Windows 7 and XP mode

[sevenwood]

If I'm asking this question in the wrong forum area (or on the wrong messageboard), please jump in and let me know where I should ask it.

Until two weeks ago, I was happily running Windows XP on my six-year-old PC. Then its hard disk died. I was eventually able to get the old PC back up and running after a system restore, but I figured that my old PC was telling me that it was time to be replaced, so I did so.

My new PC is a Windows 7 machine (home premium edition) that I purchased at my local computer store. It's really neat and I have been able to install most of my old programs on it. Most. The three notable exceptions (all legal software) are my old Palm Pilot software, my old copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 6.x, and an ancient FORTRAN compiler (Compaq Visual FORTRAN 6.6, no longer sold nor supported by Compaq).

Only the FORTRAN compiler is a serious issue, but a serious issue it is - I support a number of older FORTRAN programs that were written long ago using that compiler for a small company that isn't interested in upgrading its programs either to a new compiler or a new language. Until I resolve this issue one way or another I can't retire my old PC.

I've heard that apparently I can easily upgrade my copy of Windows 7 Home Premium to something called Windows 7 Home Professional, and that with Windows 7 Home Professional I will be able to download (at no cost) and run something called Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP mode that will supposedly let me install programs that normally run under XP but not under Windows 7.

Does anyone here have any experience with either 1) upgrading a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional, 2) using Windows Virtual PC and/or Windows XP mode under Windows 7, and especially 3) installing and running balky XP programs using those options?

Please, don't generate responses telling me that I shouldn't be using this old FORTRAN compiler. That's not my decision to make.

[UncleFred]

I upgraded Vista to Windows 7 Professional (I don't think 'Home Professional' is the right name) and I installed for free the XP emulator. It worked OK for the one critical program I had that wouldn't run under Vista.

[sevenwood]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys.

Originally Posted by UncleFred

I don't think 'Home Professional' is the right name

My bad. Microsoft refers to it as "Windows 7 Professional".

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

First off, have you tried running the applications installer in compatibility mode?

Hadn't even thought of that. I'll give it a try.

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

>upgrading a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional,

There really is no upgrade. You'll have to delete the partition is start fresh.

Actually, Microsoft claims that an upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional involves only paying them about $80 to get a software key and applying that key to your copy of W7HP. It's called their Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade feature. (A cynic would claim that you've already purchased a copy of W7P when you bought your copy of W7HP - you're just not allowed to use it until you give Microsoft more money. But I'm not a cynic.)

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

XP mode has very specific hardware requires. It must run on a CPU with built in virtualization support. MS has a tool to check this. You may need to enable support via the BIOS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir.../download.aspx

If you cannot run XP mode you can still run VirtualPC, which has much more forgiving requirements. Its a free download so you can run this without upgrading your machine. Of course you will need a valid XP license to run as a virtual machine.

Btw, your software seems to run on wine under Linux. Heck you may be able to compile wine under cygwin and run it.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...ation&iId=5406

Thanks - I will check all that out.

[HorseloverFat]

First off, have you tried running the applications installer in compatibility mode?

>upgrading a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional,

There really is no upgrade. You'll have to delete the partition is start fresh.

>using Windows Virtual PC and/or Windows XP mode under Windows 7, and especially

XP mode has very specific hardware requires. It must run on a CPU with built in virtualization support. MS has a tool to check this. You may need to enable support via the BIOS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir.../download.aspx

If you cannot run XP mode you can still run VirtualPC, which has much more forgiving requirements. Its a free download so you can run this without upgrading your machine. Of course you will need a valid XP license to run as a virtual machine.



Btw, your software seems to run on wine under Linux. Heck you may be able to compile wine under cygwin and run it.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...ation&iId=5406

[sevenwood]

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

XP mode has very specific hardware requires. It must run on a CPU with built in virtualization support. MS has a tool to check this. You may need to enable support via the BIOS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir.../download.aspx

Thanks - I just downloaded and ran that tool and it claims that my hardware has that feature, but that it is currently disabled and must be enabled in the BIOS. Its "user manual" even told me how to do that for HP computers. Cool Beans.

[HorseloverFat]

I dont think it'll upgrade without a reformat. Yep, you'll get the upgrade pricing.

[TimeWinder]

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

I dont think it'll upgrade without a reformat. Yep, you'll get the upgrade pricing.

The "Anytime Update" version upgrade does not require a reformat, it just turns on some features that were previously turned off (and downloads updates and some new software). Vista had a similar feature. There are some limitations: the main one is that you can't switch from 32 to 64-bit without a reformat.

[Terry Kennedy]

Originally Posted by HorseloverFat

I dont think it'll upgrade without a reformat. Yep, you'll get the upgrade pricing.

From the URL a few replies back:

"No disks, no delays. And no leaving the house: With Windows Anytime Upgrade, you can upgrade to a more advanced edition of Windows 7—say from Home Premium to Ultimate—in as little as 10 minutes. That way, you get to take advantage of extra features while keeping your current programs, files, and settings intact.

