Motherboard Drivers  

Hello to all..I am contemplating on purchasing a new laptop as un upgrade to my existing one that I primarily use with engineering software and vehicle On-board Diagnostics that require a real RS-232 port for communication. I prefer to use this over a USB to Serial converter. My current system has an expresscard slot and I am using a serial port expresscard adapter (PCI bus). Most of the new laptops that are available are running on Windows 7 and while I carefully check the laptop brand and model if they have Windows XP drivers, the choice is not that many. My question is: If I purchase a laptop model that has Windows 7 Pro pre-installed and it doesn't have drivers for Windows XP and then I use XP mode, will the Windows 7 drivers still work with the XP mode? The drivers that I am referring to are the video, sound, WiFi, and others that are meant for the motherboard and its hardware.

I do believe XP Mode is a virtual OS/PC runninig inside of Windows 7 using virtual hardware. The drivers for the virtual hardware are included. I don't think it is going to do what you think it will do. Although your post is somewhat confusing. You may want to read up on what XP Mode is and how it works.
Windows Virtual PC: Home Page

Well OK, to help clear the confusion, let me illustrate this with an example: When I purchased my laptop I specifically asked the store sales person if the model that I was about to purchase supported Windows XP (meaning, if it had drivers that are compatible with WinXP) so I went ahead and purchased it. I had two CDs with the motherboard drivers in them, one for Windows XP and one for Windows Vista. These drivers were for the video graphics card, sound, SD card reader, WiFi, LAN, etc.

Presently, I am planning on purchasing another laptop that has a Core-i5 or i7 processor in the Fujitsu Lifebook S series. When I checked their website for driver downloads, I can see for a particular model the drivers for Windows 7 and drivers for Windows XP. For another model the available driver downloads are only for Windows 7.

Now back to my inquiry. If I purchase a model that supports only Windows 7, it means that the motherboard drivers are for Win7 only. Now if I use the XP mode in Win7 Pro or Ultimate, will the Win7 motherboard drivers run properly (meaning, will I have sound and will my graphics display properly?) in XP mode? I hope this is clear enough now.

You only need install the Win7 drivers, as already explained when running a virtual machine, XP in this case, all the hardware is virtualised and is completely supported by the Host, Win7. No drivers are required nor indeed can be installed for the virtual OS.

XP mode may not get your serial port express card adapter running in Windows 7. It may get the software that goes with it running but I'm not so sure about the driver side of it. Is the PC the serial port express card adapter is in now, running XP? If so you could try running the Windows 7 upgrade adviser on that PC and see what it reports. Download: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details You may also want to see if you can find a Windows 7 driver for it. Even a Windows Vista driver may work.

thanks guys for the info.

@alphanumeric: my serial port expresscard is used with my WinXP machine and it has never given me communication problems. I will try out what you suggested to see if I can get this running in a Win7 platform. Thanks again..you gave me the best answer.

It will all depend on how "old" the hardware and software is. I don't have a lot of experience with running Virtual machines or XP Mode, but I'm sure there are some forum members that do. It seems to me that XP Mode is geared to running legacy software, and not so much the hardware. I'm pretty sure the hardware has to be running in Windows 7 in order for XP mode to be able to use it, but like I say I'm no expert on that. In any case, I think it would be advantageous if you could get it all running natively in Windows 7 and not have to mess with XP Mode at all.