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7. Also, a processor supporting hardware virtualization will be required, indicating that this is perhaps aimed more at power users and corporate users, rather than consumers. Microsoft confirmed the feature last night."
I knew it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Had that for awhile now... (Score:5, Insightful)
XP! Pre configured, fully loaded with apps, fully patched, and pre hacked. Please seed!
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that it's you who is missing the boat. This is a very good move on MS' part for companies that have custom apps that are known to run properly on XP. Rather than having to go through extensive testing to ensure they run properly on Windows 7, they can instead be run in this VM. It's a move to make companies feel more at-ease in their transitions to Windows 7.
Re:Wait a second (Score:3, Insightful)
There's that possibility, but securing VMs can be fairly easy. Don't want internet connectivity? turn it off.
On the other hand, a virus that infected your XP VM wouldn't be able to infect the host OS unless it could complete the infection anyway. The only concern is that a VM being highly connected (to personal profiles and the like) may be granted permission to delete files, harvest information etc.
is it a sandbox or not? (Score:3, Insightful)
if it can interact just like it was on windows7, will it be just as vulnerable?
will people choose to use that rather than windows 7 all the time?
will it run on top of a hypervisor? ie, can it access the hardware directly?
Will solve a lot of legacy problems (Score:5, Insightful)
And thanks to the USB support, I can also use:
1) Very old USB scanner with XP 32-bit drivers. I use it a few times a year for digitalizing reciepts etc., and I really don't want to pay for a new one.
2) Random gadgets with stupid software and buggy drivers.
Getting this free with Windows 7 would really rock.
Cut Out The Middle Man (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they could cut out the virtual machine and offer Windows XP SP3 as a separate product? It would eliminate all of the virtual machine overhead.
This move to bundle this with Virtual Server seems analogous to the bundling of Internet Explorer in Windows 98. I wonder if Microsoft is trying to kill VMWare and Parallel's market share like they killed Netscape's browser share.
Finally, it is pretty sad when your operating system requires a virtual machine to emulate what the operating system should do natively. I would have preferred it if Microsoft went all the way with this option and did a complete revamp of the Windows executable and security architecture with the implementation of this virtual machine architecture (Apple implemented this during the OS 9 to OS X transition). As it is implemented right now, the virtual machine seems like a waste of resources as it is duplicates existing functionality while requiring more overhead and a separate configuration.
I get to buy windows twice? (Score:2, Insightful)
So let me get this straight. I can buy windows 7 and not have to worry about it sucking more than XP because I can run XP in virtualization. So if I go back to XP I just paid for the privilege of running XP twice? Microsoft has really gone downhill lately. The upgrades seem to have negative marginal value these days. Who would have paid for the privilege to run Windows 3.1 in Windows 95? Where's the innovation? It seems like each release they just take features away and only give them back to you if you buy the "Ultimate" edition.
Re:Back(ass)wards Compatibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
When a company says "we're no longer going to support Windows 3x or Win9x, they should MEAN IT. NO support for the software.
They'd have to be insane to do that. Only an insane OS vendor would get incompatible with the largest collection of software in the history of computing.
Thumbs up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cut Out The Middle Man (Score:3, Insightful)
Finally, it is pretty sad when your operating system requires a virtual machine to emulate what the operating system should do natively.
I call FUD. If you want to run some old-ass linux executables you'll probably need an old-ass Linux to run them on, and while you COULD integrate all that stuff into your current install by sticking everything in different paths and tweaking LD_PRELOAD constantly, it might STILL cause problems. Meanwhile, Windows NT has always used a virtual machine process to run 16 bit executables.
OTOH, including "all" of Windows XP SP3 seems kind of egregious...
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet who is more likely to have old applications or hardware that will need XP? If you have the latest and greatest full bells and whistles OS, you probably have the latest version of your apps as well. Once again, MS misses the boat.
It seems that it's you who is missing the boat. This is a very good move on MS' part for companies that have custom apps that are known to run properly on XP. Rather than having to go through extensive testing to ensure they run properly on Windows 7, they can instead be run in this VM. It's a move to make companies feel more at-ease in their transitions to Windows 7.
