I finally got around to testing XP Mode both for home and corporate use. As an IT Administrator I have mixed feelings because 1. It does make virtualization easier but 2. At what cost?
Here is the full review and opinion. Feedback welcome:
Jorge Orchilles
<crossposted from the comment form of the blog above>
I do not agree that you need to buy a Windows XP licence. Here's why.
If you have bought and set computers with Windows XP and those computers will be replaced by a new computers with Windows 7, why not use their licence in XPM? You save LOT of money. Does Microsoft need to know? NO.
Also, today, almost all middle-line CPUs have Virtualisation technology and, also, habitually, in enterprise, when you change for a newer OS such as W7, you will also plan on those :
- Upgrade software
- If software han't been developped since win9x years, then buy a new software and give course to people that will be using it
- Buy new computers that will be used for a long time. This is a long-time investment.
- etc.
By the way, I don't know if you checked but, WinXP mode barely use 20MB of RAM on the machine...
It may barely use 20 MB of RAM on the machine - idle. I seriously doubt that if you load up Photoshop, Firefox with 35 tabs and Outlook checking 3 IMAP accounts that it will continue to use only 20 MB of RAM....
B/c if it does, then it is doing a horrible job of using the heck out of your system's paging system, and slowing itself down unnecessarily....
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