I have known about Windows XP mode for a long time, however never really had a reason to use it until now. At work I was given a budget to build a new pc for myself, the PC i used to have was ancient Pentium 4 from 2003. The problem we then had was we have 3 databases that were created and run in Access 97, which we didn't think would work correctly on Windows 7 from reading up on Google. (I'm aware we do need to upgrade that at some point, however sadly 15 licences for Office 2010 is not going to be cheap. I think the idea is to eventually run the databases on a sharepoint server, but thats going off topic). In the end I did manage to get Access 97 to install and work on Windows 7 Pro x64, however sadly it has a lot of complex macros that simply did not work correctly on Windows 7. So Windows XP mode comes to the rescue, that was setup, Office 97 installed and everything worked correctly. My network credentials, installed printers and mapped network drives were all picked up by Windows XP mode automatically The end result is the database now runs on the Windows XP virtual machine, and integrates seamlessly with the Windows 7 desktop. Apart from having a slightly different skin to applications natively running on Windows 7, you would never know Access is running in a virtual machine. If you need to run an old application and have Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate its worth remembering Windows XP mode exists. Download Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 at the Microsoft Website
Nice new machine you seem to have bought yourself there InsaneNutter . I guess this could help out a lot of people who can't seem to get Windows compatability mode to work properly if they have pro or ultimate.
This wouldn't work on my laptop or desktop.they don't support hardware virtualization.Virtualbox works just as good though.
Go here: Download Windows XP Mode and download the update on step 4 "Enables Windows XP Mode for PCs without Hardware Assisted Virtualization Technology. "