Except that this is pure PHB-bait -- IT professionals are going to realize pretty quick that all their apps are going to require testing to ensure they can be run in this VM, just like if they were being tested for Windows 7.
The only ones who are going to go "hey, neat, free XP" are the C?Os that don't quite understand technology anymore and the consumers who don't really need this feature, anyway.
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:5, Insightful)
-1 Clueless
Do you honestly believe that it's to cater for the needs of home users that XP is still around?
Home users aren't the ones causing Microsoft to worry about the adoption of Windows 7. Most home users don't even pay much attention to the operating system. They'll use whatever comes with the Dell they got, as long as it allows them to surf the web, write the occasional document in Word and load music to their iPod - things that work well on Vista.
Enterprises however, who hold several million worth of internally developed business critical software - code that relies on all the cracks and crooked ends of XP; these are the ones causing sleepless nights at Redmond.
Re:This has been a long time coming (Score:5, Insightful)
My fear is that once they have provided for running legacy software in a VM, they will feel free to move on towards their ultimate goal - an OS that will no longer run native code. They will come out with an OS that only runs .NET managed code, and thereby exercise total control over what you can ultimately run on the platform. It will be a form of "Trusted Computing" [wikipedia.org] in disguise. Only specially certified "Microsoft Partners" will be allowed special access to develop the libraries underlying .NET, and the rest of us will be shut out. Microsoft will excercise absolute control over what can be run on their OS and thereby gain enormous powers far beyond what they have today.
Re:Pretty sad if you think about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple ran 9 and 10 together for a period of time as well, plus they released the Carbon API back to OS 9 as well as having it available to 10. They killed a whole heap of API's from 9, kept some that they're only just getting around to killing and then created a new one which they ported back to 9 so that you could get over the gap even easier.
Apple have changed architecture twice in their lifetime AFAIK and have done a great job of maintaining things.
9 to 10 had its own emulation stuff, the "Classic" layer, and the PPC to Intel transition had Rosetta.
The thing people are missing is that Microsoft is admitting that they stuffed up so badly that they're willing to ship copies of XP to the corporates whilst still getting their latest version out and bought. This is about ensuring they don't continue to go backwards because whilst Apple went forward Microsoft went back - and that must scare someone at Redmond.
Not only that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose MS's reasoning is, that all computers in a company should have windows 7 and use this compatibility feature to run XP only programs, instead of having some real windows XP computers, adding this feature helps remove an excuse for not installing Win 7 (in the eyes of Microsoft, not my own opinion).
I still don't see the reason for the complaint though, I mean, what do you want them to do? NOT include this feature? Make the feature work on crappy computers? In the future all CPU's will have hardware virtualization anyway, we're talking about a future OS on future computers here, non power users of the near future will have a CPU that is more powerful than a CPU of today and with hardware virtualization.
And also, don't power users use "Professional" versions of Windows anyway, instead of "Home" versions? The "Home" versions are the versions for the users that just browse internet and put photo's on their HD (and then losing them because they don't back them up and don't put them on a separate partition of their disk and will let someone format their HD to install a new windows after a virus infection anyway).
Re:This has been a long time coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I knew it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't apple do this with OSX? You can run OS9 apps, but it is in a VM.
I'll see your "circa 2000" and raise you a 1987: Acorn, in the UK, switched from the 6502-based BBC Micro to the ARM-based Archimedes - they produced a "BBC Micro" emulator to run old software (usually much faster).
As well as Classic, Apple used a 68000 emulator to run legacy software when they switched to PowerPC and the "Rosetta" code translator to run PPC code when they went to Intel.
Thing is, though, these were all associated with fundamental, back-to-the-drawing-board changes to the platform - such as changing the CPU or switching to UNIX - which would otherwise have required all-new software from day one.
If MS had produced a completely new OS, free of the constraints of supporting existing software (or maybe gone .NET-only), then bundling an emulation or virtualization solution for legacy code would be essential.
