Windows 7 to 10 upgrade - will I lose Windows XP mode?

Solution 1:

You should still have access to your XP VM. The VM itself should be a .VHD file. If you are upgrading to Windows 10 Pro, enable Hyper-V in the Control Panel. Then, open Hyper-V and create a new VM. It will ask you of you want to create a virtual hard drive. At this point, you just need to browse to your XP VM ( the .VHD file) and this should be very similar to Windows XP mode. If you don't have Windows 10 Pro, you won't have access to Hyper-V. However, you cam still use Oracle Virtual Box, VMware Player, Paralelles, amd maybe some others.

Solution 2:

It is true that Windows 10 does not include XP Mode, but there are ways to get a XP VM. First of all, you can always download the XP Mode install file, extract the folder VirtualXPVHD, and put it into a .vhd file, and load the resulting file in HyperV or other hypervisor as suggested by several websites (that also have more detailed instructions and pictures).

http://www.download3k.com/articles/How-to-add-an-XP-Mode-Virtual-Machine-to-Windows-10-or-8-using-Hyper-V-00770

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/forget-end-life-woes-windows-8-xp-mode/

Another option would be obtaining an XP ISO file, which is still pretty common.

Solution 3:

Yes because xp mode is only licensed on Windows 7. There no license for it beyond the Windows 7 platform included.