Does Windows 8 support Windows XP mode?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #69, I look at running a virtual machine in a new operating
system to enable you to keep your old XP alive.

XP mode in Windows 8

You know, that’s a good question. To be honest, I don’t know the answer to
the question you’re asking specifically. In other words, is there a
free XP mode that you can download from Microsoft for Windows 8 – like
there was for Windows 7 when you had Windows 7 Pro or better?

However, whether or not that’s available (and I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m
saying that I haven’t seen it in any of the literature yet)… whether or not
that’s available… it’s still available. It’s just in a different form.

Virtual Machines

Windows XP mode is nothing more than a virtual machine that happens to be
running Windows XP. And there are many virtual machine solutions out there that
can run Windows XP within Windows 7 – or Windows 8.

I happen to use Parallels. Parallels works both on my PC and on my Mac to allow
me to run different versions of Windows within a window on those other
operating systems.

So, for example, when I get Windows 8, it will be installed into a virtual
machine that will be running underneath Windows 7. I’ll be able to have them
both running simultaneously. Similarly, on my Windows 7 machine, I have a
virtual machine that’s running Windows XP, which is pretty much the same thing
as having this Windows XP mode from Microsoft.

So whether or not, it’s provided for free from Microsoft, there are
definitely virtual machine technologies that are pretty much guaranteed to work
under Windows – 8 and will allow you to run Windows XP within a window in
Windows 8.