virtualbox.org

Objective: Home use, Windows only, will never Linux or anything but Windows. Win7 Pro 24Gig. Wish to run as much as possible from XP, even live there, especially for one particular 32 bit file manager app, and my old C compiler and .EXEs I created with it. Never run games. I suppose I could run Firefox outside in Win7, since some pontificators say Internet access should be avoided with continued XP OS usage; assuming I can still copy and paste between webpages and apps inside VB then? I sure has h want to run Excel 2003 in XP (kill me if I have to run the deproductive later Excel versions!) so I want to install directly into the virtual space C:, not the "real" drive C.

Also: I have XP and SP3 CDs with original valid key. So assuming that MS still (and will ongoingly) answers the phone when you install it (that's a question for you? Is that an issue?), I presumably can go either MS Virtual Machine/XP Mode or VirtualBox (XPM and VB if those are acceptable abbreviations), using my XP disks for VB. VMWare is not even seriously in the running. There's even question as to whether it's free, or being abandoned by MS. However you may talk me into the Player.

I'm a newbie to VM in general though I briefly used XP in VB on a former Win 7 machine. I am currently Win7 Pro SP1, at home, Dell i7 so should be able to support anything (and havdetectiontool.exe said okay).

First question, are both VB and XPM painlessly and *properly* uninstalled if I'm displeased? Can I try and back out fully without resorting to a backup or restore point?

VB:
Reasons for VB are plentiful. 98% of commenters (many of whom I find far more credible than magazine reviewers) rave on VB, and the other 2% sound like casual users or MS fanboys. You have the most active and enthusiastic forums (Thanks. This is my virgin post here ). (BTW, extremely thin VMLite XP Mode forum at vmlite dot com makes me nervous that it's not widespread.)

Every side by side feature list VB as the hands down winner. By a landslide every time. Especially important for some pro-VB supporters is the ability to support more platforms than alternative VM softwares. But I will never (here at home) run anything but virtual XP, and my Win 7 (or eventually 10, when extorted to, a la how they bullied away native XP).

XPM
However, XPM claims to very cleanly run anything that gets the "you can't run this" just as though the restriction is removed. It sounds like magic fairy dust. (footnote *) Sounds like: without XPM, you get the your-screwed-messagebox; with it, it just runs. All it costs is running that process, and of course that you use the productivity-impaired Win7 interface instead of XP.

It would seem that drive letter usage would be more natural with XPM. C: means C: and so forth. And XPM might theoretically be faster since you're mostly running native OS (the main catch being that XPM is written by MS whose motto is slow and bloat and badly interfaced).

It would seem that if you don't have an XP disk, you definitely go XPM since you get a fully legal XP SP3 installation included with XPM (I qualify; I am Win 7 Pro). But I do have XP disks.

After all that now: have I said anything that indicates I might even think about XPM? (see footnote too) Mind you, I'm delighted to just go VB and be done with it!

Finally - and I apologize for the length of this post, but wanted to convey all useful data and perspective - there's a third choice: get the .VHD file from starting to download Virtual Machine and XPM, then load that into VB. I'm wary of this because some feel that 30 day later activation can be an issue, or down the road. Or do you then just d/l pcbios.bin from vmlite and relax?

Sorry, a possible 4th choice? BOTH XPM and VB. I've read here that they can't coexist. But can I install both and at alternate times try each?

Sorry this is so long. Partial answers also appreciated. Universally agreed commentary/perspective also welcome; I'm newbie-ish. I have googled and read for hours and hours before asking for your valuable time and assistance, thank you for helping me consolidate my choice.

P.S. I am a fast, uberfast user. I HATE Microsoft because they are committed to crippling alt-tab/keyboard shortcut/Control-arrow using speed gods like me. If that's a factor!

____________
* Windows XP Mode for Windows 7_brochure.pdf :
"Seamless Applications—publish and launch applications installed on Virtual Windows XP directly from the Windows 7 desktop, as if they were installed on the Windows 7 host itself.

Folder Integration between host and guest—access your Windows 7 Known Folders, such as My Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Music, Video, from inside the Virtual Windows XP environment.

Clipboard Sharing—cut and paste between your Windows 7 host and any virtual machine."

What's the question? I got dizzy and must have missed it...

