Using Windows 7 Virtual PC XP Mode in Fusion

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
While running a Windows 7 virtual machine:

• You are not able to use Windows XP Mode
• The Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool reports the error:
  
  This computer does not have hardware-assisted virtualization.
   
• Windows Virtual PC fails to start and reports the error:
  
  Cannot start Windows Virtual PC Host process. ... Windows Virtual PC requires hardware-assisted virtualization.

Environment

VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Fusion 3.x

Resolution

This issue occurs because Windows XP Mode requires the underlying computer (in this case, the virtual machine) to have hardware-assisted virtualization enabled. This is not a supported option in a Fusion virtual machine, but Microsoft provides a patch to eliminate this requirement.

 

To successfully run Windows XP Mode, download the patch from Microsoft:

• For 32-bit versions of Windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=837f12aa-1d37-464e-ae59-20c9ecbebaf6
• For 64-bit versions of Windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e70dd043-e262-43c0-a002-446567f1e2b4

Note: The preceding links were correct as of September 27, 2010. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

Additional Information

For more information about Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC, see the Microsoft article on Windows Virtual PC.

 

For more information about this error, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 977206 .