1 I might do it, inside a VM.

2 I have a physical victim machine for it. Not handy with VMs when Windows is involved.

3 Pete, have you used this particular DRM package? Or are you speaking generically?

4 Sorry for the noise. I do not know anything about Software Defender specifically.

5

I wonder whether I could do this with a VM? I'd have to upgrade to Win 7 Pro, though. Way I understood it, there's a VM package that comes with Win 7 Pro, isn't there? Or Win 7 Ultimate, maybe? I heard that it was one of the features included in the more expensive versions. Anyone know about that?

Time to hit the Microsoft site and see if I can figure that out.

6 OK, it's called "Windows Virtual PC" and you do need Win 7 Pro.

7

Actually, Virtual PC doesn't need Win7 Pro, I think--but it doesn't come with the client XP image, so you'd need an extra XP license floatign around you weren't already using.  Windows XP Mode is what you're thinking of, which does require Pro.

The interesting thing about XP Mode (in addition to the fact that there's a free license for XP) is that when you install an app inside the VM, you can run it and have it appear on your Win7 desktop, which,. AFAIK, you can't do with regular Virtual PC.  I use XP Mode at work for a couple of 16-bit apps that won't run under 64-bit Windows.

Actually, now I'm not sure about the requirement, because if you go to the download page, it lists Win7 Home Premium as an available OS.

8 Ok, this is fairly stupid. XP Mode will download and install on Home Premium, and then when you try to run it, it will tell you you are not allowed to run it on Home Prem. That's pretty stupid. Like I said, Virtual PC (without XP Mode) will work on Home Prem, but then you have to install XP yourself in the virtual machine, so you need a license. Since you've mentioned you already bought Pro on another thread, using it and XP Mode (if you're going to play with virtual machines) is a better idea anyway.

9

Obviously there's no technical reason for such a restriction. They're doing it for product differentiation reasons -- so that you have to pay more to get more.

I don't really see anything wrong with that, myself.

10 Some product differentiation is crazy (like Intel's recent efforts), but XP Mode is quite legitimately a "pro" feature - it's designed specifically for running legacy apps that haven't migrated past XP, so that Microsoft can sell Windows 7 into the enterprise market.

11 I am not complaining about them limiting it to Pro and up. I am complaining about them letting you download and install it on a version of Windows on which it will then not run. That's not very nice.