Windows 7 Dual mode - Advantageous opportunity or waste of precious time

I do not have a technical answer for this question, but I'm assuming that XP can't write XPS documents natively. I haven't used Windows XP in years: only in the dreaded client support environment where noone knows anything about XPS and uses PDF instead.

Here then lies the problem, your adventure into virtualization intrigues me completely, but I have no answer about XPS Writer. I believe you will find, that VMWare's costly Workstation offering is a total godsend and goes above and beyond what Microsoft's virtualization is capable of doing at this time -- although that is bound to change and shift as time goes on.

Surely, virtualization will become the future of computing. It already has changed the web hosting community. You can now buy shared VPS (virtual private servers) which are usually Citrix-server based "private" images hosted at a datacenter. This allows them to use one mega-server (well.. in theory.. chances are they are using what would be a regular dedicated server), to cut costs financially and increase their R.O.I., while offering you "your own server".

So its had an impact on the industry already, but it hasn't exactly hit the front door of every home user just yet. But for software development and hosting - it is a driving force. Software developers often use multiple images of OS's now to do product testing on many operating systems at once. Some day, there will be an undeniable and absolute reason for the home computer user to use virtualization. One reason for an unseasoned user would be to "use the virtual image" and "revert to snapshot" to protect the computer. This could, for instance, be done at an Internet cafe (or for that friend we all know who has a tendency to destroy computers whenever he/she gets on one!).