MS relationship with XP: on again, off again.

Recently, MS announced that for Windows 7, Pro and better, will be able to load a free virtual system running XP SP3. It's a kind of marketing and technological shuffle-step. The virtual system will also 'share' the desktop so that your XP application will just show up on your Windows 7 desktop as native application instances.

I can't imagine that they don't really have a complete virtual PC running, which means that you will need to run anti-virus and anti-spyware on both the Win7 host and the WinXP client -- although you could, there's no need for a web browser on the XP client, so that helps security-wise.

Win7 is still going to be offered in 32 bit, and 32bit is still limited to an effective 3 to 3-.5 GB of RAM, so running a XP SP3 as a VM on top is going to going to make Win7 a real pig when it comes to RAM.

On the other hand, there is a 64 bit Win7* and a 6 or 8GB desktop system is probably and extra $100 over a 4GB since about everything has 64bit dual processors these days and extra RAM is the only change needed. I would expect Win7 and XP to run smoothly on this type of setup.

In retrospect, I wonder now if this was the plan all along and why they're making XP full licences so hard to get these days. It's mighty short step from this to getting a 64 bit Linux for free on the same hardware** and running an XP instance (you need an XP license) on free Player or Server from VMware.

This is a good chance for MS users to migrate to 64 bit painlessly, but the same chance is there for them to move to 64 bit Linux.

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* - No indication that I've found about this being a premium price or not.

** - After a search of a couple minutes, I found this quad-core with 8GB of RAM, add your own HDD and DVD for $580. Add 64 bit Linux and the license key off a dead XP system, and you're gold.