As the Windows 7 Release Candidate(RC) is available for everyone it is time to play with the new features. One of the very interesting and surprising feature introduced in the RC is Windows XP mode.
Windows XP Mode simplifies installing and running XP applications by utilizing a virtual environment right inside Windows 7. This means no more compatibility worries for organizations/individuals while upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP.
The Windows XP Mode is available only on Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise versions of Windows 7 and the hardware requirements are:
- 2 GB memory recommended
- 15 GB free hard disk space for XP mode
- 1 GHz 32-bit / 64-bit processor
- CPU should support hardware virtualization
Verifying the first 3 minimum requirements is very easy, but to verify whether your CPU supports hardware virtualization or not we need support of external applications.
Depending on the type of the processor you have download either the Intel Processor Identification Utility or AMD Hyper-V Compatibility Check tool and run it to know whether the CPU has virtualization support or not. As these tools need admin rights to check the CPU properties, launch them in Administrator Mode ( right click on the tool and select Run as Administrator)
Thanks for the information buddy :) I found my Intel board doesn’t supports hardware virtualization