If you are interested to run your Windows 7 Computer in XP mode then you were to have a CPU that support hardware-assisted virtualization (HAV) and the feature should be enabled in the BIOS. But now Microsoft has removed the hardware virtualization prerequisite in order to run Windows Virtual PC and XP mode. So if you are a Windows 7 user, you can easily install and run Windows Virtual PC. Microsoft released the KB977206 Update for Windows 7 which removes the prerequisites required to run Windows Virtual PC and XP mode.

If your computer does not support hardware-assisted virtualization and when you try to run any virtual machine including Windows XP Mode in Windows Virtual PC you might have some error messages like – “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” or “Windows Virtual PC cannot start because this computer does not support hardware-assisted virtualization“. But now you can download the KB977206 Update from Microsoft Download Center to remove the hardware virtualization requirement.

Download Windows6.1-KB977206-x86.msu 32-bit (x86)
Download Windows6.1-KB977206-x64.msu 64-bit (x64)