At the end of last week, with a short announcement on the corporate blog, Microsoft announced the RTM of its Windows XP Mode, a pre-configured virtual machine with Windows XP SP3 as guest OS that will run on the Virtual PC version included in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise.
virtualization.info already covered the last-minute features included in the August release candidate build.
Every Microsoft customer will be able to download the virtual machine for free by October 22, the official launch day for Windows 7.
Everybody but the Sony customers that purchased a VAIO laptop.
Thanks to the absurd strategy that Sony adopted, its customers cannot run Windows XP Mode or any virtual machine, because Windows Virtual PC needs Intel VT, and the Intel VT capability has been intentionally disabled and hidden inside every VAIO BIOS.