CODEWITHSUNDEEP
testingwindows-7virtualization32bit-64bit
Paul
Paul

Reputation: 2564

Testing Software on Windows 7. Install vs Virtualization

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:

Thanks a lot!

Paul

Upvotes: 2

Views: 453

Answers (2)

Michael Madsen
Michael Madsen

Reputation: 55009

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.

Upvotes: 3

Daniel Vassallo
Daniel Vassallo

Reputation: 344561

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.

Upvotes: 3

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