In the past, upgrading Windows could be a bit of a hassle. In Windows 7, the software you need comes preinstalled. All you have to do is purchase an upgrade key from Microsoft or another authorized retailer to unlock those shiny new features."

I can assure you that the only difference between the various Windows 7 install discs (within a given architecture, like x86) is one small text file (ei.cfg) that determines which edition to install. Of course, you need the product key that matches your particular edition.

[HorseloverFat]

Thanks, for some reason last time I tried to do this it made me reformat. Maybe because it was volume vs retail licensing.

[Mangetout]

Is the XP licence on your old hardware a standard one, or did it come bundled with the machine? - if the former (and possibly the latter, depending on the vendor), it may be possible to set up your current PC for multiple booting with XP and Windows 7 as choices at startup.

[sevenwood]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Is the XP licence on your old hardware a standard one, or did it come bundled with the machine? - if the former (and possibly the latter, depending on the vendor), it may be possible to set up your current PC for multiple booting with XP and Windows 7 as choices at startup.

It was bundled with the old PC, and my intention (actually my need, given the next paragraph) is to keep that old PC at least technically alive until I know that all potential software problems have been resolved, so I don't think that reusing that old license with my new PC would be realistic. Thanks for bringing that possibility up, though.

The good news is that I've been talking with the folks that I work for, and given that I'm the first internal user to be running a PC under Windows 7 they're both going to cover my costs and time of upgrading to Windows 7 Professional, installing those XP mode and Virtual PC options, attempting to run those problem installs using one or more those options, rebuilding all of the apps I support using the results of those installs, and ensuring that the resulting applications run under (and get the same results under) both XP and Windows 7 machines.

Oh, yes, and before I do all that they want me to run a number of their internal applications that they provide to clients on my Windows 7 PC to ensure that these apps work under Windows 7. After all, if one of those apps turns a Windows 7 machine into a heap of burning rubble they'd rather find that out on my PC than a client's.

If you never hear from me again you'll know there were issues.

[sevenwood]

Originally Posted by sevenwood

If you never hear from me again you'll know there were issues.

A minor update. I've enabled Virtualization mode in my BIOS, upgraded to Windows 7 Professional ($89.95 plus tax, did it online, took about ten mimutes), and downloaded and installed the free Virtual PC and XP mode features. The whole process took about an hour. Basically I can fire up a virtual XP machine inside my running Windows 7 machine anytime I want to. Piece of cake so far.

I'm going to attempt the hard part - installing and running my old compilers under XP mode - later on today. First I'm going to the gym to work out my tension in advance

[drachillix]

Originally Posted by sevenwood

A minor update. I've enabled Virtualization mode in my BIOS, upgraded to Windows 7 Professional ($89.95 plus tax, did it online, took about ten mimutes), and downloaded and installed the free Virtual PC and XP mode features. The whole process took about an hour. Basically I can fire up a virtual XP machine inside my running Windows 7 machine anytime I want to. Piece of cake so far.

I'm going to attempt the hard part - installing and running my old compilers under XP mode - later on today. First I'm going to the gym to work out my tension in advance

Only snag I have run into is I had problems with the VM on a 64 bit install of 7 not playing nice with old apps like your compiler.

I reloaded the whole box as 32 bit win 7, reloaded the VM, and app worked perfectly.

Program would not work at all outside of vm.

[sevenwood]

Originally Posted by drachillix

Only snag I have run into is I had problems with the VM on a 64 bit install of 7 not playing nice with old apps like your compiler.

I reloaded the whole box as 32 bit win 7, reloaded the VM, and app worked perfectly.

Program would not work at all outside of vm.

I'm sorry to hear that you had these problems.

The good news (for me) is that I didn't run into any problems at all.

I successfully installed both Visual Studio 6.x and Compaq Visual FORTRAN 6.x from their installation CDs inside the Virtual XP machine (the CDs' AUTORUN features didn't work inside the virtual machine, but I was able to wander through the "My Computer" menus to get to the CDs and their installation Setup.exe files manually).

Running the various compilers has to be done inside the XP VM, but the apps they generated ran both inside the XP VM and on the Windows 7 side. And (so far, anyway) running those apps have yielded exactly the same results in all cases as their old XP-machine-generated equivalents did.

I am officially a happy camper. Whew!

[k_aghdami]

Dear...
I have the same problem with CVFortran 6.6 in windows 7. I am using premium edition of windows 7, but the problem exists again. I need help because my all projects are in CVF and with Array Visualizer.

[sevenwood]

Originally Posted by k_aghdami

I have the same problem with CVFortran 6.6 in windows 7. I am using premium edition of windows 7, but the problem exists again. I need help because my all projects are in CVF and with Array Visualizer.

I'm a bit confused here as to what you meant by "again". Did you take all of the steps I did and then find that your copy of CVF wouldn't install inside a virtual PC using XP mode? Or did it install but Array Visualizer doesn't work? (I'll confess right away that I have never used their Array Visualizer features).

Some of my confusion is caused by your comment that you're running "premium edition". Note that if you're currently running under Windows 7 Home Premium you'll have to upgrade it to Windows 7 Professional before you can even install Microsoft's Virtual PC feature.