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Microsoft has published the following FAQs to help us all understand the differences between Windows XP Mode, Windows Virtual PC and MED-V. Hopefully you will find these FAQs helpful.

What is Windows XP Mode, Windows Virtual PC and MED-V?

• - Windows Virtual PC is a type II hypervisor in Windows 7 - i.e. it enables users to run multiple instances of Windows on a single device.
• - Windows XP Mode leverages Windows Virtual PC and a preconfigured Windows XP image to create a virtual Windows XP environment
• - MED-V is the management layer for IT professionals on top of Virtual PC.
• - Windows XP Mode does not replace MED-V.

The breakdown

Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses users to run their Windows XP applications on their Windows 7 desktop.

• - Windows XP Mode is available as part of Windows 7 Professional , Ultimate and Enterprise.
• - Windows Virtual PC will enable users to launch many older applications seamlessly in a virtual Windows XP environment from the Windows 7 start menu
• - Windows Virtual PC includes support for USB devices and is based on a new core that includes multi-threading support
• - Windows XP Mode is best experienced on new PCs from OEMs but will also be available for customers as a separate download.

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) is designed for IT Professionals.

• - MED-V enables Virtual PC deployment in larger organizations
• - MED-V provides important centralized management, policy-based provisioning and virtual image delivery to reduce the cost of Virtual PC deployment.
• - MED-V is part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP)
• - MED-V v1 builds on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to help enterprises with their upgrade to Windows Vista when applications are not yet compatible.
• - MED-V v2 will add support for Windows 7 and Windows Virtual PC.
• - MED-V v2 beta will be available within 90 days of Windows 7 GA.

Which customers should use Windows XP Mode?

Windows XP Mode is suitable for small and medium business users, who are able to set their XP applications themselves or with the help of an IT professional.

Each device has its own virtual Windows XP environment, that is controlled and managed by the end user.

Windows XP Mode is not designed for large, centrally managed deployments, and is not suitable for organizations that have widely deployed business applications that require Windows XP.

How does MED-V adds management to Windows Virtual PC?

To provide a managed, scalable solution for running virtual Windows XP applications, MED-V addresses many of the IT challenges around deployment and management including:

• Deployment - deliver virtual Windows images and customize per user and device settings
  

  • - Automate first-time virtual PC setup based on an IT customized script - including assignment of a unique computer name, joining to AD domain
    (for instance: assign the virtual PC a name that is derived from the physical device name or the username to simplify identification and management)
  • - Adjust virtual PC memory allocation based on available RAM on host, so that the virtual PC does not take significant resources from the user

• Provisioning - define which applications and websites are available to different users
  

  • - Assign virtual PC images according to users and groups
  • - Define which Windows XP applications will be available to the user through the start menu
  • - Define which websites (e.g. internal sites that requires a previous version of Internet Explorer) are redirected automatically to Windows XP

• Control - assign and expire usage permissions and Virtual PC settings
  

  • - Control the network settings of the Virtual PC (e.g. whether it connects through NAT or DHCP, whether its DNS is synchronized with host)
  • - Authenticate user before granting access to the Virtual PC
  • - Set expiration date, after which the Virtual PC is not accessible to the end user

• Maintenance and Support - update images, monitor users and remotely troubleshoot
  

  • - Update images using TrimTransfer network image delivery - update a master Virtual PC image, and MED-V will automatically distribute and apply the changes to all endpoints
  • - Centralized database aggregates events from all users, and provides troubleshooting information on malfunctioning virtual PCs
  • - Administrator diagnostics mode allows faster resolution of Virtual PC issues
  • - Run on multiple platforms - MED-V will work on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, and will not require processor-based virtualization support

How do I purchase MED-V?

MED-V is licensed as part of MDOP subscription that is available for purchase for Software Assurance customers.

What are the key features of new version of Windows Virtual PC?

Easy setup of Windows XP Mode - Once both the Windows Virtual PC and the virtual Windows XP environment are installed, Windows Virtual PC provides a simple wizard to setup the Windows XP Mode with just a few clicks.

USB Support - Users can access USB devices attached to Windows 7 directly from Windows Virtual PC.  These devices include Printers and Scanners, Flash Memory/Sticks and External Hard Disks, Digital Cameras and more.

Seamless Applications - Publish and Launch applications installed on Windows Virtual PC directly from the Windows 7 desktop, as if they were installed on the Windows 7 itself.

Folder Integration between Windows 7 and Windows Virtual PC- Access your Windows 7 Known Folders:  My documents, Pictures, Desktop, Music, Video, from inside the virtual windows environment, such as Windows XP Mode

Clipboard Sharing - Cut and paste between your Windows 7 and Windows Virtual PC.

Printer Redirection - Print directly to your attached printer from your Windows Virtual PC applications either in application mode or desktop mode.

App-V 4.5 is the first Microsoft-branded release of the product formerly known as SoftGrid. It includes new capabilities designed to help IT support large-scale virtualization implementations across many sites and provides multiple delivery options, including over-the-Internet application availability to meet your business needs.

App-V has several advantages. Because App-V applications are isolated from each other, different versions of the same application can run concurrently. This approach enables any application to be delivered without making any changes to its code. The App-V client presents the user with a list of applications, to which the user has access. The user can then launch a virtualized instance of the application. Depending on the configuration, the systems administrator can be either notified of the action via email or it can require an explicit confirmation from the administrator for the application to start streaming and initialize or it can just simply check the Active Directory for the user’s rights and stream the application to the user if it is authorized to run the application.

Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services supports Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and its available as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services.

