Microsoft: "F*** it, lets just stick with XP"

Good news for those who use Vista and even better news for those who don’t but believe the Mac smear ads. Windows 7 will feature an emulated XP mode. Years after Microsoft was supposed to have ditched their last great OS, XP is still going strong with the majority of PC users and fad chasing Netbook manufacturers preferring it over its newer counterpart.

XP mode will run as a Virtual PC so legacy software can be installed through the emulated XP yet appear on the start bar and run along side Windows 7 apps as if they were Windows 7 apps. The beta for XP mode and Virtual PC will be released soon so stay up on your local Torrent site. Official announcement after the break

XP Mode consists of the Virtual PC-based virtual environment and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3). It will be made available, for free, to users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions via a download from the Microsoft web site. (That is, it will not be included in the box with Windows 7, but is considered an out-of-band update, like Windows Live Essentials.) XPM works much like today’s Virtual PC products, but with one important exception: As with the enterprise-based MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization) product, XPM does not require you to run the virtual environment as a separate Windows desktop. Instead, as you install applications inside the virtual XP environment, they are published to the host (Windows 7) OS as well. (With shortcuts placed in the Start Menu.) That way, users can run Windows XP-based applications (like IE 6) alongside Windows 7 applications under a single desktop.