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MS, Intel "Goofed Up" Win 7 XP Virtualization
clang_jangle writes "Ars Technica has a short article up describing how Microsoft and Intel have 'goofed up' Windows 7's XP Mode by ensuring many PCs will not be able to use it. (And it won't be easy to figure out in advance if your PC is one of them.) Meanwhile, over at Infoworld, Redmond is criticized for having the 'right idea, wrong technology' with their latest compatibility scheme, and PC World says 'great idea, on paper.' With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a 'goof' at all?"
I thought it was leaked that it would be released this year?
AMD has placed this support in almost all of their recent chips, but Intel has been more stingy with it.
It's necessary to use 64-bit guests in Virtualbox, but VMWare can make due without it.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
1) Do you have:
1Ghz processor, 1.25GB of RAM, and 15GB of disk space per Windows virtualization?
Then run this standalone app:
http://www.grc.com/securable.htm
That was easy.
I've tried "XP mode" on Win 7 RC and it works fine. Looking through our corporate infrastructure (90,000 machines) by the middle of next year we won't have any machines around that can't run this. The Intel chip virtualization assist will be there on all of them. I really wouldn't plan personally to run Win 7 on a machine older than the ones that can support the virt. Generally, people don't upgrade machines that are quite a bit older anyway. I know that people are worrying about "NetBook" type machines - but seriously - who would try running Win 7 AND an XP VM in only 1 GB of RAM? It's just not that core a scenario.
The machine I am typing this on is a Lenovo X200s machine and right now I am on Win 7 7100 RC with an XP mode VM up running and it works brilliantly.
I suppose it depends on your definition of "difficult" -- it's not particularly hard to find out if your processor supports virtualization extensions.
The Ars Technica is terrible -- it implies that it's a complete mystery why a virtualization system would require processor virtualization extensions to function.
I'm also not entirely sure it's reasonable to call a logical design decision you disagree with a "goof". I would hazard a guess that requiring virtualization extensions is intentional, not a mistake.
The reason I am confused is because this would have been great for the Vista transition, and seems to be old technology. Over ten years ago Apple included this capability in OS X, allowing OS 9 application to run in the classic environment. Apple also included bundles to allow the transition from 68K to PPC, and later PPC to Intel. Why did MS not do the same, and why are the including a hack solution at the last minute.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
At the request of several interested windows-using friends, I am testing the latest win7 evaluation copy in Parallels on a Mac. So far I have installed Opera, cygwin, Tortoise svn, OpenOffice.org 3.1, and even got XP's 3D Pinball to work in it. Now I'm wondering if many users will even need XP emulation...
Of course, who knows what MS might change by the official release date.
Caveat Utilitor
I don't understand why people are making such a big deal about XP Mode. It is meant for enterprise systems that have millions invested in software that is difficult to convert. 99.9% of people are not going to be using XP mode.
It's necessary to use 64-bit guests in Virtualbox, but VMWare can make due without it.
I'm looking to replace my outdated machine (800MHz, with less than 1G of RAM) with a new one. I want to do virtualization on it, with Linux as the host. What processor/motherboard would give a decent bang for the buck? How much memory should I get (I'm thinking 8G RAM)? Any brands to avoid?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
When running Linux, open up a terminal and run this: /proc/cpuinfo | grep -q svm || cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -q vmx`; then echo Yes; else echo No; fi
echo -n "Does my cpu support virtualizaiton? "; if `cat
Another issue you may have is if your system has the virtualization functions disabled in BIOS. Some laptops do this, and have no way to turn them on. My Dell D820 works fine.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
This is a very critical problem for Microsoft. I have heard people who would never have even looked at a non-MS solution two years ago whispering about Macs and Ubuntu. If migrating is going to involve a vast amount of unscheduled pain, reinstallation, down time, and retraining, do you migrate to the next level of the company which is screwing you or look for an alternative?
