If you want to try Windows 7 out, but you don't want to wipe your current operating system from your system, then perhaps you want to try Sun's VirtualBox virtualization software.

Oracle VirtualBox gave Windows XP a second chance To bypass the modern hardware challenges, I turned to Oracle VM VirtualBox, a free and robust virtualization tool.

VirtualBox is flexible enough to handle many types of 32-bit and 64-bit configurations. If you need to run a 32-bit version of XP in a 64-bit host, you can do that without any problems.

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is a professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.

Because of Hyper-V Windows Sandbox, VMWare, VirtualBox won't run together. Learn how to use Windows Sandbox and VMWare or VirtualBox together.

Windows 7 only: If you've been itching to use the new XP Mode feature in Windows 7, but you aren't too keen on using Virtual PC or just prefer VirtualBox, here's how to use XP Mode in VirtualBox.