Having a supposedly backwards-compatible OS which also requires a virtual copy of the old OS seems like the worst of both worlds.
Re:Requested by the Military (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be the same if any large customer hinted they wouldn't move to Windows 7. In fact I'm sure there are other large customers with an XP dependency that makes this sort of thing worthwhile.
Or more likely customers that think they've got an XP dependency - I've got some old software that is still built with Visual C++ 6. Actually it would probably work with later versions but they are slow and I don't have a license for them. Anyhow in Vista when you install VC98 it complains the application isn't compatible but it actually seems to run perfectly.
And what does it really cost Microsoft? Windows XP SP3 and Virtual PC are both sunk costs. All they're doing is offering people a free license in return for upgrading because at this point they really, really don't want a fiasco like Vista.
Re:Back(ass)wards Compatibility. (Score:3, Insightful)
When a company says "we're no longer going to support Windows 3x or Win9x, they should MEAN IT. NO support for the software.
They'd have to be insane to do that. Only an insane OS vendor would get incompatible with the largest collection of software in the history of computing.
Uh, just because AOL managed to press entire landfills of compact discs doesn't mean they're suddenly in the "top 10" of relevant software, nor does it mean that AOL should give a rats ass about the last 7 versions back of their software.
When the hell was the last time you actually USED a Win3x or Win9x app? When was the last time Microsoft officially supported them? THAT is my point.
And I guess Apple was quite "insane" when they broke off between v9 and OSX too, right?
Re:I get to buy windows twice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Once people's knees stop jerking, they might actually realize they like Windows 7. What they hate is change, or any kind.
Re:Requested by the Military (Score:3, Insightful)
How is it a conspiracy? To me it sounds more like a company meeting the demands of a (big and important) customer.
Re:Back(ass)wards Compatibility. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Microsoft's customer base would have said "Screw you, we have millions of dollars invested in custom Win32 software and we'll be running XP forever then".
This is not like the Mac world where there are a two big ISVs and a handful of smaller ones, and almost no custom/vertical applications.
Not to mention that the most important "XP-only" application isn't even third party. It is Internet Explorer 6.0.
Re:This is a desperation measure aimed at IT guys (Score:3, Insightful)
First, I have to say something about the end of the summary:
a processor supporting hardware virtualization will be required, indicating that this is perhaps aimed more at power users and corporate users, rather than consumers
Nearly every single Intel CPU made in the last several years includes their VT technology built in. All new i7 chips include it. I have no idea why someone would think the embedded VM is restricted to "power users". By the time Win7 is released, almost every computer running it will have the capability to run XP Mode.
I know a few people who are really well connected in Fortune 500 IT circles, and they tell me to a man that *NOBODY* is planning to move to Vista or 7 [...] much of which DOESN'T work in Vista or 7
I have to call BS on this. The biggest drawback to moving to Vista/7 for a large company will be training users and verifying that productivity/office/custom applications work correctly. For locking down workstations, Vista and Win7 include a LOT of new GPO options that corporations love. They include native support for disk imaging and encryption. Yeah, there are a lot of people skipping Vista but that's mostly due to how quickly Win7 is being released. If it was going to be another 5-6 years then you would see a lot more Vista adoption.
break out of the emulation sandbox
The user is running the emulated application, so any rights the user has are likely inherited by it. If the user is admin, then obviously the emulated XP application/environment will have the ability to frak the Win7 install up. Since the emulation is running on top of the Win7 host, security will be handled by that.
Honestly, this is really great news. People/companies that need it will love it and those that don't or are scared will have the option to disable it. Even better, if the emulation is 32-bit, then it gives you the ability to run older 16-bit programs which are completely incompatible with 64-bit versions of Windows (which lack the 16-bit subsystem). It means I can keep playing TriPeaks! [rhogue.com] (scroll down).
Re:Had that for awhile now... (Score:2, Insightful)
What good is a rootkit in a VM?
The utility of a rootkit on a machine is unrelated to whether the machine is virtual or not. Same functionality in either case.
