XP Mode/ Virtual PC works on most modern computers. However, a BIOS setting must be enabled: Secure Virtual Machine. It’s not necessarily a CPU setting, but a BIOS one.

I recently upgraded my motherboard. The upgraded one has the setting mentioned beforehand, the old one has a different setting that I can’t really remember. The CPU is still the same, an AMD Athlon x2 4000+.

What I’m trying to say is that most, if not all, dual core CPUs support virtualization technology (or, the other way around, unless you have an AMD Sempron, virtualization should work).

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….

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.

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.

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…

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.