Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP Mode Now Available on MSDN, TechNet

I just went and grabbed an Intel DQ45EK motherboard and an extra In-Win BK655 case that we got for free with the motherboard and built a system designed for support calls for various operating systems. In it, I put a Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU, which is fully capable of the full vPro experience (including Intel VT), so we can use a system with a good virtualization offering for XP and Vista support calls, as well as Windows 7. I'm still waiting for RTM access to XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC so that we have something ready for Windows 7 RTM time. It's a decent enough little system for that.

OT FYI: The Windows 7 Win741 Student program for Canada has been announced at CA$39.99 effective 10/22.

OT FYI: Linux is FREE for 1 or 100 or 1000 computers. Linux "Wine" virtualization is FREE for running Windows apps. Full FREE office suites: IBM Symphony - offers full Win-office 2007 support on Linux Oxygen Office – loaded with excel like and PowerPoint like templates Open Office – the original Go-oo (http://go-oo.org/) a variation on Openoffice. Modern full featured software for FREE and offers exceptional security.

Balthazar "Modern full featured software for FREE and offers exceptional security" Of course that's assuming you define: "modern" as "partially complete knock offs of ten year old applications running on a mix of partially complete and partially compatible thirty year old operating system components" "full featured" as "includes the stuff we got around to implementing but, hey, you can write the rest yourself if you're good a c programming - besides, we've been saying The Gimp is as good as Photoshop for so long now that if Adobe ever goes out of business it might be true a decade or two later so we believe it's true" "for FREE" as "costs more for a support contract than a commercial software license costs in the first place but, hey, any time something doesn't work right you can always spend a few days online asking people for help and maybe some of them will answer correctly - oh and you will have to accept a license agreement that restricts you anyway but, hey, it doesn't cost cash to play with it in your parents' basement and it's more trustworthy than downloading warez" "exceptional security" as "a 1970s core security model featuring only 3 levels of accounts and one octal digit bitfield of access control levels backed up by whoever's maintaining each piece it this month who might get around to fixing security holes when and if they feel like it and then nobody actually owns security of all the parts put together" But, hey, I'm sure that next year will be "the year of desktop Linux" just like we've been told for the last decade and a half. (Right after the aliens land on the White House lawn and return Elvis)

"exceptional security" as "a 1970s core security model featuring only 3 levels of accounts and one octal digit bitfield of access control levels backed up by whoever's maintaining..." M$ is now finally using the very same security model UNIX systems have had for better than 6 years now. Unlike Win7 where a user has to wait 20min to “take ownership” of a folder, OSX and Linux sophistication and ease of use is currently beyond Win8 testbeds.

I’m not challenging your facts rather the interpretation of said facts. Just finished listening to Steve Gibson’s Security Now podcast. Once again he went on about known vulnerabilities in IE all versions based on M$ framework. While FireFox continues to take security very seriously. This will never end. http://twit.tv/sn FireFox on Linux is bulletproof!

rr0de You prefer the "don't get around to fixing security bugs for months or even years after they're known and public" approach? If so, I could make some suggestions for an OS for you that would meet your insecure goals. It just wouldn't come from Microsoft.

You’re spreading more misinformation. Linux has an “EAL 4+” certification from the NSA. For complete security NSA rated as “EAL 6+” NSA recommends http://www.ghs.com/ Bye the way netBSD a UNIX derivative is rated EAL 6. Only a HIGHLY custom ver of windows is rated EAL 5. Separately, Spinrite is written in assembly language. It was created perfect.

"Linux is FREE for 1 or 100 or 1000 computers." Unless you actually want to use it in your business. Windows is still the king there, even when (and especially so) you factor in support costs. "Linux "Wine" virtualization is FREE for running Windows apps." Ya, because facing patent litigation is phun. "Modern full featured software" LOL! If you want to compare them to Office 95. "[Spinrite] was created perfect." Ya I'm sure anybody that posted the hideously long forums for 6.0 is going to agree with you.... It still doesn't support AHCI, nor does it do a proper job of supporting third-party drive controllers other than Intel, not to mention that it won't work on VIA chipset motherboards that only support SATA in RAID mode. It's a POS software that is BARELY able to recover data, and even then, it won't recover data to an alternate drive, which means if your drive motor is flakey, don't expect the software to recover anything. It never works in that situation. It's old, it's obsolete, and it's completely unnecessary. I've seen more drives with faulty sectors restored to a working state with the manufacturer's tools than with Spinrite, and there are far better applications for data recovery - most of which run directly in Windows. Speaking of being obsolete: next up, losta breaks his trend and actually contributes to the conversation by stating something of relevance. Or not.

"The aforementioned free Office suites under Linux are as robust as any Micro$haft packages." ROFLMAO! "For paid suits nothing beats (www.Corel.com) WordPerfect Office X4" LOL! The only thing good from Corel is their image editing and paint programs - neither of which came from them originally (neither did Wordperfect for that matter!)

Balthazar "Mr. Joseph Goebbels"... And Godwin's Law is now invoked...

Waithorn You're making the assumption that when Bal said "For paid suits nothing beats (www.Corel.com) WordPerfect Office X4" he meant "suites" rather than "suits". I suspect the typo was in a different word and he meant to type, "For *plaid* suits nothing beats (www.Corel.com) WordPerfect Office X4" and he meant that WordPerfect Office was perfect for fictional early 1980s salesmen like WKRP's Herb Tarlek. At least that version makes some sense.