I think I will buy it when it comes out. Microsoft seems to have gotten it right.
LINK
Yes, I know there's like some thread somewhere with vague points about it, but just discuss it in more detail here. This is cool stuff.

It's meant specifically for business applications, not for games at all. It might run the same as using a virtual system nowadays for games.

Meaning not very well, or what? I've never tried it, but I can imagine that stuff like 3D acceleration goes out the window in a virtual environment, which would kind of put a limit on the kinds of games you can play.

Yeah, meaning not very well. Actually, as good as solutions available right now, meaning at least no 3d acceleration for virtual PC. Although Virtualbox can now support direct3d and opengl in windows xp guests.

in the present climate business won't upgrade their systems unless you do one of two things you put a gun to their heads or all their comps explode lol

Yeah, my place of business also runs WinXP still. Even when we buy new machines that come with Vista preinstalled, they get wiped and reinstalled with XP.

Well, this program will ship with windows 7 and windows 7 wont be released until q1 2010.

Yeah, unless they manage to find a way for the Virtual PC application to finally use your actual on-board hardware, instead of emulating it; it's never going to be of long term use for gaming.

Early as July, actually.

This is already done for CPUs, but only if they support hardware-assisted virtualisation (Intel VT-x or AMD-V), which allows the VM to bypass the host and run instructions on the CPU natively at full speed; unfortunately, no such technology exists for video cards. While GPU instructions could certainly be forwarded to the host driver, without assistance from the hardware this would inevitably be far too slow for more powerful games. Virtual PC has always been primarily intended for corporate and development uses, so I wouldn't be surprised if this new version continues to lack 3D support.

So, it's basically the next version of VirtualPC (the most recent being 2007 sp1, the next one being 7) that apparently contains a variation of VMWare Workstation's or Fusion's "unity" (or Parallel's "coherence"), and includes a free license of Windows XP.
VMWare Workstation/Fusion already contains a degree of 3D acceleration, so what's to say that Microsoft can't do the same, especially given that they know their system and DirectX inside out?
Yes, I know they haven't changed the emulated graphics hardware for many years, and still use some SIS 4 or 8 MB card, which in some ways is better than what VMWare is doing in "emulating" a totally custom card, perhaps they could have a choice; emulate a standard but less capable card (so that existing drivers may be used for just about any OS), or a custom but more powerful one (for which drivers only exists for various relatively recent Windows versions, probably). VMWare and/or VPC already do a variation of that for sound card (I think VPC chooses automatically depending on which system you specify that you're going t install as you create the VM), hard disc (choice between SCSI or IDE), and RAID controller, so why not graphics?

Note that this will only be available in the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions.
The Starter and Home Premium editions won't have this feature.
Although I wouldn't be surprised if someone manages to find a way to get this available in those versions as well.
Personally I think that's a mistake from MS as a lot of consumers still hold on to XP for various reasons.
Having the ability to still run XP software will definitely be an argument to persuade consumers to get W7.

One of my biggest reasons for upgrading to W7 from Vista is the new font management, though the copy of OS X's dock (a.k.a. the new merged taskbar/quick launch) is also nice.
But that's off topic in this thread.

Certainly makes sense for those business holding out. I'd still be interested in how many will take it up, but it will convince a few.
Personally, if they get to the [point where the full advantage of native hardware can be used. I'd like to see windows-futureversion have modes the last OS release and for software as far back as 3.11 and DOS. It's fun messing around and scrapping together old hardware for the experience, but finding parts can be a pain and emulation/virtualization of these included as part of the OS would be a big bonus.
Obviously, I'm a small audience for the older stuff and people do need to move on eventually.

In a way, I'd sooner them abandon backwards compatibility entirely for "Windows 8: Microsoft Takes Manhattan" and create something completely new, designed to work only on 64bit systems with hardware thats only at most a year or two old. That'd let software devs focus on wringing the absolute best out of the hardware and software to create a top class experience all round without having to bother with coding for people who haven't upgraded in half a decade or more. Hardware manufacturers could code drivers to the same standard without needing to fuck about as much... Could spell a whole new environment for PCs.
In another way of course, I'd like my existing software to work. Then again if this magic version of windows 8 were to incorporate the virtualisation and make it fully game capable then it could well work.