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#1
XP Mode is slow--any way to improve
I'm quite familiar with virtualization technology and I use it everyday at work (Mostly VMWare ESX and ESXi). At home I typically use VirtualBox.
So, once I got Windows 7 RTM from technet and got it installed on a box at work, I decided to get the Windows XP Mode up and running and check out the published application functionality.
The thing that I noticed right off the bat is that this Virtual Mode XP box is pretty darn slow on startup and starting applications within it compared to other VM applications.
The machine I am using is as follows:
--Asus P5QL Mobo
--Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU at 3.0Ghz
--4GB of Corsair DDR-800 RAM
--Intel 10/100/1000 NIC
--Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB hard drive.
So, as a test, I configured the XP Mode box and installed Open Office 3.0.1 onto that box.
With a fresh reboot of Windows 7 Ultimate, I fired up the XP Mode Windows XP SP3 instance and it took 56 seconds to get me to a desktop without an hourglass. I then launched open office writer and it took 10 seconds to get me to a blank document.
I then rebooted the host Windows 7 machine, and I fired up the Published Application version of Open Office write and this took 1 minute and 8 seconds to open.
So, then I installed Virtual Box 3.0.4. I created a new Windows XP SP3 machine...and ran into the first problem (You cannot run Virtual PC and Virtual Box at the same time.(get error about exclusive access to the Intel VT root)..so I had to uninstall Virtual PC). Then I installed Windows XP SP3 from a slipstreamed ISO file (took about 10 minutes to install).
I then rebooted the Windows 7 host machine and launched the Windows XP SP3 machine. It was booted to a desktop with no hourglass in 25 seconds. Remember, this same process with the XP Mode Virtual PC machine took 56 seconds.
I then rebooted the Windows 7 host machine and timed how long it took to boot up Windows XP SP3 from Virtual Box and launch OpenOffice writer to the point where I could work on a document. This took 35 seconds.
So, to reiterate
--Windows XP SP3 under Virtual PC (Virtual XP Mode) boot time: 56 seconds
--Windows XP SP3 under Virtual Box 3.0.4 boot time: 25 seconds.
--Windows XP SP3 under Virtual PC booting and then opening Writer: 66 sec.
--Windows XP SP3 under Virtual Box 3.0.4 and then opening writer: 35 sec.
So, I'm wondering if anything can be tweaked or modified to improve the performance of Windows XP running under the XP Mode function of Windows??
The obvious issue to me is that MS provides a license and ability to freely run Windows XP SP3 under Windows 7 pro, enterprise or Ultimate when you download and use their Virtual XP Mode. However, in my scenario where you install instead XP on your own..you don't have a key and the key provided in the cdkey.txt file with Virtual PC won't work. So technically you would have to purchase a license. I happen to have a volume license copy at work that I can use for my volume license tests....but that isn't the point here.
The second issue is that for people wanting to run other non-MS operating systems like Linux or Solaris...I've found in the past that support for Virtual Machine tools and so forth under Virtual PC is pretty bad and so is performance within the VM compared to other software like VMWare, or VirtualBox. And as I found out during the above testing, it doesn't seem that I can run both Virtual PC and Virtual Box at the same time....so I seem to either lose my free license to XP or lose ability to run other non-MS os's if I want the best speed/performance of my virtual machines.
It just seems like MS could have provided a faster environment for the Windows XP Mode. I mean it's 1/2 as fast as Virtual Box on the same hardware. That's pretty signficant.
Any ideas?????