Parallels to Offer XP Compatibility for Win 7

Parallels is developing a tool that will allow users to run Windows XP applications on machines running Windows 7.

By Tom Jowitt
Mon, May 11, 2009

Techworld — Parallels is developing a tool that will allow users to run Windows XP applications on machines running Windows 7.

Last month, Microsoft said that it would include an add-on to Windows 7 that will allows users to run applications designed for Windows XP in a virtual machine. The announcement was noteworthy, because it was the first time Microsoft relied on virtualisation technology to provide backward compatibility.

Meanwhile virtualisation vendor Parallels did not reveal too much detail about its offering, other than to confirm that it is indeed working on a XP/Win 7 virtualisation tool.

"Parallels today invited consumers and businesses to sign-up to beta test a solution that enables users to easily migrate to Windows 7 and run legacy Windows programs side-by-side with Windows 7 applications," said the company in an official statement.

Parallels said the new solution would utilise its high performance adaptive hypervisor, as well as technologies such as Coherence and SmartSelect, "innovations that enable users to seamlessly run differing OSs and their applications side-by-side."

"The solution also integrates Parallels' easy-to-use migration tools, such as Parallels Transporter, allowing users to quickly transfer applications and data from older Windows operating systems such as Windows 2000, XP or Vista to a new Windows 7 machine," the company said.

However, it seems that unlike the Microsoft offering, Parallels version will offer something unique. This is because with the Microsoft option, in order to use XP Mode, the user's computer requires an Intel CPU with Intel VT, or an AMD processor with AMD-V.

The problem with this is that many laptops, especially netbooks etc, do not contain the necessary chips. Intel's Celeron and Atom chips for example do not have the virtualisation technology, and neither does AMD's Sempron line.

"Yes we are working on a product to enable people to run legacy applications on Windows 7," a Parallels spokeswoman told Techworld. "The main thing of interest however is Win 7's XP mode has specific hardware requirements. For example, the hardware has to be based on either Intel VTX or AMD's v technology."

"Netbooks often do not contain that technology," she added. "Our version will not have that limitation."

The spokeswoman could not confirm a release date for the product, or even an official name for the forthcoming tool.

You are here: Technology Topics » News

Most Recent Technology Topics Stories

White Papers »

Has Your Server Infrastructure Kept Pace with End User Demands?

Learn how your answer to this question compares to your peers by taking this quick poll. See how your peers are dealing with the challenge of ensuring a highly capable server infrastructure as technological shifts impact the application server platform.

Enterprise Strategy Group: The Case for a New Data-centric DLP White Paper

With increasing data growth, comes increased need for data security. The existing DLP model, with a focus on compliance/enforcement is not sufficient as the data discovery and classification capabilities are not granular enough. Read this paper to find how you can efficiently and accurately manage your risk by rapidly inventorying and classifying your data and then developing remediation workflows that support business needs.

Data Loss by the Numbers

This paper breaks down attack sources into four categories: external, malicious insiders, accidental insiders, and unknown.

Data Loss Prevention Solution for Managing E-Discovery

The rapid growth of data and technology is creating challenges for organizations as this digital data is considered to be business communications and must be preserved according the same industry-specific regulations governing the retention and discovery of emails and more traditional forms of electronic communications. This paper examines the role that Data Loss Prevention ("DLP") technology can play in helping organizations address the challenges of locating information in response to electronic discovery.

Best Practices in Data Protection - Executive Summary

This research, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, focuses on issues relating to the use of data protection solutions such as endpoint encryption and data loss prevention within the workplace.

Business Centric DLP

This report, by Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group, examines the need for a new business-centric approach to DLP in order to align business and security requirements.

Webcasts »

Virtualization Success is a Team Effort

As greater numbers of datacenter servers transition from the physical to the virtual world, the components of virtualization success come to the fore. What scores of organizations have discovered is that success is derived from an optimal pairing of the right software platform with the right hardware platform.

Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware

Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn about VMware customer, Navicure, and their experiences testing and evaluating the recovery manager, their progress in implementing it in their environment and their advice other customers considering using vCenter.

Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View - Webcast

Many enterprises have discovered that the use of virtualization to support desktop workloads creates a range of significant benefits. These benefits include price efficiencies, improved IT management and greater agility and choice for end users.

This VMware sponsored webcast with IDC will provide both quantitative measurement of the business value -- defined as the expected ROI -- and qualitative analysis associated with the use of VMware View™. IDC will also provide an analysis of the View Composer and ThinApp™ features of VMware View, including the business value of these solutions and an overview of how they work.

Attend this webcast to learn about:
- Challenges and barriers that might impede the adoption of desktop virtualization
- Navigating roadblocks to facilitate a strategic implementation
- Optimizing qualitative and quantitative benefits to IT and your business

Deliver Private Cloud Database as a Service with VMware vFabric Data Director

VMware recently announced VMware vFabric™ Data Director, a new database deployment and operations platform that enables enterprise IT organizations to offer database as a private cloud service. Built on top of VMware vSphere 5, vFabric Data Director enables IT organizations to ontrol database sprawl through automation and consistent policy enforcement and accelerate application development cycles with self-service database management. Attend this webcast to learn how vFabric Data Director can help you build database-as-a-service in your datacenter.

Reliable Disaster Protection with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

A simple, cost-effective disaster-recovery solution for virtual environments is high on the agenda for IT organizations as they virtualize more business-critical applications with VMware. VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager-the market-leading disaster-recovery product-ensures the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager provides centralized management of recovery plans, enables nondisruptive testing and automates site-failover processes.

Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5

Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to expand disaster protection beyond their most critical applications, largely because they are uncertain whether the quality of the protection is really worth its cost. VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5 is the market-leading disaster recovery product that addresses this situation for organizations of all kinds. It complements VMware vSphere to ensure the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications.

Newsletter Sign-Up »

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter