The Inquirer is running an article titled “XP Mode in Windows 7 is a scam“. The article describes how running in XP Mode won’t do what you think it will do. The major gripe is that perhipherals will need to be virtualized. Those virtualized perhipherals will be a subset of virtual hardware devices that look like those in an older, generic PC – basically a lowest common denominator version of a NIC, SATA controller, sound card and GPU. It then goes on to say how you won’t be able to “play games”, etc.

Let me first say, “no shit Sherlock”. The intentional behind XP Mode is NOT to run a full blown computer in a computer. The author entirely misses the point of virtualization. The virtualization provided by XP Mode isn’t the same as a high end enterprise version VMWare product on data center grade hardware. The entire intention of XP Mode is to allow business that have legacy applications that may or may not run on Windows 7 (or Vista for that matter) to have an environment that their applications can safely run in… a Windows XP virtual machine.

The author goes on to rail on how applications won’t run at a “tolerable speed” and generally dismisses it as useless. XP Mode is not intended to run 3D gaming applications; it isn’t meant for software that needs hardware acceleration. This is meant for ease the upgrade path of businesses, most importantly for those that will enjoy the migration to a 64-bit OS, which incidentally has absolutely no support for 16-bit applications. Even if you still HAVE a 16 bit application laying around (and seriously, if you do… upgrade or find a replacement)  none of those programs will have any need for blistering fast 3d performance!