Windows XP Mode Error – Cannot start virtual application – The application is blocked from running as a virtual application

After a series of automatic updates to the XP Mode VM, the user came in this morning to get the following error after double clicking on the application’s shortcut on their desktop:

Windows XP Mode – Windows Virtual PC

In this case, the IE7 icon had become disassociated with the VM’s IE7. This seems to be a consistent experience where the user creates a shortcut on their desktop to an app hosted in XP Mode.

To “fix” the issue, delete the desktop shortcut and put a new one in place from the XP Mode Applications list on the Start Menu.

On rare occasions, we have needed to log onto the XP Mode VM itself and reseat the updated application’s shortcut icon in the All Users Programs folder with a copy and paste over the original.

Once the XP Mode Applications folder on the Windows 7 machine refreshed itself, we were able to recreate the shortcut on the desktop and the user was good to go.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer