It actually works. It creates a fake hard drive on your computer; I wasn't eligible for the free premade XP emulator download they offer (Anyone with Windows 7 Professional or above is fine and can just get that instead), but I already own it so that was okay.

It effectively means you can circumvent the limitations of the 64bit setting on your OS and run games from yesterday without any problems, as well as all those from today which come in double versions anyway.

It works quite well, on my new Dell Studio 15, I set it to 800x600 and after 15 minutes of Windows XP install menu, with another two for the Virtual Drive, it was ready to use.
For those interested, I used 512mb of RAM, and assigned 130000mb of dynamic HD space.

Its XP, and that needs no introduction. Its widely regarded as the best Windows OS out there, and I like it a lot. Its nice to have, and I can seamlessly switch with Windows 7 and XP. I tested the 1998 game Trespasser on it, and it worked first off, but i'll get to that momentarily.

First, there is one thing you should know. This is a hackers tool, I really think it is. It can circumvent copy protection that Daemon Tools and whatnot can't, and mount any ISO I had on hand. (Note, I legitimately own all these games, but I use a registered version of MagicISO to convert them all to disk images to save time and drawer space.). That said, its also incredibly useful for OS specific testing and playing OS exclusives, such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which doesn't actually work on Vista at all, and questionably on 7.

Anywho, onto Trespasser. It's widely regarded as a terrible game, and i've got to say with graphics rivalling that of Half Life plus a physics engine in such an old game, i'm having a hard time seeing it at the moment. Anywho. Unless you take the time to install hardware drivers, you won't be able to use stuff like the NVidia Control Panel to enable advanced rendering techniques like applying AA and AF to games which don't feature it, but its a fair payoff. Needless to say, I found no lag, and Trespasser ran like a dream, as did a few other games I tried.

The only issue I have with this is accessing it's hard drive. Its a godforsaken PITA, hidden away in somewhere you'll never find, so make sure you have a USB to transfer files over with.

Anywho, as a free solution with which you could mount something like Ubuntu or XP, etc, I don't see why this isn't a good tool. It's fast, free, and efficient, as well as not in the way when not used. It also has shell extensions, which is handy too.

Anywho. That's about it. Perhaps an 8/10. Subtract one if you planned to use the mounted OS a lot for work, as getting files on and off will be a trick, and you'll need something to make .iso files from disks if you're planning to use the XP install disk, as it initially cannot read the XP disk, but (!), the XP SP3 .iso is free and out there anyway, so you really have no excuse to moan about this anyway.

When it came out, maybe, but I don't know anyone who would still use it when they had the chance to upgrade to Vista or 7.

I use Virtual PC 2007 (free download) for work, chiefly to test websites in IE 6 running on Windows 2000. If you install the Virtual PC additions (under the Action menu on a running VM instance) you can simply drag and drop (or copy and paste) files between Virtual PC and the host OS. Alternatively, you can use its shared folders feature (under the Settings button for a VM instance) to, well, share a folder on the host as a drive on the VM. These additions also make interacting with the VM with the mouse much easier (more like Remote Desktop).

Hmm good to know, though I thought XP mode Basically used RDP already. As for the usefulness of XP, the past few times I've tried to use it I've gotten errors so either my Desktop's CPU doesn't support Intel-VT or the lack of hardware accelerated graphics is making it useless for playing older 16 bit games.

Hey Ben, I know this doesn't pertain to the subject, but can I use your Quadplay routines in my new shell?

XP mode is based on RDP? Actually, that makes a lot of sense. I've been fairly happy with XP mode the one or two times that I tried it, although it unfortunately didn't solve the issues I had with a certain Sid Meier's Railroads! game that has horrible stability on modern graphics hardware.

I don't know more than 3 people who voluntarily upgraded to Vista. 7, yes. Vista, no. After 2 years of using Vista, I'd still prefer to switch back to XP.

I don't have any qualms with Vista, aside from the large ram requirement. I voluntarily bought it, and am happy to have a copy.

Vista is *waaaaay* better than XP. XP is a horrible, horrible OS.



Creationism and Intelligent Design are widely regarded as real and/or science. But that doesn't make it so.

XP sucks. The only reason people didn't want to switch is because they were used to XP sucking. Just like people hang on to old cars that break down all the time. Not because they like it, but because they've grown emotionally attached the flaws. That happens when you're stuck using a crappy OS for 6 years.

This wasn't an invitation for people to debate about editions of Windows. Its merits are largely subjective for what you use it for.

You don't have to use XP, you can just as easily emulate 98, Millenium, or any other copy of Windows you can find. I chose XP because I needed a 32 bit system.

I'm just going to laugh at you now. Vista was damage control for 5 years of failed development on Longhorn.

Just goes to show how much XP sucked if the crappy Vista was still light years beyond it, now doesn't it?

Don't you mean *Windows 7 is damage control for 3 years of failure with the horrendous Windows Vista?