Is Win 7 XP Mode as perfect as seperate partition solution?

I currently have Vista and XP installed in 2 separate partitions. There has never been any sort of conflict between the 2 OS since when one runs, the other isn't and only one partition is visible at a time, eliminating cross over conflict all together.

I have a laptop with Virtualization enabled in the BIOS and I am considering upgrading to Win 7 but if and only Win 7 XP Mode can 100% guarantee that there would be no conflict whatsoever. So, how does Win 7 XP Mode work exactly? When I am in XP Mode, does it shut off Win 7 completely, as if Win 7 isn't even there? I have an older application that requires direct access to the hardware in order to upload bitstream to an external programmable chip. Such software doesn't work with Vista. Will program like that work in XP Mode?

 

Watch this. I tried it, it was slow. XP mode is like Virtualbox or VMWare, it runs on top of 7.

 

what do you mean by "crossover conflict"?

 

besides everything: try it. but most likely, no.

you can boot into vista, install virtualbox, it's free. install xp on it and try that. if that doesn't work, xp mode most likely won't. if that works, well, you have a solution, even if xp mode wouldn't work.

it's a virtual machine. read up how they work.

 

Well, when you have 2 OS installed in the same computer, it's a good thing to hide the other OS while one OS is running. Otherwise, if one OS is corrupted, it may corrupt the other OS. Installing them in 2 separate partitions, hiding the other when one is running with a boot manager program would minimize this risk.

 

Make sure your CPU is IVT capable and its enabled in the BIOS first. If i recall Sony disabled it via the BIOS.

 

You can try installing and running your app in xp compatability mode within Win7 first. I downloaded and installed xp mode and it certainly has some drawbacks. It is a virtual machine that only uses one processor core although it did feel pretty snappy to me. Although it is only about a 500mb download, after updates and a couple small apps it was using 7gb ssd space although programs and features reported 1.7gb. I have come to the conclusion that if I needed xp for some work app would be better off installing xp on another disk and skipping the VM.

 

'hiding' a partition with a boot manager buys you NOTHING in terms of safety or security. The partition is still there. The data is still there. The only thing that a hidden partition is doing is hiding from YOU.

I'd say you need to rethink your preconceptions on partitions, boot managers, 'hiding', etc, etc. They may be holding you back from a better solution.

 

Oh contraire. It depends on the boot manager. I have used BootIT NG and it can totally hide a partition, to the point that the OS is unable to see it in any way shape or form. I don't have access right now to the machine configured with it, but if memory serves even disk mangement is unable to see it.

Gary

 

i hope it then reduces the disk size, too.. not that you think "uh, free space, add a partition there".

would be nice for hiding some data


but ordinary boot managers are no security. espencially if your os gets unbootable, chance is big, you killed the bootmanager, thus killed both os.

 

This probably won't work since a virtual machine is essentially a guest OS running as a process within a host operating system. This introduces a number of limitations for the guest OS, namely hardware access. Most virtualization programs create generic devices for the guest OS to "interface" with, but hardware access is very limited. Your XP machine likely won't even detect your external programmable chip.

Haven't you considered trying to run your old applications in compatibility mode?

 

I don't remember how it handles that. I believe it showed the partition as allocated space but nothing more. Much like the hidden restore partitions show up on some machines.

Regarding the issue of killing the bootmanager, BootIT NG is no more immune to that than any other such app. Trust me, I have the tire tracks on my back to prove it! I really hosed up that laptop we had it running on. It was an IBM ThinkPad with two hard drives and we used it to demo our software in several different configurations. Luckily I had backups of ALL of the partitions and detailed notes on how BootIT NG was configured. I was able to get it all back up with a few hours of work.

But it did a great job for us. We had one partition that was common to all of the environments we used for the demos and BootIT NG worked well at hiding all of the other partitons from each other.

Gary

 

How is this external chip interfaced to the system?

Gary

 

nice. thanks for the info, and great it worked mostly well for you.

but yeah, the only thing i get corrupt from time to time is my boot stuff, so it doesn't even find an os.. only one time in vista, several times in xp. never in win7 so far (but once in the beta).

nothing helps in that case (except repair tools of course)

 

Every time I see people post about how great their partition managers are, they almost always add info about horror stories regarding system corruption and errors that they managed to fix. Often at the cost of many hours/days of downtime.

 

Oh, the errors, in my case, were of my own doing. No fault of the partition manager, which did its job flawlessly. I think most of the horror stories are similar. With one more layer of complexity, its just one more opportunity for user error. But if ya need one, ya need one.

Gary