Windows 7 - VMWare vs XP mode

Windows XP has given it's users an unforgettable experience. When the 'new and improved' Vista hit the shelves people may have been to quick to jump ship. The problems that plagued Vista drove users back to XP. Through the majority of Vista's life span, people spent their time finding a way to get back into XP

Now, however, the problems with Vista are all but gone. Now that Vista finally works the way they intended it to, it's time to move on once again. On October 22, Microsoft is going to be rolling out Vista for a second time, code named Windows 7!

It seemed like just yesterday I missed my car payment to pick up a copy of Vista Ultimate and now I hear about Windows 7? This time I may just take out a small loan and pick it up. However, I grew up with Windows 95,98 and spent so much time in Windows XP. My roots are in XP and I still love the operating system. For that reason, I still use it...just not the way you would expect.

A wonderful piece of software called "VMWare" allows you to run virtual operating system from inside another operating system. This basically means that you can run several instances of Windows simultaneously. Now you may have heard that Windows 7 will include this feature, however, why you won't find out till at least Oct 22, is that the Windows 7 version of XP.....is a failure.

VMWare is so much better and it will actually run anything you plan on using it for without a hiccup. To see how its all set up, check out this link.

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why in the world would I spend more money on a program which appears to be included in Windows 7?". The answer is simple, XP mode in Windows 7 is going to disappoint a lot of people. If you plan on using XP mode for more than just browsing the net then you are going to be very upset.

Windows 7 XP mode only used about half of the required system resources to run Windows XP in the first place. If you've got 4GBs of ram XP mode will only detect 256MB. This might not mean much to the non tech savy but basically means a slow operating system.

With VMWare, you get so much more power and control. If you want to play a game in VMWare XP so be it. Virtually any program you can imagine will run 100% perfectly in VMWare. Whereas if you compare it XP mode in Windows 7, it's leaps and bounds behind. The feature doesn't even appear to be fully thought out or fleshed out.