txnetcop
May 17th, 2010, 19:17
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How to Have your XP Cake and Eat Win7 Too
Based on what I'm hearing from readers, friends and family members, there are many people who are caught between two computing worlds. They've bought new computers that came with Windows 7 installed and after getting past the initial learning curve, they like it. But they have one or more other machines in the house that are running XP and they don't want to spend the money to upgrade them.
In fact, some of those other machines can't be upgraded to Windows 7, at least not without some serious hardware upgrading, too. They don't have enough RAM, or the video card isn't good enough or they just aren't powerful enough to run the newer OS. But there is a way for you to use Windows 7 on those older, less powerful computers - and you don't have to give up the XP that's already running on them, either.
The solution is what's now called presentation virtualization. When you hear the word "virtualization," you probably think about virtual machine software such as Microsoft's Virtual PC, VMware or Parallels for Macs. That's a different type of virtualization, operating system virtualization. You install the VM software on your computer and create a virtual PC that "thinks" it is a separate computer. Then you can install the operating system of your choice in that VM. That's one way to run both XP and Win7 on the same machine at the same time. The problem with this solution is that it requires some pretty hefty system resources, which your ancient XP machine might not have. Another "gotcha" is that you have to buy a license for the operating system when you install Windows 7 in the VM, just as you do when you install it on another "real" (physical) system.
Presentation virtualization is the technology originally developed by Citrix and first implemented by Microsoft in Windows NT Terminal Services Edition. That's right - we're talking about Remote Desktop Services. If your new Windows 7 computer is running Professional edition or above, you're all set and don't have to buy or install anything extra (assuming your Windows XP and Windows 7 computer are on the same home network). You do have to make some configuration changes, though.
First, on the Windows 7 computer, you need to enable Remote Desktop Services. Open the System applet in Control Panel, click "Advanced system settings" in the left pane, and click the Remote tab. Under Remote Desktop, the default is "Don't allow connections to this computer." Change that to "Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)." The third, and more secure choice, "Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication," is only for those who will be connecting with another Windows 7 machine. Your XP computer doesn't support that option.
The next step is to select the user accounts that will be allowed to connect from the XP machine. Add the user account names here. Next, go to the XP machine from which you want to connect. If you want to use the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client that comes with XP so that you don't need to install anything on the XP machine, you'll find it in Start | All Programs | Accessories | Communications.
If you want a richer experience and your XP computer has Service Pack 3 installed, and you don't mind installing the latest version of the Remote Desktop Connection client version 7.0 on it, you can download it here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/HNEDLD/100518-Windows-XP-Update
The v7.0 client makes for better multiple monitor support, Windows Media Player redirection, bidirectional audio and enhanced video playback, along with a number of features for connecting to terminal services/RDS on Windows Server machines (which you'll probably never use in a home setup). You can read about all of the new features here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/HNEDLD/100518-RDS-Update
Whichever client you use, you'll need to enter the name or IP address of your Windows 7 computer that you've set up as the remote desktop server and the user credentials for the account that you authorized to connect. You can choose to save the credentials so you won't have to enter them every time you connect. Click the Options button to configure display settings, audio, what local devices and resources you want to be able to use, and more. Then, on the XP computer, click Connect.
If you are unable to connect, and the computers are on the same network, check your local firewall settings. Be sure there is an exception for Remote Desktop and if there isn't, create one.
Once you're connected, you'll have your Windows 7 desktop right there on your XP machine. You can run it full screen to work as if you're using the Windows 7 computer itself, or you can run it in a window so you can use the Windows 7 desktop and the XP desktop at the same time. You can run all of the programs that you have installed on the Windows 7 computer and have almost the same experience that you would have if you were working at the Win7 machine. It doesn't matter that your XP system's hardware doesn't support Windows 7, because all of the processing is taking place on the Win7 machine.
There are a few things that you won't get over the RDP connection from XP to Windows 7. You lose the Aero glass interface and along with that, the Aero features like Snap, Peek and Shake. You also lose the thumbnail previews in the taskbar, since that's an Aero feature. Another problem you might run into is that you won't be able to play videos - either locally stored on your hard drive or on web sites such as YouTube - in full screen mode. You also won't be able to watch TV programs recorded in Windows Media Center over RDP. Other than that, just about everything functions normally if you're using the 7.0 client. See above for the features it adds, that you'll miss out on if you use the built in XP client. There are other caveats, too. For example, when you use Remote Desktop on the client (XP) computer, the host (Windows 7) computer's desktop is locked and someone else can't be using it at the same time. But overall, it's an easy and inexpensive way to have the user experience of running Windows 7 on your old computer (even though it isn't technically running on that machine at all) and still have XP at your beck and call when you want to do something in it.
