Testing Software on Windows 7. Install vs Virtualization

Question

We want to test a software we develop on XP on Windows 7. We have Vista installed on a PC. But we would like to avoid installing Windows 7 and rather run it in a Virtual PC or VMWare.

Questions:

• Q1: Is it possible to run Windows 7 in a Virtual PC or Ware ?

• Q2: Is it possible to run a 64 bit Vista or Windows 7 in Virtual PC or VmWare on a 32 bit system ?

• Q3: Are there any ready-to-download Windows 7 images (e.g. from Microsoft) similar to the IE7 images which MS made available before?

Thanks a lot!

Paul

Answer 1

Q1) Yes. I personally ran the Windows 7 beta using Virtual PC in Vista, and there's no reason the final build wouldn't work.

Q2) That would require the emulator to implement the CPU entirely in software, and that's going to be too slow to be usable. You need a 64-bit OS to emulate a 64-bit PC. EDIT: According to various comments, some virtualization software can do it if you have a 64-bit CPU. You'll need to check the documentation for whatever software you're going to use.

Q3) It would be a trial if there is one, and so it will eventually expire. You don't want that.

A far more common approach is to emulate XP on 7, and you're almost certainly going to get a better result that way: XP is less resource hungry than Vista and 7, so the performance impact from virtualization will be less noticable.

Answer 2

Q1. Yes you can run Windows 7 in VMWare, Virtual PC, Virtual Box, and in other virtualization platforms.

Q2. It is usually not possible to run a 64-bit guest on 32-bit hardware, with normal virtualization.

Q3. No idea, but I doubt it. Windows was not free, the last time I checked.