Heavens above! At the time the programmes were installed, in fact, I was 'dual booting' 2000 and XP and sometimes triple with Linux, but these programmes were downloaded and the mouse clicked to install under XP if that makes it clearer? I am NOT dual booting now if that helps? I cannot really see what 'dual booting' has to do with the query.
Your last para does not agree with mixture
Does the 'Run as XP' option require the XP OS? I guess it will need the XP registry?
Of course not. Everything that function needs is built into Windows 7/8.