Big news for fans of Windows.

Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott reveal a new Windows 7 application compatibility feature called Windows XP Mode here.

Basically, any owner of a copy of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate (which covers just about everyone who will be using it in a corporate environment, and a lot of home users). will be entitled to download what is essentially a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine that will run in parallel with Windows 7, seamlessly integrating it's windows and icons with the host Windows 7 ones, thereby relieving Microsoft of the need to keep old code in Windows 7 and future versions for compatiblity with old software. If it won't run in windows 7 you install it as an XP compatibility install and it runs in XP on top of Windows 7.