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Posted on May 14th, 2009 by Barry Collins
How to boost the performance of Windows 7’s XP Mode
There’s been plenty written about Windows 7’s new XP Mode since the launch of the Release Candidate – the most common criticism being that its performance sucks.
That’s partly because, as alarming few of the critics have noticed, the Windows XP virtual machine is only assigned a meagre 256MB of RAM by default, which means it’s effectively running with the memory of a five-year-old PC.
This situation can be very easily remedied. First shut down your virtual machine – hibernation won’t do, it’s got to be a full shut down. Then back in Windows 7 click Start | All Programs | Windows Virtual PC | Virtual Machines. Right click on the XP virtual machine and select Settings. You should see the screen below:
Click memory, and choose how much RAM you want to allocate to your VM. I’ve given my XP Mode 1GB, and it’s had no adverse effect on the running of my 3GB laptop, but you may need to experiment to find the right balance.
You should now find XP Mode runs much more smoothly. I’ve been using it to host the Twitter application, TweetDeck, as a virtual application after I had issues with it crashing under Windows 7, and it works a treat.
Let me know how you’re getting on with XP Mode on comments below.
Tags: virtual machine, Windows 7, XP Mode
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15 Responses to “ How to boost the performance of Windows 7’s XP Mode ”
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May 14th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
That requires it to actually work! Most of our modern computers don’t appear to support the processor virtualisation which it needs.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Would love to give it a try; unfortunately the nice and cheap Pentium Dual-Core processors don’t have the virtualisation technology required, so that’s me out.
Out of interest, yhy does Virtual PC require this chip option, when other third party virtualisation packages (I’ve used VirtualBox in the past) work without it?
May 14th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Security, performance, stability…
May 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Surely MS are making a mistake in making it only work on high-end processors. Even our nearly new Dell 760s with Core2Duo processors don’t support it. Most of our computers at work are less than 3 years old, but of those I’ve run the Intel identification utility on the only one I’ve found so far which supports the virtualisation is a high-end workstation with a Xeon processor. Surely it needs to work on bog-standard desktops and laptops if it’s to be used as a selling point?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
David – It needs to be supported at the hardware “chip” level, i.e. within the processor, so if the CPU hasn’t got it built in, it will not work, regardless of what MS come up with in software running under Windows 7. Interestingly, AMD processors Athlon x64 seem to support this better than most Intel CPUs of a similar vintage – anybody got it working on an AMD chip?
May 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Yep, it seems to be an Intel marketing ploy. Only their professional processors get it. The problem is not all business machines use their “professional” processors… Interestingly the Q6600 in my home machine has it, but its 8n00 replacement doesn’t… :-S
All AMD processors in the Athlon and Phenom ranges, from the Athlon 64 X2 series on support it. No having to worry about it.
Most of the virtualisation technologies use this technique these days, with some commercial ones also dropping back to a less secure, slower, software mode if the processor doesn’t support it.
To be honest, I haven’t found anything I use that needs XP mode yet…
May 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“Only their professional processors get it. The problem is not all business machines use their ?professional? processors?”
It seems that Core2Duo chips don’t have it, so I find it rather a mystery how MS can claim that it will allow users to run legacy XP apps in a normal business setting, given that the most likely scenario for needing this will be on bog-standard business desktops which appear to mostly have chips which don’t support the necessary virtualisation.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
David – Its called the power of marketing. MS have been making elaborate claims for years about features that in all honesty require an upgrade to your hardware. Virtually every version of their OS most likely needed a new CPU and more memory, (for which read new computer for most people) if you were going to get the best out of it. Even recently we had the fiasco of MS lowering the requirements on Graphics processors (GPUs) (which is still being dealt with by the courts) where some of Vistas more fancy advertised features were only available if you had a good enough GPU – All MS claims should be taken with a pinch of salt and verified for yourself.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Why do we need newer CPUs? Isn’t it obvious?
This business would totally collapse without the upgrade cycle. It’s a stitch-up between the hardware and software industry, where upgrading one always leads to an evetual upgrade in the other.
If I go to M&S and buy a black v-neck sweater and stick it in the cupboard, I can take it out and wear it in ten years time, no problem. But if I pop next door to Tesco and pick up a laptop and shove it in the cupboard, in ten years time you’d all be laughing at me.
It’s what’s made Intel and Microsoft so rich. My only suggestion is to buy some shares and stick them in the cupboard for ten years…
May 14th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
“David – Its called the power of marketing.”
Yes, I’m not disputing that. My point is that hyping a feature which isn’t going to work on most computers – even brand new ones being bought at the moment – really isn’t very sensible given the reception VIsta received. This is MS’s chance to get it right, and promoting a feature which will be unusable to a large number of its customers unless they buy top-end hardware isn’t likely to go down well when said customers discover the actual situation.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:08 am
“It seems that Core2Duo chips don’t have it”
David, the Core 2 Duo does get it, but only the chips in that range that Intel classes as “professional” – which means a lot of business users will miss out, because businesses see professional chips = expensive != business… :-S
The problem is, Intel and its OEMs aren’t currently very clearly advertising which of its processors are future proof! Given the current move to virtualisation, I find it strange that Intel haven’t adopted the AMD method of putting it in all non-budget chips (i.e. Celeron and Pentium D would not get it, everything with a “Core 2″ in the name should get it.
Any IT department worth its salt should be asking that question these days, when ordering / specifying new kit.
“My point is that hyping a feature which isn’t going to work on most computers – even brand new ones being bought at the moment – really isn’t very sensible given the reception VIsta received.”
This is a professional feature – it isn’t something that is going to be available to the average home user anyway. The average shop-sold PC will come with the Home version of W7. The XP feature is only available in Professional and Ultimate. I would think it is also something that the average user won’t need.
Companies which have been following virtualisation as a possibility have known about the virtualisation technologies in computers and will, hopefully, have been specifying it in all new kit.
It is only likely to be larger businesses who will require this feature in greater numbers, due to legacy software and they probably won’t be rolling out Windows 7 until the next hardware hardware refresh anyway, so they will just specify any new hardware coming in to have it.
Check out Ed Bott’s blog on the topic:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=946
On page 2, he provides a complete list of which Intel parts have the virtualisation technology built-in.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I made sure the recent servers I bought supported virtualisation, but up until now I’ve not really seen the need with desktops. They’ve just come with the default processor in the Dell quotes. I’m sure we will be far from alone in this situation, so for MS to announce something like this so late in the deleopment cycle and not making the hardware requirements clear seems rather unwise.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I have it working on a $59.00 AMD X2 processor, and everything is going fine but kinda slow.
Now I’m gonna try to increase XP’s RAM to at least 1GB and see how it goes. Will post back afterwards.
May 21st, 2009 at 3:56 pm
This tip would help if you wish to run the application inside the virtual XP machine, but since XP mode is available, why exacty would you want to run the legacy app inside the VM?
July 21st, 2009 at 7:04 am
How to boost the performance of Windows 7’s XP Mode
Thanks for the Info,
Its too little too late for me
I myself istalled Windos 7 and Virtual xp and started working on to see the performance… ufortunately i did not know how to increase the RAM size alocated to Virtual XP and i found 256 MB ram for virtual XP pathetic and i formated the machine & i went back to my cool XP SP2.
now that i learned how to increase the memory for XP i think i might give it another try buy installing windows 7 again and trying windows Virtuall xp again.
But i must tell your with 256 as Default memory Microsoft has made the Virtual XP almost un usable, because even to run an Office Programe ( Word, Excell) we need atleast 512 MB of ram if you want to run smoothly….