For many years, Microsoft has been busy providing various patches and upgrades for Windows. To keep the product backward compatible, it has also been trying to relieve user complaints and pressure. Now it seems that Microsoft is finally fed up. In Windows 7, they are going to put the legacy Win32 API genie back into the bottle, or, more specifically, plug it into a virtual machine that can be customized and integrated, and put it together with other basic components of Windows XP. In this way, through the so-called virtual mode, Windows XP can finally coexist with the new version of Windows 7. This is a great idea for many users who are hard to give up Windows XP, but they will eventually find it just on paper.
For Windows, the old version and new features have always been separated, just like the poles of the Earth, to allow users to seamlessly access both environments at the same time, there is only one outstanding wish that cannot be achieved. Unfortunately, Microsoft wants a virtual machine to complete this function and binds a Windows XP SP3 revision to a modified Virtual PC image. Obviously, this mode is not the most effective, microsoft does not seem to have seen other technologies that may be doing better. However, according to reports from 51cto, Microsoft did not initially want to bind Windows XP SP3 to a modified Virtual PC, if you are interested, you can refer to the upgrade solution from Windows XP to Windows 7. .
Of course, I want to talk about virtualization technology. Isolating legacy applications from their own virtual real-time environment has always been one of the main selling points of such products. In this field, few companies have as much experience and technical capabilities as Microsoft does. In my opinion, Microsoft's app-V platform is more suitable for this task. It is a ground-breaking virtualization application product with thousands of successful installations, if 51cto readers are not very familiar with app-V, you can refer to the installation of Microsoft APP-V 4.5 experience This article.
With app-V, there is no need to use clumsy virtual machines, and users will also save a lot of trouble in system integration and configuration management. App-V virtualization can run at or close to the real speed, with sufficient fidelity, and the impact on the system is almost negligible: all modifications to the Registry and file system are encapsulated in the sandbox to ensure that the local environment is clean and not affected by dll version conflicts, and there is no other legacy windows issues.
This should be a pretty solution, but it also raises the following question: why does Microsoft not use app-V? Instead, it uses virtual machines to create a slow and bloated image for XP, is it at the cost of increasing the complexity of the user's operations, and specifically makes it look like an application, showing that they specifically "integrate" the user with the local desktop?
As mentioned above, if you adopt an app-v-based solution, you can complete the task almost invisible to the user. You only need to simply intercept the legacy XP installer at startup and redirect to an automatic version of APP-V sequencer. In the end, from the appearance of the interface to task operations, just like any locally installed application, there is no difference between the local shell integration and drag-and-drop functions of the application. What happens to the "virtual XP mode" solution for Windows 7? In virtual machine mode, you must work in a completely different operating environment. You must install virtual applications on virtual machines, not to mention managing multiple file systems, complex operations such as program directory and registry configuration.
Maybe Microsoft is a little lazy, maybe it is to find a fast repair method, because it seems to be the least way to plug XP in the form of a virtual machine. It may be a good idea for people not particularly familiar With virtualization technology. However, for those who know better ways and those who have rich experience in virtualization and integration, Windows 7's "virtual XP mode" is somewhat far-fetched. They will think that this is just another "enough to do" solution developed by Microsoft, and will continue to blame the company for not focusing on technical advantages long ago.
[51cto.com The source and source of the source are 51cto.com. ]
Original article: Windows 7's 'xp mode': Right idea, wrong technology By Randall Kennedy
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