It'll be open just as long as the user needs to open some legacy app,
Every time I walk by an office-mates computer who has a VM, that Windows start bar is across the bottom of their screens. It would appear that most VM users (all that I've seen) run it pretty much the whole time their computer is on.
won't have access to their file system, except what documents they choose to copy over temporarily
Not true on any VM I've seen.
...and may or may not have internet access
Never seen one that didn't. Frankly, these days, that would make it useless. Certainly at my job.
Running Windows in a VM is actually the ideal solution. Do all your net connected stuff via a secure OS like Linux, then open up a few ports for the VM to run games or whatever.
Indeed, it is ideal, which is why people do it. Of course, at our offices, we're not running it for games.
Re:Time for MS to embrace UNIX? (Score:0, Insightful)
What exactly does Unix do that NT does not?
Are you aware that before DOS, Microsoft was the dominant player in the proprietary Unix market? (and had reasons for abandoning Unix in the first place).
Are you aware that even now Windows has a native POSIX (based on OpenBSD) subsystem which runs parallel to the Win32 subsystem (optional for XP and Vista, built-in for 2k3 and 2k8)?
And I'm sorry to say, but Linux and Unix don't really run any faster on the same hardware, I mean it's an all around stupid statement, it all depends on what you're running on the system. Obviously Fluxbox is more resource friendly that WinExplorer, but KDE is every bit as slow.
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a desperation measure aimed at IT guys (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Time for MS to embrace UNIX? (Score:5, Insightful)
I should be surprised this got modded up, but it *is* on /.
Linux, as a kernel, does not AFAIK run significantly faster on equivalent hardware vs. NT. Some of the userspace certainly does, but some is also a lot slower - searches always take longer even though there's a lot less installed on my Linux partition (I keep it pretty clean), and without superfetch it feels that applications like WarCraft 3 (in Wine) or even Firefox take ages to start.
Viruses are a wild goose chase - they have existed since before Windows, and they will probably exist long after unless there's a drastic change in the fundamental capabilities of computers (i.e. mor ethan just an apprximate Turing machine). Security holes do still exist for *nix applicaitons and even kernels - for better or worse, I get more security patches per month on Linux than I ever do on Windows, although only occasionally are they at kernel or base library level - but even if malware authors can't xploit those, they'll fall back to the standard approach that has worked so well against Windows (itself a rather hard target these days) for the past few years: the user. There is absolutely nothing in *nix security that can protect against the dancing bunnies problem [codinghorror.com], especially if that user can get root access (although lots of damage can be done even without).
As for things you can do on Windows that you can't on Wine: well, try Exchange for starters. No other groupware solution has yet come close to the integration, feature set, and market deployment levels. Office 2007 is another; OO.o is an impressive project but they're still far behind in a number of areas (although Office 2008 does run on Mac, so that might not count). Then there are the games (wine is doing wonders here, but new stuff that doesn't work right is coming out all the time too), the Windows-only drivers (my modem *still* doesn't work in Linux, nor does the WiFi on one of my older laptops), and all the thousands of custom-written programs, only ever tested on their target machines, that businesses and other organizations have been creating for the last decade or so to run on Windows. Oh, you might also want to look at power management; with the proprietary nVidia driver (since the FOSS one is nowhere near ready yet), suspend-to-RAM in Linux quite simply does not work (on my current system, or the last two before it). This is, to put it mildly, a problem on a laptop.
Re:And who needs it most? (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need Vista Ultimate to play video games, do you?
Home Premium is only $140 where I buy my hardware (in Canadian Currency) as far as I know it should be able to play games just as well as Ultimate.
Re:Time for MS to embrace UNIX? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you think NT is "creaky and old", you're a fucking moron. NT is arguably a far, far better system than any UNIX. Microsoft got out of the UNIX market a long, long time ago (you do know that, right?). NT is superior in most ways, and is POSIX-compliant. Any POSIX-compliant application can be built against these POSIX calls and will work fine.
