Machines which CAN run XP mode

I skimmed this part of the forum & see mostly complaints about people who CAN'T run XP mode on their Windows 7 machines. I really wish people would report their success with specifics, such as make & model, to guide others who haven't yet bought anything. Manufacturers, sellers and reviewers don't mention this either, so it is very hard to determine if a machine CAN run XP mode. Just a compatible CPU is not enough, so you can't count on that.
A friend of mine recently acquired an Acer 5430-6670 with Win 7 Pro on it. He was able to run in XP mode without any problems.
None of the sellers advertising this product mention this capability.

I am aware of the drawbacks both of you have mentioned.
Would either of you be so kind as to post the make & model of the commercially-available machines which you have found DO run Win XP mode? That's information which no one seems to share. I see your personal specs indicate you have built machines from scratch, but what about machines people can buy over the counter?

AMD Virtualization Compatibility Check Utility

This is for AMD chips. I'll see if I can find companion info on Intel. I know that I had it at one time.

haven't found it. Here are a couple of more links which may be of interest.

Virtual Varia
VirtualBox
Windows Virtual PC Home Page
Windows Virtualization Team Blog
x86 virtualization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Whether or not a machine can run XP mode is not just due to the CPU. The BIOS has to permit it, and the motherboard has to be compatible. I found that out when I added a Celeron E3200 CPU to an ECS GF7100PVT-M motherboard, hoping to get that capability. The motherboard turned out to be incompatible, although otherwise the combination works just fine.
Intel has a list of the chipsets that are supposedly compatible with XP mode, but I would much prefer for the manufacturer of the computer to specify that (or not). By & large they don't.

artfd said:

I skimmed this part of the forum & see mostly complaints about people who CAN'T run XP mode on their Windows 7 machines. I really wish people would report their success with specifics, such as make & model, to guide others who haven't yet bought anything. Manufacturers, sellers and reviewers don't mention this either, so it is very hard to determine if a machine CAN run XP mode. Just a compatible CPU is not enough, so you can't count on that.
A friend of mine recently acquired an Acer 5430-6670 with Win 7 Pro on it. He was able to run in XP mode without any problems.
None of the sellers advertising this product mention this capability.

Only those that don't meet minimum requirements cannot run it. That's basically 2GB RAM and a CPU that supports virtualization technology (VT-x for Intel and AMD-V for AMD). You can look up your CPU specs on whether or not it supports that.

[QUOTE=JonM33;611042]

artfd said:

You can look up your CPU specs on whether or not it supports that.

The CPU is not the only limiting factor, even allowing for the other conditions you just described. The motherboard and the chips on it can also prevent virtualization from being usable. From Intel's mouth: "Intel® Virtualization Technology also requires a computer system with a chipset, BIOS, enabling software and/or operating system, device drivers, and applications designed for this feature."
Intel has a downloadable utility you can run (forget where it is at the moment) on a machine with an Intel chip in it to determine whether or not it can run XP mode. I ran it on my E3200 Celeron installed on my old motherboard & was surprised to find the "CPU" was not compatible. I wrote to Intel about this discrepancy. They said the CPU was indeed capable of virtualization, but that their utility tested all the hardware at once to see if virtualization was possible. It would have been nice if the utility itself said that, instead of implying that the CPU was at fault. The Intel rep then pointed me to the information quoted in the first paragraph.
What gets me is that computer & motherboard manufacturers and the sellers of these products do not seem to know whether one of their products works (or doesn't work) with Win7 running XP mode. I think shoppers will need to take a bootable CDROM with the detection utilities on it, and run it on any machine or motherboard they are considering.