Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode in non hardware-assisted Windows 7 PC

It is possible that you need to run virtual PC or Windows XP mode on your Windows 7 PC, but the hardware does not supports virtualization. In this case, we will use a hotfix from Microsoft to force run virtualization.

Step 1

Make sure you already running Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Windows XP mode. Both are free and you can download from this page of Microsoft.   You will be prompted for Windows Genuine Validation in the above step.

Step 2

This is a hotfix. This fixes the problems which shows any of them:

• Unable to start Windows Virtual PC because hardware-assisted virtualization is disabled
• Cannot start Windows Virtual PC Host Process. Check the System event log for more details
• Windows Virtual PC cannot start because this computer does not support hardware-assisted virtualization

If you are not sure, what is the problem, you can use this tool from Microsoft to detect your system’s virtualization support.   The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center as hot fix:   All supported x86-based versions of Windows 7 All supported x64-based versions of Windows 7

Important: Microsoft recommend that you install this update only if your processor does not support the HAV feature.