Posts Tagged ‘Virtual XP Mode’

QuickBooks UK and Windows 7

In this report I will explain the current situation regarding QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 and Windows 7. I will explain the problems and give a solution.

According to the official QuickBooks UK site QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 are not compatible with Windows 7.

Although QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 versions will install successfully on Windows 7, these products are not supported by Intuit to be compatible with Windows 7.

Also QuickBooks UK will not be issuing updates to QuickBooks 2006 0r 2008 to make them compatible.

We do not plan to release any updates to make these products compatible with Windows 7. We are working hard to bring a new version of QuickBooks to the UK market which is compatible with Windows 7.

Read their full comment on the official QuickBooks UK site.

Here is my personal experience of using QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 with Windows 7:-

• Initially the installation of QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 on Windows 7 can appear to work successfully. However error messages start appearing within the following days and weeks.
• A major problem is that Windows 7 includes a program called .Net Framework which is supplied with Windows 7 as a built in component. The program .Net Framework is used by QuickBooks for its large library of coded solutions to common programming problems.
• The problem is Windows 7 comes with version 3.5 of .Net Framework, but when you install QuickBooks on to a Windows 7 PC the installation routine installs version 1.1 of .Net Framework.
• These two versions of .Net seem to cause the conflicts which make QuickBooks work unreliable.
• Other software programs make use of .Net and they can fail to work correctly with both .Net versions installed.
• I have not had any success trying to removing the earlier version of .Net. In fact I ended up re-installing Windows 7 to correct it.
• Also QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 prefer to work with Internet Explorer 6. The newer versions of Internet Explorer (which are supplied with Windows 7) give script errors when running the graphic overviews (like the the Home navigator screen).

Due to the above reasons I have found QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 unworkable on Windows 7. However I have found a solution.

Solution – Windows 7 and QuickBooks 2006 and 2008

For the last 3 months I have successfully been using QuickBooks 2006 and 2008 on Windows 7 using Windows 7′s “Virtual XP Mode”.  Virtual XP Mode should not be confused with the XP Compatibility mode which is available in all versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Virtual XP Mode is only available with Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions. So this will not work if you have the Windows 7 Home edition. The purpose of Virtual XP mode is to create a window, in which the XP operating system works using the Ram memory of the PC. Check the Microsoft Virtual XP Mode site for details.

In this Virtual XP Mode window your PC creates a version of Windows XP and so none of the QuickBook/Windows 7 compatibilities discussed above cause problems.

Windows 7 in Virtual XP mode running QuickBooks

When you set up the Virtual XP Mode you assign a portion of your Ram memory to the installation of XP. I recommend using 1 Gb of Ram for the XP installation. I  have tested this with a PC with 6Gb of Ram running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit operating system. and it works well. Setting up printers to work with Virtual XP Mode can be a bit awkward because you have to select the port number manually.

Windows 7 is supplied in 32 and 64 bit versions. If you are given the option then choose the 64 bit version because this allows you to overcome the Ram memory of 3.5Gb (approximate) that the 32 bit version has. I have not tried Windows 7 (32 bit) with Virtual XP mode but it is supported by Microsoft.

Apart from the printer issue, everything works as it should do. I have not tested this with earlier versions of QuickBooks but I would expect it to work with any QuickBooks version compatible with Windows XP.

I hope that this clarifies the current situation for you.