windows 7: xp mode

[Worgen]

is it still important to have xp mode in windows 7? or is 7 by this point pretty much completely backwards compatible with xp games?

 

[TaboriHK]

7 can run programs in XP compatibility mode. It's quite easy.

 

[Worgen]

I still play the occassional Windows XP games on my W7 Home with no problem at all. If that's what you mean.

actually Im trying to decide if I can go with just the home edition of 7 or if I should fork over the extra for the professional so that I get the xp compatibility mode

 

[Worgen]

XP Mode isn't there for gaming. There's no emulation of 3D graphics, whether OpenGL or DirectX. It's there for business applications which are too balky to be run on Windows 7, of which there are unfortunately quite a few.

so then home edition should be fine for pretty much any xp game?

 

[CrystalShadow]

XP Mode isn't there for gaming. There's no emulation of 3D graphics, whether OpenGL or DirectX. It's there for business applications which are too balky to be run on Windows 7, of which there are unfortunately quite a few.

so then home edition should be fine for pretty much any xp game?

To be honest, I have no idea. I haven't found any games designed for windows XP that don't work on windows 7.

What I have found, is games that don't work on windows 7, but are so old that they didn't work on windows XP either...

So in that sense, I'm not really sure.

I can't give you proper advice on this really, because I have windows 7 ultimate on my system, so if there is a difference in compatibility between that, and the windows 7 home, I guess I wouldn't realise it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

As far as I can tell, any games designed to work with XP will still work with 7. However, Windows 98 and earlier games, specifically the ones that either have a 16 bit installer or are completely 16 bit, won't work on 64 bit Windows 7. These games are often old enough that they don't require any sort of 3d accelleration, and in that case, a virtual machine such as Windows XP mode can help. I have a virtual machine with a Windows 95 install specifically for this sort of situation. By the way, if you have an old copy of Windows, you don't need to shell out for XP mode -- the program itself is free, the extra cost is for a Windows XP license.

 

[barash]

Been running win7 x64 ultimate for about a year now, and though there are some games that flat out refuse to work without xp-sp2/3 compatibility, they pop up rarely enough that I sometimes forget that compatibility mode exists and get confuzzled for a sec.

 

[Worgen]

ok thanks for the info guys, I think I got enough feedback to be willing to go for the home edition premium unless anyone thinks I need the professional