If you have valid WinXP install media, install VirtualBox then install XP in a vm and see how you go. I doubt that you will ever find the need for XPMode. Use the VirtualBox default .vdi format, not .vhd .

Yes, I have used them both. In fact I beta tested XPMode way back when.

Thanks for really answering some of it, BillG. I would be curious as to your actual experience, if you get the time - and in another forum or medium if appropriate.

Other than your response, though, I'm disappointed that there's not one question or pondering above that plays to an answer that would be both useful and interesting. Sorry, I thought I threw up a softball that would give VB proponents a golden chance to make 4 or 6 profound and convincing answers showing how much more intelligently and practically usefully designed and performing a choice VB is. I'm sure I'll ultimately land with just that opinion myself, but where better to learn it than among this concentration of superusers.

Maybe it's paranoid, but I'm trying to be mondo careful before starting into VB, since once I install, I probably will be wed to the choice permanently. I'm not as adept as some of the gurus here who can blast right into trying products, and can just rebuild their whole machine in 4 minutes if they didn't like their choice. (I also don't have a test machine. My whole world is sitting on this one, so, okay, yes, I'm paranoid!)

> a possible 4th choice? BOTH XPM and VB. I've read here that they can't coexist. But can I install both and at alternate times try each?

Point of information: why did I ask this, since there are numerous easily Googleable discussions on this? I completely appreciate that reaction if that's what you're thinking. The answer is that I did read several articles front to back about this, and they were contradictory. I figured that the talent here would give a confidently reliable answer.

So folks, you're welcome to answer even just that little morsel. That alone may be immensely helpful in guiding me to begin a long association with VB. (Or just give me a link(s). In requesting your valuable time, obviously I'm willing to do more reading and testing myself.)

Yes you can install both Windows XP Mode and VirtualBox, and alternate between them.
You can't run them simultaneously, and after quitting one, you typically have to wait a minute or two before you can safely start the other, to give time for various background processes to shut down. Otherwise, you will very likely get a blue screen crash.

Source: personal experience, in fact I have both (and VMware Workstation) installed on this computer.

XP mode doesn't use VT-x, so I can't think of any reason, other than a lack of resources (RAM and CPU), why you couldn't run VirtualBox at the same time. OTOH I can't imagine why anyone would want to do this, unless it's very temporary (e.g. to copy files out of one to the other).

mpack wrote:XP mode doesn't use VT-x, so I can't think of any reason, other than a lack of resources (RAM and CPU), why you couldn't run VirtualBox at the same time. OTOH I can't imagine why anyone would want to do this, unless it's very temporary (e.g. to copy files out of one to the other).

I believe that's wrong. Windows XP Mode is based on Windows Virtual PC, which uses hardware virtualization support if it's available. In fact when Windows Virutal PC was first released, hardware virtualization support was a requirement, but a later update made it optional.

VPC doesn't use VT-x either, as far as I know. VPC development ended in 2007, before VT-x was anything.

BTW, I note that the Wikipedia page conflates the story of VPC with that of XP mode. Microsoft may be responsible for some of that. As far as I can see the MS download link that now calls itself "Windows Virtual PC" is supported on Win7 hosts only... i.e. it sounds a lot like XP mode.

Edit:  In retrospect you may be right that XP mode (not VPC) does support VT-x if it's available - I never really used it in anger so I'm not sure, and it's been long enough now that I'm no longer sure why I was sure. It doesn't help that Wikipedia is linking references that come way after 2009, so they're mushing up the entire history of VPC, XP mode and Win7.

I think you are somewhat confusing different versions of Virtual PC (which is thanks to Microsoft's poor naming).

Microsoft Virtual PC ran up to version 2007. I didn't use it, and I don't know about its capabilities.

Windows Virtual PC is a newer version, released specifically with Windows 7, and it does support hardware virtualization support. Under the hood, XP Mode uses this version.

Windows Virtual PC running on Windows 7 is actually a generic type 2 hypervisor, and you can use it for things other than XP Mode as well. You can install whatever guest you want (although it's unsupported). XP Mode is really just a fancy name for a Windows XP guest VM running in Windows Virtual PC.

I hope that helps clarify.

Edit: I checked it out, and I think that the Wikipedia article on Windows Virtual PC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Virtual_PC) is actually pretty clear on all this.

I would like to reiterate however that Windows Virtual PC is pretty obsolete and VirtualBox should definitely be used instead.