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 product marketing:
…received very little if any requests to enable VT technology up until very recently.
In addition, our engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very deep in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable the latter.
For these two reasons we have decided, until recently, not to enable VT. However, with the advent of XP Virtualization, there is impetus for us to relook at the situation and I can share with you that we will enable VT on select models.
Though, I fear to say that the Z series will not be part of our VT-enabling effort. Indeed, we will focus on more recent models.
Again, the immediate outlook doesn’t look to promising as Sony doesn’t appear to be in any hurry. While many users will in fact never need or want this feature, the crowd that has been looking forward to XP mode and all of its hair saving grace will no doubt need to start looking for a nice new wig pretty darn soon. What do you have to say about this unfortunate turn of events?
Of course, if you would like to give Sony the finger and re-enable the hidden pleasures for yourself, you can find info on how to do so with either a Phoenix BIOS or a Insyde H2O UEFI framework
Happy hacking!
Source: Gizmodo, Engadget, The Register, Image Source
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 chips since the AMD Athlon line support this requirement. However, Intel, trying to have a nice mix of performance and cost savings across it’s line as a smattering of chips here, there, and even way over yonder that do/don’t support the needed virtualizaiton requirements. In fact, it is so scattered that many individuals could have a pretty hard time finding out if there chip is even supported. However, Zdnet’s Ed Bott has gone ahead and done the dirty work for us, organizing into one nice sheet the Intel processors that will support Windows 7′s XP Mode. For some, after reading through the list, they will be relieved that that new processor/computer they just bought will in fact work, others won’t be so lucky. ‘Tis the way of the tech world.
Source: Slashgear
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 workers’ part, and may be so in smaller companies. But what if you manage a company with thousands to tens of thousands of employees? You can see how quickly this could become a time and money issue. When something as major as a new operating system comes out, I’m sure you local IT guys (and gals) cringe with the though of all of the software packages and machines they’ll have to update as well as the countless hours spent adding patches and provding support for the new set up. But with Windows 7 they don’t have to worry about that. So, that begs the question, is XP Mode going to stifle the path to upgrading system software and hardware?
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 only versions that will be able to download XP Mode for free. One would think that since a majority of users who are more “basic” users that are upgrading and just want their stuff to work would have access to this XP Mode for free. Not so. It looks like they’ll have to open up their wallets further at checkout time if they really want to run their old software in Windows 7. Good call Microsoft. The rest of the strings await you just inside. Happy clicking.
