Fortunately(?) my clipboard retained the post I had ready to go when Max shut down yesterday.

Joe -

As Amergin linked (26 Oct 09 - 05:30 PM ) it appears that if you have a Win7 version that doesn't include the Virtual XP utility, you can download it as an add-on from Microsoft - and it appears to be free.

The link gives fairly clear instructions for how to download and install the virtual machine.

While it is/was possible to dual-boot WinXP or Vista, the dual boot installation was somewhat complex, requiring that the WinXP version be installed in a separate partition before Vista was installed, and Vista had to be told at installation that a dual boot setup was intended. You of course had to have licenses for both the WinXP and Vista you intended to use, and you had to exit one in order to boot into the other.

The Virtual XP appears to be somewhat different, running a "virtual WinXP machine" inside Win7, so that (some reviews imply?) you can run legacy WinXP programs side by side with Win7 programs, without the need to exit one OS in order to run the other. (I haven't confirmed this, but several reviewers have claimed it.)

I didn't see anything in the instructions saying that you need a spearate XP license to use the virtual XP in Win7; but I only scanned the article briefly so you may need to check that out.

The virtual WinXP is supposedly akin to the VPN (Virtual Private Network) setup used by lots of businesses for secure connections for their "road warriors" while they're away from the home server(?).

John