Windows XP Mode is an add-on for Windows 7 Professional and higher that comes in two parts, each of which has its own setup. The first is Windows Virtual PC, a new version of Microsoft’s free desktop virtualization platform, and the second is Virtual Windows XP itself, which is a virtual hard drive pre-loaded and licensed with Windows XP Service Pack 3.

The magic happens when you then close Virtual XP. Windows 7 whirs and grinds and creates a new Start Menu group called Virtual Windows XP Applications, in my case full of Office 2000 applications. I started Word 2000, and after a couple of minutes’ initialization, it opened in its own window, just like a native application. Impressive, until I started typing and found a severe delay between striking a key and text appearing on the page. (Edit: the couple of minutes are for booting Windows XP in the virtual machine?)

Just me or is this an incredible kludge? If the integration is that weak, it probably makes sense to just let the virtual machine be transparent rather than be a sleight-of-hand.

and

When you shut down Windows 7 after using Windows XP Mode, the virtual machine hibernates by default, which is convenient but could in time lead to degraded performance.

Bad idea…

At first, I thought it was the CD version that was being shut down, but no, it’s the online version; apparently the former, along with many Microsoft Home products (some were classics), had long been discontinued. Incidentally, I’ve used the CD product, but never the online product — I’ve been aware of it because it comes up in searches, but since it’s just the CD version put online, I’m not surprised it is meeting the same fate. It just goes to show that whatever process is driving traditional publishing into the ground is rather far along.

I, for one, still remember paper encyclopedias. For that matter, I still remember when libraries used card catalogues (you pull them out of a small drawer to find the Dewey decimal), but these became extinct at about the same time as the 5.25″ floppy disk. As for encyclopedias, they sat as multivolume collections in the reference section — maybe they still do? Haven’t been to a public library in a long time…

The first CD encyclopedia I remember was Grolier’s. Its selling point was some animations in articles. For a time these encyclopedias were useful for school projects, but by high school they seemed pretty useless — the articles just had too low a signal-to-noise ratio. Maybe they did not provide enough depth, or the short list of references were not adequate, or there was too much fluff that simple queries could not be answered in a well matched way. Often the writers were totally full of themselves, too (reminds me of about.com). The end result was these references could neither be used directly (plagiarism aside), nor were the raw data in them easily extractable. I think that’s one reason why I stopped using them, whatever the media encyclopedias came in. The other reason was that such generalist information was not difficult to find on the internet, even without a Wikipedia.

So while the comparison to Wikipedia is appealing as a foil, these products really failed on their own merits: they were generally inadequate and inferior products and they were not even free for being so.* The economic realities of that are only catching up now. And if newspapers follow them there, it would be because newspapers have long become wire service repeaters, not because of the existence of Google News. Interestingly, I haven’t had the interest to subscribe to these newspapers for a long time, either.

* Inferior compared to what, you say. Isn’t it the existence of a “better” alternative that lies at the crux of the matter? Actually, no. The inferiority is measured from the amount of nagging feeling of not having learned much. The reality is, without an alternative, one would just know less and unless effort be expended, be resigned to that… (Economically, of course the existence of an alternative matters, but that’s a separate issue.)

Not sure if that just reflects the psychological relief due to the mediocrity of Vista or what…

Whatever the case may be, the comments below the article provided some comic relief due to multiple Linux trolls jumping in with non-sequiturs. Nothing against Linux, but it is kind of funny that anything having to do with Microsoft is like a sh– magnet for Linux trolls.

by TrakerJon January 22, 2009 1:26 PM PST
Well, I’m not sure what you downloaded Don, are you sure it was Windows 7 and not Ubuntu 8.10? Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista SP2 with a couple of GUI changes that look a lot like offerings from Linux distros. Windows 7 is a huge install requiring 16Gb and I’m sorry Don but maybe you should curb your enthusiasm until you actually tried the latest release of Ubuntu…fully loaded with all the bells and whistles coming in at 4Gb hard drive space, better security, remarkable connectivity and start-up speeds and all the apps you could ever want for free.

And a response that gave me a good chuckle:

by weedmonk January 22, 2009 1:37 PM PST
When will FOSS advocates learn you can’t shove Linux down consumers throats with the zeal of Bolshevism. People have a choice and the verdict is that they’d rather pirate a 8yr old OS than deal with Linux distro’s.

Oh yes, Microsoft layoff rumors were true. Gone is the title of never having had a layoff.