Seven has to solve the problem of legacy apps that don't run. If it doesn't, the Mexican standoff will continue with Seven in Vista's place, and one or two Fortune 100 shops throwing their hands in the air and switching FOSS could start a stampede. The unlikeliness of that, while high, decreases just a bit for every day the current situation persists.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Perfect solution for the two 800lb gorillas of the Wintel partnership. Microsoft gets another lever to force people still using XP to pay for an upgrade, and Intel gets a lever to force corporate buyers who prefer to hold on to machines until they die to upgrade. Dell and HP benefit, too, because of the force hardware/OS upgrade.
This is how a monopoly operates.
FTFS:
'With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a 'goof' at all?'
I know that it is popular around Slashdot to either love or bash Microsoft unconditionally (so I expect to get modded down by both camps for this), but never ascribe to malice that which can be sufficiently accounted for by incompetence. I just get sick of seeing wild conspiracy theories - 'Ooh, I know how we will get people off our best selling product ever - offer a virtualization mode in our latest product, and make it flawed so people can't use it!!'
Microsoft is pretty much ready to release Windows 7 now. All they need is a back to school or a holiday time-frame to kickstart the PC shopping spree. That's when they like to release. Not really insider info - ask any MS employee (except the one who uses chairs to build up his arm muscles).
What I wonder is why there's still NEW processors coming out from Intel WITHOUT the VT-x extensions? These extensions have been around at least since the original Core Duo days; shouldn't they be standard on all Intel CPUs by now?
I boggled when I learned there were still new CPUs being sold without the extensions. It's not like it's something that's hard to implement; the work is already done.
This free app will tell you whether your processor will support XP Mode in Windows 7 or Not:
Securable
Why is this Microsoft fault or problem for that matter? They made up their minds on something, whether its good or bad, that's really beyond this discussion. Chip makers have to adjust to that decision, and so happens that Intel isn't quite prepared for that kind of strategy. It seems that the only company in trouble here is Intel.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I just don't understand how Microsoft expects it to be a practical replacement for companies when it's so limited to high-end hardware; unless, of course, it's not intended as a commonly practical XP replacement.
I expect that this is something that they intentionally designed this for, so that they're not competing with the lower-end virtualization products. After all, they should be learning at least a few lessons from the EU repeatedly burning them.
With this in mind... I'll be the first to say that the companies that use legacy software will hurt. They will have to either replace legacy software (which is difficult for some clients) or buy a high-end computer just to get a decent upgrade for Vista/XP.
Catering to the small-business legacy software needs is a losing proposition though. This should be correctly labeled as a developer tool, and not a regular XP virtual machine.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
I'm surprise that despite all the delays, duct tape, security issues, performance problems, PR B.S. and hardware contingencies that there is still a user base out there waiting for Windows to get it right.
Maybe they should have studied how Apple did it, thrice:
- transition from 68K to PPC
- transition from MacOS 'Classic' to MacOS X
- transition from PPC to Intel
On the other hand with VMWare, Parallels and VirtualBox, there are certainly work arounds.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Good point, but 100% backwards. This is an MS problem, or a customer problem. If MS suddenly decides you need a 3.0GHz processor to run Windows 7, is it Intel/AMD's fault that not all of their processors are 3.0GHz or faster?
It's a moot point anyway, this requirement will probably go away by RTM.
(For those of you who actually read all three linked articles... or is that, all two?)
Seriously, this Windows 7 stuff is getting silly. That Slashdot isn't a pro MS site is fine. How about more Linux news, less MS news then?
It gets tiresome to see all these bullshit "OMG Windoze sux!!!1111one" stories any time a new version is coming out. Just leave off it already. If you don't like Windows 7 that is totally fine, but that isn't any reason to try and spread FUD about it. Make no mistake, that's what all this is too. They are trying to find minor things to pick on and make them out to be major problems. They are trying to say "Oh this will be a horrible OS!" They are trying to seed fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Also I kinda think it shows the opposite: If all you can find to report bad are extremely minor things, then I guess it really isn't that bad, is it? I mean let's see what criticisms they've tried to blow up lately"
1) Windows doesn't show extensions by default.
2) Windows 7 isn't all that much faster than Vista SP1, and the release version of Vista was slower than XP.
