Fans of Sony laptops who are looking forward to Windows 7 and the XP mode that will allow users to run legacy apps without fear of a Vista-like break will be sorely disappointed (putting it lightly) to hear that due to BS reasons that aren’t really that big of a concern security reasons, Sony has disabled hardware virtualization on all current Sony Vaio laptops meaning no XP mode for you. *Face palm*. According to Sony’s Xavier Lauwaert, Senior manager for...

Many a IT groups were ecstatic to learn of Windows 7′s XP mode that would allow older programs to still run and function under Mircosoft’s latest and shaping up to be greatest OS to date.  Then came one little snag, in order to actually run those older programs, it wouldn’t be the simple virtualization that everyone had hoped for.  Instead, the particular chip has to have “on chip” virtualization support.  As far as AMD goes, pretty much all...

One of the greatest things that has been announced as coming with Windows 7 is “XP Mode”. This mode will allow an individual to run older programs on new hardware that without XP Mode wouldn’t be able to run at all. While the consumer market generally upgrades their software as new updates to that software become available, the corporate IT world usually will stay with a tried and true set up no matter the age. It may come off as laziness on the IT...

I’m sure when Microsoft recently announced “XP Mode” in Windows 7 for compatibilities sake, many a IT admin cried out in happiness and disbelief.  However, like many good things in life there are some nagging little strings that also are coming along for the ride.  The first string being that if you want compatibility mode you’re going to have to pony up for either Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate as those are the...