You might be thinking "this is all well and good, but I don't have the Pro, Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows 7. Am I out of luck?" Well, when it comes to the Windows Remote Desktop Services, you are - but there are other third party options. VNC (Virtual Networking Computing) is a platform independent system that does the same thing, but uses a different protocol, RFB (Remote Framebuffer) that was . You can get free or low cost versions of VNC server and client software such as RealVNC, TightVNC, UltraVNC and others. The VNC server software can be installed on the Home versions of Windows 7 or Vista (or XP, for that matter). With some of the products, you may have to use the beta version, or the paid version, to get Windows 7 support.
An advantage of VNC is that not only can you connect to your Windows 7 desktop from your XP computer, you can also do it from Linux or Mac computers (if the version you use has clients for those operating systems). You do have to install a VNC client; since it uses a different protocol, you can't connect to it with the Windows RDP client. Some VNC programs will give you functionality that you don't get with Remote Desktop, such as the ability to watch recordings on Windows Media Center.
And yes, there are services such as LogMeIn and GoToMyPC that you can use to connect your XP computer to your Windows 7 desktop, too, but those require going out over the Internet and then back in to your home network. Remote Desktop Services and VNC work over your local network, so you aren't using Internet bandwidth nor do you have the security concerns of going through the service's server.
This can also be a way to transition from XP to Windows 7 a bit more painlessly than making the big switch all at once. When my husband bought his new Nehalem computer with Windows 7, he wasn't yet ready to give up his familiar XP environment, so he put the Win7 machine in another room and just uses RDP to connect to it, keeping his XP computer on his desk. You can also go in the other direction - set up your XP Pro computer somewhere, make it a Remote Desktop Computer, and connect to it from your new Win7 machine when you need to run one of its programs that isn't installed on your Win7 system. Or if you have XP Home, install the VNC server software on it and the VNC client on the Windows 7 machine. And of course, you can use Remote Desktop or VNC to connect from one XP computer to another XP machine.
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How to Have your XP Cake and Eat Win7 Too
Based on what I'm hearing from readers, friends and family members, there are many people who are caught between two computing worlds. They've bought new computers that came with Windows 7 installed and after getting past the initial learning curve, they like it. But they have one or more other machines in the house that are running XP and they don't want to spend the money to upgrade them.
In fact, some of those other machines can't be upgraded to Windows 7, at least not without some serious hardware upgrading, too. They don't have enough RAM, or the video card isn't good enough or they just aren't powerful enough to run the newer OS. But there is a way for you to use Windows 7 on those older, less powerful computers - and you don't have to give up the XP that's already running on them, either.
The solution is what's now called presentation virtualization. When you hear the word "virtualization," you probably think about virtual machine software such as Microsoft's Virtual PC, VMware or Parallels for Macs. That's a different type of virtualization, operating system virtualization. You install the VM software on your computer and create a virtual PC that "thinks" it is a separate computer. Then you can install the operating system of your choice in that VM. That's one way to run both XP and Win7 on the same machine at the same time. The problem with this solution is that it requires some pretty hefty system resources, which your ancient XP machine might not have. Another "gotcha" is that you have to buy a license for the operating system when you install Windows 7 in the VM, just as you do when you install it on another "real" (physical) system.
Presentation virtualization is the technology originally developed by Citrix and first implemented by Microsoft in Windows NT Terminal Services Edition. That's right - we're talking about Remote Desktop Services. If your new Windows 7 computer is running Professional edition or above, you're all set and don't have to buy or install anything extra (assuming your Windows XP and Windows 7 computer are on the same home network). You do have to make some configuration changes, though.
First, on the Windows 7 computer, you need to enable Remote Desktop Services. Open the System applet in Control Panel, click "Advanced system settings" in the left pane, and click the Remote tab. Under Remote Desktop, the default is "Don't allow connections to this computer." Change that to "Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)." The third, and more secure choice, "Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication," is only for those who will be connecting with another Windows 7 machine. Your XP computer doesn't support that option.
The next step is to select the user accounts that will be allowed to connect from the XP machine. Add the user account names here. Next, go to the XP machine from which you want to connect. If you want to use the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client that comes with XP so that you don't need to install anything on the XP machine, you'll find it in Start | All Programs | Accessories | Communications.