The stuff built on top of NT may or may not be good--mind you, I think it is, as the "special value" of running it is that Ubuntu is not user-friendly (plus lacking in those "game" things, as well as a decent office suite which neither KOffice nor OpenOffice actually are, and WINE is not an acceptable compromise for running games and Office) BSD the same, and I'm not paying for a Mac--but NT is leaps and bounds better as a kernel than anything in the UNIX world.
Re:I knew it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you forgotten that Apple did exactly that with Classic on OS X? Arguably with Rosetta as well.
Re:Back(ass)wards Compatibility. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're just maintaining the Win32 API, which is easy and it does not decrease the quality of the new systems in any way. Most of the other parts of the 9x systems (such as the driver model) have been made incompatible for home users as soon as Windows XP was released. As for MS-DOS applications, I know quite a lot of businesses that still use software that someone wrote for them back in the early 90's. Believe me, you basically don't know what you're talking about.
Re:if this was a sudden move (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right, of course.
What MS needed to do was to continue to make incremental improvements to XP. Maybe a facelift release (ala ME, but w/o as much cruft), and maybe an incremental security system release. I realize that's essentially what Vista is, but Vista broke entirely too many things to allow for it to be considered "maintaining the status quo".
All the while, they needed to be developing what is their 'next' OS in the background, with the VM plans for Win32 versions of their OS. The new version would be, or should have been, a drastic divorce of the old way of thinking. They'd have to change Visual Studio around a bit, but since they already had .NET, they could just design things on the backend of the "W7" or whatever it would've been, to allow for reasonably simple porting (or, at least, for future versions to be written natively). Maybe, had they done things right, the GUI system wouldn't be so intrinsically shackled to the subsystems, and porting applications might be easier. Who knows...
The problem here is that MS is trying to limit the options of their customers. Building an integral VM into their OS is the logical thing to do at this time in the game, with computers shipping with multicore processors and gigs of RAM. Allow their customers to run their $600 Photoshop or Office 97 from the VM - but with diminished performance due to having half a dozen win32 processes shackled to it to allow it to work. Maintain the new paradigm of security, and make it obvious that they're running "old crap", and people will migrate to the new stuff (eventually).
Maybe give them an interim period where the 'compatibility' option is available. But, by all means, don't just cut-and-run like they have essentially done - whether intentionally or not - with Vista and W7. When you're selling a binary-only operating system, and your architectural changes are large and drastic, after years of developer dependence upon a specific monoculture, you just don't do that. You've got to do your damnedest to make the transition easy.
MS is clinging to the old ways of thinking here. OS X has its virtualization, and via VMWare, most linux machines do, too. Both OS X and Linux users use these tools, and it is not (for the most part) seen as "half assed" anymore. There are a LOT of applications out there now. This isn't 1995, or even 1998 or 2000, when the number of popular or useful applications could reasonably be printed in a single round-up issue of PC Magazine. Virtualization is seen as a necessary evil by many people, but one which has to be done to move forward: when the applications are either not ready or not available for your new and necessary OS, then you shoehorn things for a while.
In reality, MS should have done the -exact- same thing Apple did with OS X. Or more accurately, Vista should've been a house-cleaning upgrade, with no substantial subsystem changes that impact anything relatively recent (except maybe some IE isolation and 'system install defaults' and corporate/IT rollout tool improvements). Rip out the code which allows old, native 16 and 32 bit apps to run natively. Rip out some of the cruft that makes XP glitch like 95 did while shutting down; clean up the boot process and necessary services with some sane default user type security settings (but allow the 'old' ones to still be used for the meantime). Get rid of some of the irritating start bar glitches (ie 'lag when clicked' when explorer is failing somewhere else). Hell, maybe even introduce Vista-style memory management (if appropriate) to better utilize systems with 4Gb of RAM.
Basically, they should've done things to prepare Xp to be virtualized under their next, new, and great OS in a seamless, bloat-free manner. UAC shouldn't have come until it could be put on top of proper ACL-priviledged accounts (vs. the current 'administrator is everyone' thing still going on). You know, something designed and not kludged.
And no, I'm not a MS fanboy in the least. But, given MS's resources, they really smashed this opportunity on the rocks.