Running games in Windows 7 XP Mode

brcwatters

Hi - I'm thinking of investing in a laptop as my work-from-home pc is getting a bit bogged down with the kids' Lego games - the Indiana Jones one gave me blue screen of death a couple of times so I've banned it. We could do with a second machine in the house anyway - not just for them

Anyway, they're all excited thinking now they can get lego harry potter but turns out it doesn't work on Windows 7. I understand you can run Win7 in XP Mode if you have certain processors - the laptop I'm thinking of would seem to have this (AMD Athlon II) - but I'm wondering - does this really work for games or is it just for business apps etc? I'm not very tech-minded, am I opening myself up to a world of hurt here? Should I tell the kids to forget it, I really would prefer not to get a laptop with XP. Or is it worth chancing it?

Thanks for any help or insights.

RolandIRL

XP Mode does not support games. the virtual machine does not have access to the graphics card. i tried doing it but it doesn't work.
but you don't require Hardware Virtualisation to run XP Mode (the thing that certain processors have). however you need windows 7 Professional (or higher). Starter or Home Premium are not eligible.
you could try dual-booting (running two operating systems off one computer) win7 and XP. there's a guide somewhere in this forum (if you do a search) and it's not too hard. you just select the OS you want to run at startup

i'm not sure but you could try installing the Lego games on win7 and see if they work. just because it doesn't say win7 on the System Requirements doesn't mean it won't work. i've old games (the oldest being 15 years :eek:) installed on my win7 laptop and they work perfectly. if it says the game supports Vista, it more than likely will run on win7

brcwatters

Thanks a million - I bit the bullet and ordered the game last night anyway, will give it a go. If it doesn't work I'll try the dual-booting. Would prefer to get all their games off my pc anyway so will have to get it working somehow.

Apparently it said initially it would work with Windows 7 but then when it came out people had difficulties and amazon.com had to give them refunds etc. Will look into it a bit more.

Thanks again

RolandIRL

just looked up the spec and it runs on Vista. most games that work on Vista should work on win7. it may require some tweaking of settings but if you've any problems, just post back here

k123456

You can run older programs in win 7

Browse to the exe for the program you want, rh click and run in XP compatibility mode

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Make-older-programs-run-in-this-version-of-Windows

5uspect

You banned it?
The BSOD could be caused by any number of things such as dodgy graphics drivers and may not be directly related to the game.

You could just get all those Lego games on a console like the Xbox 360 or PS3.
Saves a lot of hassle if your not tech minded.

brcwatters

5uspect: We need a new laptop because I need a demarcation between my work computer and home stuff. They're getting too familiar with it and starting to press things they shouldn't... opening sql server because it looks interesting etc, opening flash and drawing stuff, which is fine as long as they create new files, not open stuff I've been working on - I need them off it.

The issue with the indiana jones game was no doubt to do with the graphics card - it barely worked at all before I updated the drivers but I think it was just too old, ram and some other bits have been upgraded recently but not the graphics card - but I wasn't going upgrading that when I knew I was getting a laptop in the near future, I don't need a new graphics card to do my work - fireworks and flash etc work fine with what I have.

We don't do ds's etc in this house (yes, we're weird) and I'm not going to get xboxes etc for as long as I can get away with it. There's a perfectly good laptop there now and they'll just have to make do with what they can. I'm not completely inept , I've been a web developer for the last 13 years or so, but in recent years I've not had time (or the inclination tbh) to keep up to date with hardware/network type stuff, gone are the days when I played around with computers for the craic. It's time-consuming enough keeping up with perl, then php, then jquery etc etc - I'll manage to set up a dual boot though I'm sure - have done it back in the days of WinNT.:D

whiteman19 - thanks a million for your help. Will post back here in a week or so to update, for future reference. Thanks!

k123456 - haven't had a chance to look yet - only got the laptop today and don't even have the game in question yet - I was just looking to prepare myself - and them - for the eventuality that it might be a bit of work and messing around. But thanks - will look into it, though I suspect it's the same mode as I was askign about in the first place, that whiteman19 was saying doesn't work with games.

Off now to play with my new laptop

5uspect

A little weird alright.
What's wrong with a games console when you let them run riot on a PC? At least with an xbox you know they're not online looking at porn.
You'll never have to worry about drivers, compatibility or important documents getting nuked and they have fairly robust parental controls.
Ultimately its a stripped down PC with a locked down OS, hardly some evil corrupter of children.

Anyhoo you've got a new machine now. You don't even need to dual boot it, just give them a limited user account where they can't access any thing important. Compatibility mode involves right clicking on the shortcut and ticking a box under the compatibility tab. Hardly hardship TBH.

brcwatters

Not going to go into this as it's gone a bit OT - I haven't bought a laptop just so they can play games, I've bought it so I can switch my work pc off when I finish work and keep it for work (as strictly speaking it's not even mine) and use the laptop for family stuff - email, bills, accounts, photos - and games and surfing etc. They're going to use it for online games, youtube etc, learning html, flash etc as well as standalone games. They don't run riot on it - have access to it twice a week for an hour each but now that they're pottering around on youtube etc I want them in the kitchen where I can keep an eye rather than in the office where I have to keep popping in and out.

We have our own reasons for avoiding the nintendos which aren't really relevant to this thread, or even this forum - would belong more in a "kid psychology" forum

5uspect

Oh whatever, just seems a bit OTT for me.