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I have a webcam that's built into my laptop. No drivers exist for a 64-bit environment (thank you Sony!). Can I somehow publish the webcam from Windows XP Mode into my Windows 7 environment?

Is this possible?

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3 Answers

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The other answers don't seem to quite answer. There are two possible questions:

  1. Can I use my webcam inside XP Mode when running 64-bit Windows 7? (what the other people answered)

    • Answer: Maybe yes. Virtual PC allows you to attach USB devices to the virtual host, but I'm not sure if the built-in webcam will show up as a internal USB device or something else

     

  2. Can XP Mode somehow magically make my webcam work for apps that are not running in XP Mode? (What it seems like you are asking)

    • Answer: No. I can't think of anyway this would work.
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Not sure what MS have done, but with XP Mode you can publish Apps to run like Wine (Linux) in Win 7. So its a bit more than a Virtual PC, but yeah doesn't seem like MS extended hardware support into this model, only apps... – JL. Sep 21 '09 at 23:25
Publishing apps is nothing magical, it just runs the virtual app in it's own window, with all the restraints you normally have, ie reduced support for hardware, "cumbersome" interaction with the hosts filesystem etc. VMWare Workstation has the same funtionality, it's called Union there. It's crap. :) – tptech Oct 6 '09 at 11:30
Yeah, it's not like wine at all, it's more like VMware's "Unity" or Parallels' "Coherence" features. Basically only shows the application window instead of the entire OS desktop, but it's still virtualizing the entire Windows XP OS off in its own sandbox – davr Oct 6 '09 at 21:21
Oooo , thats just nasty. I guess it at least has the decency to share the sandboxed OS among the apps. – JL. Oct 13 '09 at 17:01
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Does Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 support USB devices?

USB support is provided and essentially any USB device will work. Windows Virtual PC uses a USB pass through approach for most devices, so to the virtual machine it looks like the USB device is locally attached in the virtual environment. There is also redirection technology in place for USB storage devices.

Source

p.s.: XP Mode is a VPC image. VirtualBox supports VPC images and USB devices in virttual computers.

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VPC also supports USB devices, so does Virtual XP Mode. The latter is just prepackaged from MS. VirtualBox will bring nothing new to this table, in my opinion.. – tptech Oct 6 '09 at 11:33
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It would probably work if it was a USB-camera. At least there is support for that in VMware Workstation. But Windows XP Mode is just another virtual machine in that regard, and probably won't see your builtin webcam.

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