To download seventeen screenshots of the new feature (in a .zip), from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, click here.

This week, through the leak of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (build 7100), Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera have teamed up to provide astonishing new information about one of the new features in Windows 7 called Windows XP Mode.

The project, which has remained a secret until now, was titled Virtual Windows XP but later changed to its current name. According to Rivera, “XPM is built on the next generation Microsoft Virtual PC 7 product line, which requires processor-based virtualization support (Intel and AMD) to be present and enabled on the underlying PC, much like Hyper-V, Microsoft’s server-side virtualization platform.” Windows XP Mode will be made available for free to Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate users. However, the add-on does not come in the Windows 7 box. It will be downloadable off of the Microsoft website. With Windows XP Mode, users can run XP Mode applications side by side with Windows 7 applications (see Figure 1).

The new feature should prove to be a huge bonus for Windows XP holdouts who aren’t quite sold on the idea of moving to Windows 7. Now, Microsoft can boast about near 100% compatibility with XP applications.

Figure #1: A Windows XP application, Office 2003, running side by side with a Windows 7 application, Office 2007.

To download seventeen screenshots of the new feature (in a .zip), from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, click here.

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