Gene said:
His terminology might be confusing you.
1. You can run software under "compatibility mode" in Windows 7. This
means Windows 7 makes allowances for the old code. You set it per
program by opening up Properties and clicking on 'Run in compatibility
mode' after choosing which mode.
2. In higher versions of Windows 7 you can install XP mode, which is a
package of a virtual machine and an XP license. You are running the
program in XP *in the virtual machine*. This software is not provided by
default, but it's a free download from Microsoft. It's only available
for Win 7 Pro or higher.
The second one is what Yousuf Khan means by the full XP mode emulator.
The use of XP mode has been explained in this thread already, along with
another approach or two.
WinXP mode is virtual machine software. A copy of Windows XP runs
as a guest OS, inside the virtual machine software, and Windows 7
is the host OS. A limitation with such a setup, is the copy of
WinXP is "insulated" from the outside world. It's like it is in
a "Sandbox". To run Nikon Scan, the scanner would ideally
be USB based, but the Windows Virtual PC software has limitations
on how it handles passthru of USB devices into the guest OS.
A better approach, is VirtualBox, which redirects all traffic
for a particular USB device, based on VID/PID of the hardware.
The Windows Virtual PC redirection, is based on device type,
such as passthru of USB storage devices. So it may not
redirect a scanner.
Those are details of using a virtual machine.
The WinXP mode package can display the output of a program two
ways. It can either display in a rooted window (meaning a window
that looks like the WinXP desktop, appears on your Windows 7 machine).
Or, a WinXP program can also run in its own window floating around
on the Windows 7 desktop. This is done via Terminal Server display
output, to make it look like the WinXP mode program is integrated
into Windows 7 (when it isn't).
To run WinXP mode takes two downloaded files. The small download,
is Windows Virtual PC. That hosts the virtual OS. The WinXP file
to run WinXP mode on top of that, is 100's of megabytes in size.
Because it's like a copy of the C: drive from WinXP. It should
activate for you, when run within the Windows Virtual PC.
*******
Installing software under compatibility mode, is entirely different,
and then its running under Windows 7 directly. No downloads to do,
to make that work. It's just another mode to try to run a
program in. In that case, it doesn't matter how the scanner is
connected, because the scanner driver would be part of Windows 7.
This is unlike WinXP Mode, where the device must operate in
"passthru", for the sandboxed copy of WinXP to be able to "see" it.
*******
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Mode#Windows_XP_Mode
"Windows XP Mode can also be run with the VMware Player and
VMware Workstation. However, VMware products only import
Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or
Ultimate to adhere with Microsoft licensing requirements."
That means, the WinXP Mode file download, can also be run by
something other than Windows Virtual PC download (the 16MB download).
You can use VMware to run it. What they don't explain, is different
major revisions of VMware treat the topic differently. The advice
given there, is for the older version of VMware. There is a newer
way to import the WinXP Mode virtual machine, with later versions
of VMWare.
And really, the only reason for caring about what software "hosts"
WinXP Mode, is for the "passthru" aspect of hardware treatment.
Ideally, I'd want to run VirtualBox for this, as it has the most
generous treatment of USB devices. But it may not be able to work
directly with the WinXP Mode file.
*******
For scanners, if you look hard enough (or someone helps you), there
is usually an alternative method to get scanning under Windows 7 working
again. Virtual Machines may be the last choice for such things, as
they can be annoyingly clunky when dealing with hardware. It took
me a couple tries with VirtualBox, before I finally got the
stupid thing handling USB properly. All I got was error boxes the
first time I tried to get USB working inside VirtualBox.
If you have a retail copy of WinXP and valid license key, you *can*
install that in VirtualBox, and with enough tweaking, talk to USB
devices with it. The purpose of "WinXP Mode", is you're getting
a copy of the OS that is ready to go, and has a license key and
everything (a free download, if you're using Pro). But if you
have your own copy of Windows XP to use, you can use that instead,
and then you can use it with more of the virtual machine hosting
software packages. That's how you can get VirtualBox involved.
Paul