If you want a richer experience and your XP computer has Service Pack 3 installed, and you don't mind installing the latest version of the Remote Desktop Connection client version 7.0 on it, you can download it here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/HNEDLD/100518-Windows-XP-Update
The v7.0 client makes for better multiple monitor support, Windows Media Player redirection, bidirectional audio and enhanced video playback, along with a number of features for connecting to terminal services/RDS on Windows Server machines (which you'll probably never use in a home setup). You can read about all of the new features here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/HNEDLD/100518-RDS-Update
Whichever client you use, you'll need to enter the name or IP address of your Windows 7 computer that you've set up as the remote desktop server and the user credentials for the account that you authorized to connect. You can choose to save the credentials so you won't have to enter them every time you connect. Click the Options button to configure display settings, audio, what local devices and resources you want to be able to use, and more. Then, on the XP computer, click Connect.
If you are unable to connect, and the computers are on the same network, check your local firewall settings. Be sure there is an exception for Remote Desktop and if there isn't, create one.
Once you're connected, you'll have your Windows 7 desktop right there on your XP machine. You can run it full screen to work as if you're using the Windows 7 computer itself, or you can run it in a window so you can use the Windows 7 desktop and the XP desktop at the same time. You can run all of the programs that you have installed on the Windows 7 computer and have almost the same experience that you would have if you were working at the Win7 machine. It doesn't matter that your XP system's hardware doesn't support Windows 7, because all of the processing is taking place on the Win7 machine.
There are a few things that you won't get over the RDP connection from XP to Windows 7. You lose the Aero glass interface and along with that, the Aero features like Snap, Peek and Shake. You also lose the thumbnail previews in the taskbar, since that's an Aero feature. Another problem you might run into is that you won't be able to play videos - either locally stored on your hard drive or on web sites such as YouTube - in full screen mode. You also won't be able to watch TV programs recorded in Windows Media Center over RDP. Other than that, just about everything functions normally if you're using the 7.0 client. See above for the features it adds, that you'll miss out on if you use the built in XP client. There are other caveats, too. For example, when you use Remote Desktop on the client (XP) computer, the host (Windows 7) computer's desktop is locked and someone else can't be using it at the same time. But overall, it's an easy and inexpensive way to have the user experience of running Windows 7 on your old computer (even though it isn't technically running on that machine at all) and still have XP at your beck and call when you want to do something in it.
You might be thinking "this is all well and good, but I don't have the Pro, Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows 7. Am I out of luck?" Well, when it comes to the Windows Remote Desktop Services, you are - but there are other third party options. VNC (Virtual Networking Computing) is a platform independent system that does the same thing, but uses a different protocol, RFB (Remote Framebuffer) that was . You can get free or low cost versions of VNC server and client software such as RealVNC, TightVNC, UltraVNC and others. The VNC server software can be installed on the Home versions of Windows 7 or Vista (or XP, for that matter). With some of the products, you may have to use the beta version, or the paid version, to get Windows 7 support.
An advantage of VNC is that not only can you connect to your Windows 7 desktop from your XP computer, you can also do it from Linux or Mac computers (if the version you use has clients for those operating systems). You do have to install a VNC client; since it uses a different protocol, you can't connect to it with the Windows RDP client. Some VNC programs will give you functionality that you don't get with Remote Desktop, such as the ability to watch recordings on Windows Media Center.
And yes, there are services such as LogMeIn and GoToMyPC that you can use to connect your XP computer to your Windows 7 desktop, too, but those require going out over the Internet and then back in to your home network. Remote Desktop Services and VNC work over your local network, so you aren't using Internet bandwidth nor do you have the security concerns of going through the service's server.
This can also be a way to transition from XP to Windows 7 a bit more painlessly than making the big switch all at once. When my husband bought his new Nehalem computer with Windows 7, he wasn't yet ready to give up his familiar XP environment, so he put the Win7 machine in another room and just uses RDP to connect to it, keeping his XP computer on his desk. You can also go in the other direction - set up your XP Pro computer somewhere, make it a Remote Desktop Computer, and connect to it from your new Win7 machine when you need to run one of its programs that isn't installed on your Win7 system. Or if you have XP Home, install the VNC server software on it and the VNC client on the Windows 7 machine. And of course, you can use Remote Desktop or VNC to connect from one XP computer to another XP machine.
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