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Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

We have spent a lot of time telling people how Windows Virtual PC and Virtual XP mode will allow them to run incompatible legacy applications on Windows 7.  Unfortunately a number of people have come away with the impression that you can only do this with Virtual XP mode and that you can only run a single application at a time.

This is simply not true.

Using Windows Virtual PC you can access seamless applications from Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines.  You can have multiple applications running seamlessly in a single virtual machine, and you can have seamless applications running under different virtual machines at the same time.

If you look at this screenshot:

VPCApps

You can see that I have Internet Explorer and a command prompt running under the same (Windows XP) virtual machine.  I then have Windows Live Photo Gallery running under a separate (Windows 7) virtual machine.  All three of these applications have been launched directly from my start menu in Windows 7.

Cheers,
Ben

Published Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:14 PM by Virtual PC Guy

Comments

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

It's wonderful, just when will there be a linux client support!

Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:49 PM by angst911

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

Good stuff Ben!  Just a question, does this require Windows 7 Pro,  or can I do this on the Home Premium? Thanks.

Friday, June 26, 2009 9:02 AM by Jeff

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

I have a Firewire device with drivers that only work on Windows XP. Will I be able to use this device in Windows XP mode?

Friday, June 26, 2009 10:50 AM by Greg

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

I can testify to the awesomeness of this.  While I've only used apps from a virtual WinXP machine, I've had several open at once: VB6, IE6, SalesLogix Web Manager version 5.2, and OnTime.  It makes life so much easier.  It's pretty stable - had a few hiccups, but I'm on an RC OS and a beta of virtual PC, so I can live with that.  This totally rocks.

Friday, June 26, 2009 7:18 PM by Jeff B

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

MS have done too bad by 1.locking VPC 7 to Windows 7. 2. Requiring processor virtualization for XP Mode.

Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:22 AM by anonymous

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

Ben, I think then that there may be a bug that needs to be investigated and followed up on.  Several usually-reliable people in the tech press have tested it out and found it to fail.  Perhaps it only fails on certain edge cases.  Perhaps it works reliably on current builds that we don't have access to.

Either way, you could create a lot more confidence with an investigation/explanation of the discrepancy, rather than just a "works on my machine."

I've found that seamless XP mode is a bit "magical" -- I was able to break seamless mode entirely on a VM with some configuration changes (I really don't remember what I did -- I didn't touch any of the integration checkboxes).  Perhaps the reviewers did something similar.  Maybe this isn't even a a bug, but just needs a whitepaper telling us what not to do if we want seamless to work fully.

Just a suggestion.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 2:14 PM by Tom

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

Is there anyway to use Virtual PC on Windows 7 without hardware virtualization support.

Friday, July 03, 2009 1:06 AM by Johan Ericsson

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

I need to run an ethernet connection that runs a nailed up VPN Citrix conection to my customer. In XP I turn off one ethernet adaptor (my LAN) and turn on the VPN other ethernet (VPN) and then can log into my corporate user accounts.

In Vista 64, this just will not work.

Will the Virtual XP in windows 7 (64bit) allow  me to use one network adaoptor for Windows 7 64 bit and another network adaptor for XP 32 and either switch between them? Or use both adaptors at the same time?

Monday, July 06, 2009 8:30 PM by Ron S

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

wonderful information that is good info for windows 7 users....

Thankssss

Friday, July 10, 2009 3:33 AM by PC repair

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

angst911 -

That is not planned at this point in time.

Jeff -

You can do this with any version of Windows 7 that can run Windows Virtual PC (so yes - this will work on Home Premium).

Greg -

Unfortunately, no.  We are supporting pass through of USB devices, but not of firewire devices.

Tom -

Please make sure that you file bugs on connect.microsoft.com.

Johan Ericsson -

No, Windows Virtual PC requires hardware virtualization support.

Ron S -

This will work with Virtual XP Mode, but only applications running inside the virtual machine will be able to access the VPN resources.

Cheers,

Ben

Monday, July 13, 2009 2:16 AM by Virtual PC Guy

# re: Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC

Ben, I'm on a Win7 Pilot here at work and am running into a few issues with 64 bit compatibility and other conflicts. I was hoping that the Win VPC would help me out. It is a step in the right direction but still not really what I'm looking for. Can you tell me if there is any hope for me with these issues?

1: I have a Sprint wireless card, they do not support Win7 yet. I attached the device using the USB option in the VPC and got it to work, I can open IE Explorer and have a connection but that connection does not work on the Win7 side so I have no way to check email etc.

I tried calling the Sprint software and running it under the VPC apps from the Win7 side but it couldn't find the device.

Any suggestions on how to get the connection from the VPC side to the Win7 side?

2: I really need Netmeeting, I can get it to run on the VPC but would like to have it as a callable application from Win7.  Since this is a pre-installed app on the VPC it doesn't have a shortcut in the Win7 side. I tried uninstalling Netmeeting (3.01) and reinstalling to see if it would add a shortcut on the Win7 side but it tells me that "this version of Netmeeting can't be installed on this version of Windows"  So I did a rolback to get NM back again.

I looked at other shortcuts to see if I could manually add it but I got lost when they ran it through the dlls etc. Any suggestions how to get a shortcut to NM from the Win7 side?  

Thanks in advance for the help!!

Thursday, July 23, 2009 5:10 PM by Andrew Johnson
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