Windows 7: XP users - don't forget you CAN run W7 X-64 as a VM

Hi all
Seasoned users of Virtualisation can skip this but there are a lot of people who assume you have to be running a 64 bit OS to use a 64 bit virtual machine -- this is NOT TRUE BTW.

So long as you have the Virtualisation feature enabled you CAN test 64 bit guest machines even when running Windows XP as a Host machine so there isn't any reason NOT to try Windows 7 X-64 even if you are currently running Windows XP.

Vmware server / vbox are free virtual machine software.

The only problem in running a Windows 7 x-64 virtual machine on XP is the fact that XP will only see a maximum of around 3.5 GB RAM so you won't be able to create a Virtual machine much bigger than 2GB.
However there isn't a direct relationship on the size of a VM and a Real machine -- 1GB Windows 7 X-64 machines run quite nicely for testing apps.

Incidentally with vmware workstation (version 7) - paid software - 3d and a lot of enhancements have been made to the virtual video drivers so you can even run Windows 7 x-64 with full AERO as a VM on an XP host system.

(If you upgrade to a Windows 7 REAL machine your vmware workstation will still work of course).

So XP users - there's no problem if you want to TRY Windows 7 without all the hassle of dual booting.

Cheers
jimbo

What do you mean by that? A clean install?

Or are you referring to CPU's real/virtual mode? If the second, then please do tell me how you define cpu's execution mode on OS update.

Hi there
What I mean by this is that if you decide to install a Clean REAL Windows 7 OS (not a VM)from scratch is that any VM you have created can still run without change - Virtual machines created on XP or even Linux will be comapatable with running them as VM's on Windows 7.

You can only specify the number of processors of course when you define a VIRTUAL machine

screenshot enc

cheers
jimbo

You defenetly can not run an executable (ex: VM application) that was installed under linux(and in some situations, not even on an other os) for the following reasons:
1. ext2/3/4 partitions can not be seen from Win.
2. The binaries under linux are total incompatible with windows (and vice-versa).

But maybe i missed something here? Am i getting it right? > You make a clean install(real) of Windows 7, boot it, and then run a program that was installed on xp's D:/ partition?

Not sure what your point is here

Nothing in my post suggests running NATIVE applications from one OS on another OS.

This post is about VIRTUAL MACHINES - where you run for example a GUEST LINUX Virtual machine on a HOST WINDOWS machine by running some Virtual machine application software on the HOST OS.

(I think you might not have grasped the concept of Virtual Machines).

All I was saying in this post was that you CAN RUN a VIRTUAL 64 bit GUEST on a 32 BIT Host so long as the CPU virtualisation feature is enabled - but your GUEST RAM will be limited because the HOST won't see more than around 3.5GB RAM.

This will allow current XP users to test a 64 bit OS before installing it on a REAL machine so they can see reasonably what software will and won't work and whether things like USB printers / scanners will work under their 64 bit OS. This was the point of the post.

Note also there are loads of utilities around for reading ext2/ext3 files from Windows, whilst linux has had READ and WRITE capability to ntfs for a long time

Issue something like the following mount command in Linux to get RW access to a Windows disk. (Of course you can also do it via networking with SAMBA)

(mount -t ntfs-3g -o rw /dev/sdb3 /windows/volume_f)

Cheers
jimbo

Yes - "I can see clearly now"! Like, evrika! Man, sorry for such a big misunderstanding.
And actually i am familiar with VM. I did used it. But as far as i know , it is an application that emulates an environment on which another OS can run. Right? (i have a hunch that this is the reason of our misunderstanding )