I have already talked about the benefits of XP Mode that is part of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions and how to get it setup but some of the most useful features are not enabled by default. All of the native Windows XP applications that come with a standard Windows XP install are not configured to show up in your Windows 7 Start Menu. Native applications such as Internet Explorer 6 can be configured to also appear in the Windows 7 Start Menu under XP Mode Applications. IE6 in particular is very useful for Web sites that are not compatible with IE7 or IE8 so I'm going to use it as an example to show you how to configure any native Windows XP application to work in Seamless mode.
The secret is creating an additional shortcut in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ folder on the Windows XP Mode virtual machine for each application you want to publish to the Windows 7 Start Menu.
- Click on the Windows 7 Start Menu, expand All Programs and navigate through Windows Virtual PC and click Windows XP Mode to start XP Mode in desktop mode.
- After the Windows XP desktop is displayed, click on the Start Button and select My Computer.
- Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ and right click and select New and then Shortcut.
- Click on the Browse button and select the executable for the native windows app you want to use. For Internet Explorer 6 navigate through C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ and select IEXPLORE.exe and hit OK. Then, click Next on the Create Shortcut screen once the location is filled in.
- Type in a name for the shortcut such as Internet Explorer 6 and click Finish.
Eventually the new shortcut you created will show up in the Windows 7 Start Menu under Windows XP Mode Applications within the Windows Virtual PC folder.
