Discussion on:

Move your entire Windows XP installation into Windows 7 with Zinstall XP7

Will you use this Zinstall XP7 to migrate your Windows XP system? Do you at least find the application intriguing?

I believe I know the answer but I still need to ask. Does this violate the MS license agreement concerning Windows XP. You procure the Windows 7 upgrade disk and therefore Windows XP license is no longer valid.

...even though it does appear to violate the Upgrade EULA. Zinstall XP7 has been on the market for a while and I haven't heard of or found any news about MS suing anybody over using Zinstall XP7.

What's your take on this aspect of the upgrade? Anybody...

Running XP on the computer it was originally installed on, I suspect is ok, since MS allows me to dual boot between my Win7 upgrade and the previous OS. Moving it to another computer, I would expect to be a violation of the EULA terms for the XP license.

Win 7 (most if not all versions) includes a license for running XP virtually and downgrade rights too, I believe. So if you run XP virtually under win 7, you're within your rights.

I did a migration from XP home to Windows 7 pro about three months ago. It did require some simplification of my Win XP system, which was on two hard drives, to get all the key programs on one. It did require the scary situation of killing all anti-virus ands firewall programs while remaining on live internet because Zinstall central has to validate the software (at that point you didn't pay until it worked). Now I do have a very workable XP virtual machine for old tax programs, games, and such inside the Win7 machine. Amazing! Drawbacks: nothing inside the virtal machine communicates with the internet, so the old email settings don't work. There are ways to move documents from the old desktop to the new, so I can probably export the settings, but nothing on the old machine upgrades. This is safe, since the security of the WIN7 machine takes care of it, but it set a deadline for real migration of most things. I suppose this happens because the virtual machine doesn't really exist in a way that registers on the Internet? More interestingly, the former machine, which still runs, will update and communicate with the Internet,except for microsoft update -- probably the migration canceled out the registration of that machine's Win XP?

I too did a Zinstall migration (as posted earlier this week). However, my installation still downloads e-mail (much to my annoyance)and it also sends out e-mail, but takes much longer than it should. I also get the Windows XP updates on close-down - another annoyance as I don't really want them as I only log onto the virutal machine to look up old files that did not migrate; like old e-mail s that I wanted to keep. With regard to the payment not until after Zinstall verify a successful installation; they took my money before and a friend's whose installation did not work. Their support is very slow too, though, eventually, they do respond.

Or you could use Disk2VHD which is free, much simpler to use and accomplishes the same thing.

Disk2VHD is free and easy to use, but it has limitations as to disk size and where the VHD is installed.

A new version, 1.62, was posted 7/29/10. Might be better. Haven't tried it yet.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx

A note at the end of the posting indicates that physical-to-virtual migration is ok from retail versions of software and Software Assurance licenses, but it is not ok to make VHDs from OEM software.

When I started reading, the concept seemed a bit weird, but this "two desktops" thing actually makes a lot more sense than, say, slaving over installing stuff in XP Mode. I am starting to warm up to it

My Windows XP system is 10 years old and incompatible for Windows 7.

How or can I copy my Windows XP system so it will run "exactly the same" on my Windows 7 system?

Thanks.

... a PC to PC migration procedure just as easily as a in-place migration.

I'll cover this type of migration in an upcoming article.

This app is sure interesting, maybe it will work for me? I have a client with several Vista Professional desktops, looking to replace those with Windows 7 running PCs. Will Zinstall XP7 transfer from a Vista PC to a Windows 7 PC?
I understand Vista is supported as target, and I think the website says Vista is OK as source - just want to make sure. Thanks in advance!

I believe only certain versions of Windows will install their Virtual Machine. Does this software provide the virtual machine in addition to doing the conversion?

Yes, they say on the website the VM is their own, and that it works unrelated to Windows limitations (i.e. on Windows 7 Home etc.). So that's why I think it installs on Vista as well.

Whilst I appreciate the fact this is a possible option for those silly enough to want to upgrade from Xp to W7 you really HAVE to ask the question WHY is Microsoft making it so difficult a task in the first place. To me this outcome is like saying to me I can make a boat out of your nice new car - well yes perhaps , maybe but is that what I really want. Do I really need to pay $89 for software to do something that should have been easy and straight forward to do in the first place , and further I don't really wish to be getting into virtualization when I just wanted one PC running the latest OS with the old build from XP being directly migrated to W7. Xp Users have been let down by Microsoft and everytime a 3rd party product says it can do something that Microsoft should have done on day one it exposes Microsoft as being totally unconcerned for its XP User base.

has no respect for XP users because we did not greet Vista with open arms and open wallets. From what I've read, Windows 7 is essentially a re-make of Vista without the Draconian security features (UAC). And MS initially did not allow upgrades from XP directly to Windows 7, demanding that everyone buy a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed if we didn't want to pay the full retail price.

Zinstall XP7 certainly appears to be an excellent alternative to running Windows 7 in "XP mode", but the $89 cost adds to the cost of buying the Windows 7 upgrade edition of our choosing, too.

I used Zinstall to move my old Windows XP computer porgramme, settings et al onto a new computer. Yes, it does move the whole thing to a virtual environemnt pretty well but what it doesn't do then is use the high end hardware of your new machine - i.e. graphics card, ram etc to run power hungry programmes like video editing; it uses whatever Zinstall sets up within the virtual environment, which is not enough to use much beyond simple word proceesing etc. The Zinstall environment cannot 'see' the machines graphics card, Ram etc. So not much use really.

to running programs in Windows 7 XP Mode? In that mode, don't they have access to all of the hardware, or is that "mode" just a MS virtual machine running in Windows 7 with Windows XP as its OS instead?

Are they included in the Windows.old folder? I can't find any mention of how installed programs are handled in this procedure.