Windows 7: Accessing Host Applications from XP Mode

Virtual PC with XP Mode allows access to the hosts hardware, files, etc. That's great. What we need is access to installed applications.



We have Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 in XP Mode (since it is not supported by Windows 7) which requires access to Excel. Microsoft Office is installed in the host environment (Windows 7). Is it possible for the GP in XP Mode to access this external installation of Excel or does it have to be installed in Virtual PC as well? Are there any other tools that support access to a hosts installed applications from virtual machines?

Thanks! K

This is not easy to achieve. For simple apps, such as FireFox, you can simply invoke it from the shared drive inside the vm.

However, for complex apps such as Microsoft Office, that won't work. The reason is Microsft Office has lots of registry settings. In order to make it to work from vm, you will have to import all registry settings for Microsoft Office.

I can think of this way, find all registry settings installed from Microsoft Office, dump out to a .reg file, then edit the .reg file and change all paths in the .reg file to point to the mapped shared folders (c:\progam files\office --> z:\program files\office, e.g.). Then you import the .reg file to your xp vm. This will make Microsoft Office to work.

As you can see, this is a rather difficult task, and requires quite some expertise.