Capetonian, all W7 editions except 'Home Premium' will run programs which will only run in XP in what is called 'XP Mode'. I believe it is similar to running Windows as a 'virtual machine' on a Mac using Parallels. i.e. you have a program which allows you to run a different operating system which you then use to run your application aka a virtual PC. In the case of W7 a virtual XP machine is included.