Does IAG work with Windows 7 (64 bit)?

After much experimenting with Windows 7 32 bit, you can see you are able to get Microsoft IAG to work with it, as can be been in one of my previous blog posts.

Now I hope we are all aware that 64-bit Windows operating systems are not supported by IAG. I know there were rumours of 64-bit support being released with IAG SP 2 Update 2, but that is not the case. We will discuss this update is a later blog posting.

Well I was fortunate enough to be provided with a new work laptop, which has a faster processor, bigger hard disk and more importantly 4GB RAM. I did initially install Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit, but was disappointed to only see that 3GB was recognised by the OS (I would have lived with only 3.25-3.5GB being seen), so I bit the bullet and installed Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit so that all the RAM is seen and can be used.

I know that Windows 7 64-bit will allow you to install applications as either 32 or 64 bit, so some things like Java should be installed twice to work with both 32 and 64-bit IE browsers, will specific 32 bit applications an be installed and used. That said, despite the workaround detailed for Windows 7 32 bit, this does not work in Windows 7 64 bit!

Luckily, Microsoft have a Windows XP Mode as a solution: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

By installing Windows Virtual PC RC and Windows XP Mode RC, it will allow you to run a virtualised version of XP on your Windows 7 desktop. There are not additional licenses to consider, but you will need a processor with either Intel® Virtualization Technology or AMD-V™ feature turned on. I downloaded this application from the Intel website to check that my processor supported this feature from here: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/

I found these step by step instructions on Windows 7 XP Mode, which I found very useful: http://lifehacker.com/5245396/set-up-and-use-xp-mode-in-windows-7

Once installed and working, I also installed Avira Premium Security Suite software to remove the Microsoft Security Centre red shield.

I created a shortcut into the all users folder of the virtualised desktop, to my IAG website. This also placed the shortcut into the start menu of my Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit. By clicking the link, it will start up an IE browser to my IAG appliance from the XP virtual environment, which gives a pretty seamless experience and I retain full IAG functionality.... phew!!!