Frustrated with Windows 7

What do you need Windows XP for? We should be able to help determine whether what you want to do is possible via a virtual instance of XP or not.

As for the included Backup solution, it's a great idea, but after attempting to restore my mother's computer from a backup I made a month or so ago, it didn't work, and it will not let you restore a backup file (I made a system image via the backup tool) to a smaller drive than it originated from. I ended up having to reinstall 7.

I would ditch Windows' backup solution and use something else, like Clonezilla. It's a much more robust solution which I have used countless times at work to image people's hard drives from a generic image I set up.

Yep, i've just had a massive failure with backup too, will be going back to acronis as soon as I can find my key. (will check out clonezilla too)

Is it games that you are having trouble with? xp modes don't access accelerated gpu functions I believe and that wil cause you some trouble. Let us know what you are trying to achieve and we'll help out if we can.

Wait - now that he has two OS copies, can he not set them up separately on the same computer? Do you need to be in Windows 7 while working on your XP programs? (what programs?)

Of course some old programs won't run - you can try right-clicking the program's exe file and adjust the compatibility to Windows XP and try again.

Backup is usually a pain until you find the right product or right way of doing it.

with two OS's dual boot would work, newest OS first is the rule isn't it. so win7 then xp, as win7 is aware of xp and would recognise it in the boot manager?

No, you want to leave XP there and install win7. Win7 knows how to mod the boot.ini file so that everything is ok, not XP. He isn't using normal XP but a virtual machine of it. As mentioned, GPU acceleration doesn't work in this mode, so no gaming. Seeing as he paid for the Key however, he should be able to install XP using that key from what I understand. It is a valid key, now he just needs the XP disk...

Older OS first, then Windows 7 on another partition. You can't install an older OS on a new one.

It might help if you tell us exactly what programs aren't working under Windows 7 or your virtual copy of XP.

thanks for the correction, makes much more sense your way round. I do realise that he was trying to virtual, but if that is not going to work due to hardware virtualisation issues then next option is dual boot.

Raymond,

if your XP program requires the use of specific hardware driver, then most likely will not run on virtual XP.

As for backup and restore, it is not good to use for restore the computer to factory state. You need to use the recovery partition to do that. On Dell computer you need to hit either F10 or F12 key when you turn the computer on. The recovery is done outside Windows environment.