If you want to know more about App-V, check out this interview in which Karri Alexion-Tiernan, Director in the Windows Client division, explains in detail what App-V is all about. The App-V Team Blog is another good resource.

Here is an example that shows in detail how you can import an Excel spreadsheet into a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 List. I used my Windows Networking User Group Web site as an example because I have easy access to it. I am using Excel 2007 in my example.

First create an Excel document with column headings and data that needs to be imported, if one doesn’t exist already. If you are a trainer and would like to use the file I’ve created for demo to your students, you can download this Excel Sample File. The file is in Excel 2007 format.

To import an Excel file into SharePoint, you don’t have to first create a List and all the columns because when you import an Excel spreadsheet, SharePoint will create all the columns and will also create the list based on the name you provide. If you use column names that already exist (e.g. Name), SharePoint will create a column with a number appended to it, e.g. Name1. Here are all the steps.

1. Go to Site Actions, View All Site Content.

2. Click Create.

3. In the Custom Lists section click Import Spreadsheet.

4. Enter the Name, Description and File location, where:

Name: This will be the name of the new SharePoint List
Description: An appropriate description of the SharePoint List
File location: The path to your Excel file

Click the Import button.

5. You will see the Excel spreadsheet open up. In the Range Type section, click the drop-down button and select Range of Cells. Click anywhere in the Select Range box. This will allow you to select the text that you want to import into SharePoint List.

6. Highlight the headers and all the cells with your mouse (click and drag) and then click on the icon on the right-hand side in the minimized Import to Windows SharePoint Services list. This will allow you to get back to the mode where you will be able to click the Import button.

7. Go ahead and click the Import button to start the import process.

NOTE: Whether you are using Excel 2003  or Excel 2007 there is a chance that you may see the following error:

Method ‘Post’ of object ‘IOWSPostData’ failed

If you get this error, don’t panic. Just read my blog post Error: “Method ‘Post’ of object ‘IOWSPostData’ failed” in SharePoint on how to work around this error.

8. If you are prompted for logon credentials, provide the account name a password that has permissions to add to the SharePoint List.

9. You will see your Excel spreadsheet imported into SharePoint with the name of the list that you provided in step 4.

NOTE:

If you used a name for the column that already exists in SharePoint, e.g. Name. SharePoint will append a number 1 to the column title, e.g. Name1. Next time it will use Name2, and so on.

Conclusion

As you can see, adding data from Excel spreadsheet into SharePoint is relatively straight forward. You should check out this blog post from my colleague Sharee English Excel and SharePoint: Part 2 because she prefers the Named Range as the Range Type and shows a slightly different method to import data from Excel into SharePoint. With Excel 2003, or even Excel 2007, you may run into the Method ‘Post’ error that I mentioned earlier. The solution I posted in another blog post seem to work for just about everyone. I’ve run into this error on several computes both Windows XP computers running Office 2003 and Windows Vista running Office 2007 and was able to fix the problem with this solution.

When importing an Excel spreadsheet into a SharePoint List I ran into this error on a computer running Windows XP SP2 and Office 2003. Then I tried importing on a Windows Vista computer running Office 2007. After doing some research I found a solution on Microsoft MVP Kathy Hughes’ blog.

I am documenting the solution for Office 2007 here but the solution for Office 2003 should be similar. Just replace the references accordingly. For example, in step 2 you will replace the reference to Office 12 with Office 11.

Error

I experienced the error when I tried to import the spreadsheet. The error states:

Method ‘Post’ of object ‘IOWSPostData’ failed

Cause

This error is apparently due to a failed Application.SharePointVersion(URL) call in the Excel add-in which causes Excel to try and use the IOWSPostData.Post() to publish the range. This method is used by SharePoint Team Services 1.0. If you can force it to use version lookup result variable (lVER) to a later version (e.g. 2 or later), Excel will use SOAP to communicate with WSS 3.0 and you should be able to import the data successfully.

Solution

1. Open Excel 2007.

2. Open EXPTOOWS.XLA add-in which is located by default in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033 folder. If prompted, Enable the macros.

3. Press ALT+F11. You should see the Microsoft Visual Basic code editor window as shown below.

If you do not see the code editor window open. Go to ExptoOWS (EXPTOOWS.XLA, Forms folder and double-click publishForm. Press F7 (or View, Code from menu) to open the code editor.

4. You need to locate the lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL) code. Use CTRL+F to locate the code, as shown above. The letter before “Ver” is a lowercase L, not the number 1.

5. Comment out the line that says lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL) as follows:

‘lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL)

6. Add a line lVer =2. Your two lines should now read:

‘lVer = Application.SharePointVersion(URL)

lVer = 2

Notice the apostrophe ‘ before line one.

7. Save the file and exit Excel.

8. You should now be able to import Excel files into SharePoint Lists without any problems.

If you’ve run into a situation where a user can open a Word 2003 file on SharePoint Server but is directed to save the file locally, try the following solution. I had a client who ran into this situation and was able to fix using the technique described below.

1. Uninstall the SharePoint support from Office 2007 applications (e.g. Visio).

2. Set the document files (e.g Word, Excel) to not open in the browser as follows. This procedure is for Windows XP Professional.

a) Open Windows Explorer.

b) Go to Tools, Folder Options.

c) Click on File Types tab.

d) Highlight the document extension for the file type, e.g. highlight DOC in the extensions column.

e) Click on Advanced button.

f) Uncheck the box “Browse in same window.”

g) Click OK twice to close all windows.

Make sure you do this for other file types that are causing this problem, e.g. Excel.