I'm sure lot of you would have run into a similar issue some time or the other. I came across this when I was testing the mobile broadband devices on Windows 7. There were  a few USB devices that would work well on Windows XP but wouldn't work on Windows 7. For instance, the drivers and the connection manager applications wouldn't have been updated for Windows 7 and it doesn't make sense to just throw the device, isn't it. How could you make use of the device in Windows 7 and still stay connected to the internet?

Simple...Microsoft released the XP mode for Windows 7 users who wanted to run their productivity apps that weren't compatible with Windows 7. If your mobile broadband device works on Windows XP but does not work on Windows 7, you now do not have to throw away the device.

Just follow the below steps and you could have internet connection on your Windows 7 machine using the XP compatible device. The commands that you could use are given in blue in braces. The applications and scripts required to run these commands can be found on the Windows 7 machine itself or in the attached ZIP file.

  • Download the XP mode Virtual PC from the link above on your Windows 7 machine.
  • Download the ZIP file from this post to your Windows 7 machine.
  • Install loopback adapter on the Windows 7 (host machine) [devcon.exe install %windir%\inf\netloop.inf *msloop]
  • Insert the mobile broadband device now to the host machine (Windows 7 machine) manually.
  • Attach the loopback adapter of the host (Windows 7) to a network adapter of the virtual machine and power on the XP virtual PC. [cscript AttachLoopback.vbs "Virtual Windows XP"]
  • Attach the mobile broadband USB device to the guest machine (Windows XP). [cscript AttachUSB.vbs]
  • Open the 'Virtual Windows XP' VPC from '%USERPROFILE%\Virtual Machines' directory and install the drivers and setup the connection on the XP VPC.
  • Once you have the connection setup on the XP VPC, run ShareDevice.vbs inside the XP VPC.
  • Renew the IP address on the Windows 7 host machine after this [ipconfig /renew]

You now have internet connectivity on your host Windows 7 machine by means of Internet connection sharing with the guest Windows XP machine.

Signing off,

Janani