I am a home user with some experince.I installed win 7 .First mouse dident work usb installed ps2 mouse ok.after one day reinstalld ms optical mouse usb ok. But none of other usb stuff works as should.keyboard works but no on screen indicators.Printer dosent work new works with vista.tryed drivers etc no work.OLd sofware that works on XP dosent work.If this supposed to be better than vista its not.I installed on second hd clean install.I order to use xp mode do you have to have instaled on same hd

Hi,You can have Windows XP installed on the same hard disk through XP Mode.I suspect that all your device issues are caused by the device driver:1. On plugging your optical mouse/keyboard, you will need to wait for like 30 seconds to 1 min to let Windows install the necessary drivers - then it'll work.2. For your printer, you will need to install the printer driver. Any Vista driver should work.3. For your old software, try running in Compatibility Mode: Right click on the executable -> Properties -> Compatibility. From there, set it to run the program in Windows XP.Hope this helps.Jabez Gan [MVP] - http://www.msblog.org Contributing Author for: (Sybex) MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration Study Guide: Exam 70-643