Anyone used Win XP Mode in Win 7?

I keep reading about the way that MS enticed loyal users away from XP and onto Win 7 by creating a VM that MS called "Windows XP Mode." Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm most concerned with whether or not one can still access USB ports and drives while in Win XP Mode, but I'd love to read anything I can learn about it. What are the shortcomings of doing this?

Thank you for the help.

 

I tried it a few years ago. I didn't have any issues that I can remember with drives or usb ports.

But, I use legacy software that is protected by a parallel port Sentinel dongle and when using XP mode I could not get this to work. Hence, years later I am still using a stand alone XP machine....

 

I also tried Windows 7 XP Mode and was disappointed. No 3D acceleration so forget games and possibly modern video sites. Display is limited 640x480x256 (16 bit color) - Is this Windows 3.0?

Better solution:

Download VMWare Player (Free Software) or VMWare Workstation (Paid).

Create a Windows XP virtual machine and install your favorite Windows XP ISO.

Profit.

It also shares ports from the host machine but don't know if it will work with a parallel port dongle. Try it and see.

 

Thanks but already tried it! And other vm applications. Security dongle always not seen.

XP is fine though, I like it. Currently building a modern (ish) spec PC to run XP SP3, will sit on my network but not have Internet access.

 

As someone who hasn't used a Windows PC in over 12 years, I'd love to read much more about your "newish" PC project, @Andy_Viking . As I've mentioned in another thread, we have a project in front of us that involved old [very expensive] 32-bit proprietary media authoring software, so being able to employ 32-bit Win XP is pretty important for us. On the other hand, the newest PC laptop we can find for doing this would, for obvious reasons, be preferred.

Regardless, I have no doubt that a description of what you're doing would be of great interest to us and possibly others.

 

The CAD software I use is ridiculously expensive which is why I am going down this route.

I am currently getting stuff together and will start a new thread when I start the build.

When I say newish, I guess most of the parts will be circa 5 years or so old. Hopefully will be far quicker, smoother and more stable than the current 20+ year old hardware. Most of the parts I have are from other projects so costs won't be too high.

 

Once again, your project seems to be pretty close to what some folks - like us - are trying to do. Namely, to employ the [newest] PC system possible to make effective use of software that was written for Windows XP. I, for one, will be very interested in learning the details of how you get your CAD software to function in Win XP: especially if you got it to run to your liking on a circa 2018 (or so) PC. Thank you for the great post!

By the way, we're presently looking at a 6th gen Intel laptop PC - the Dell Precision 7520 - for our 32-bit Win XP utility project. So far, this is looking like a Win 7 system - employing a Win XP VM (of some kind) - but your post(s) in this thread definitely have me thinking about how it might be possible to get this particular laptop model to run Win XP SP3 without a VM? Why am I thinking this? Because the Intel 6th gen version of the Dell 7520 was released circa 2017 (roughly 6 years ago).