3) An optional Windows 7 addon, that most people will never download, requires a CPU addon that not all CPUs have.
Oh gee wow, what a problematic list. I mean really, if that's all you can come up with, if that's the worst of the worst, the stuff that's headline worthy, I think really that shows that 7 is a good OS, not a bad one, because it's all a bunch of BS. As a quick example for each point:
1) So what, every version of Windows since 95 has been like this, and in Linux, anything can be an executable. You can have any extension or no extension and run it.
2) This is a fake comparison. Vista at release was slower than Vista now, a better comparison is Windows 7 to XP directly, in which case 7 does pretty well. Also, new OSes are usually a bit slower, due to new features, what else is new? DOS is screaming fast, but rather worthless.
3) Very few people will ever get this, because it just isn't needed. Native compatibility is extremely high in Windows 7. This is for businesses who have some odd old apps. It is just a nice, free, addon is people want it.
So please, can we stop with the FUD? If there's real news worthy 7 stuff, post it. If not, then just ignore it, because right now it seems like they are grasping at straws to try and find things wrong with 7.
And I was told that 'ideas are cheap, its the implementation that made the difference'. And here we see that people are able to appreciate an idea as is. Most of the times implementation is required to show an ideas worth simply because not many have the vision to see it through.
If you have a real computer, you should forget 7. And stick with a real man's operating system. On a real PC, one with sixteen cores and 8GB RAM and enough fans to lift the building. ACCEPT NOTHING LESS.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Linux can do virtualization and backwards compatibility at the API level, as in user mode linux, via virtualization with a JIT, and via hardware virtualization. Why can't Windows 7 do any of those with XP?
Kind of a stretch there. They aren't requiring you to have this to run 7. If you need to have this feature then you need to have the requirements hardware and otherwise. I doubt that this is a strictly business decision. It sounds like the technology is using the hardware virtualization to help with performance. I assume that even if you can't use this with your existing hardware you can always use Virtual PC which I believe is still free.
AC obviously didn't read the article, which states clearly that Intel uses VT availbility as a market segregation tool.
A recent example would be the new Core 2 Quad Q8400, now with less VT!
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
(I posted the same story, but linked to the Tom's Hardware article posted in the story)
Well, because they got slapped with a class action lawsuit because Dell (and other vendors) were selling machines with 'Vista capable' stickers on them, that weren't really capable. Here, Microsoft is selling an OS as backwards compatible, where buying Win 7 should guarantee the ability to run any software written since 2003. If enough people buy low end computers that can't, and software they expected to work, who will take the fall, Intel, Microsoft, or the computer vendors? (this was the question I posed in my version of the story)
>Hey Bill! Maybe they don't want to go...
Bill has virtually nothing to do with this. Bill basically has cashed out his chips and moved on...
If anything say, "hey steve..."
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Meanwhile, over at Infoworld, Redmond is criticized...
Whenever people refer to Microsoft as "Redmond" it sounds so condescending and ignorant. They're called Microsoft. They're located in Redmond, WA. But Microsoft != Redmond.
/* No Comment */
I run this script on my machine (intel T5500 cpu) and it reported it supports virtualization. Intel says it doesn't: http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/chart/core2duo.htm
Ok, I'm as tepid towards Microsoft as any geek who's had to deal with them, but this doesn't seem right.
It's in Microsoft's best interest to include XP compatibility, if they want to entice people to upgrade. The people who need it most are the less-technical who don't necessarily have the expertise to deal with migration issues. For this feature to be useful to them, it has to work reliably and transparently.
Moreover, Intel would be insane to allow a situation where AMD had a clear advantage to people who wanted to upgrade to Windows 7. AMD: "You don't have a Sempron, you're fine." Intel: "Well, you gotta squint at this spreadsheet and hope." This is the kind of issue that builds mindshare.
Neither Intel nor Microsoft are arrogant enough, or stupid enough, to do this deliberately. Sabotaging XP compatibility doesn't make XP go away, it makes people more likely to cling to their copy of XP and perhaps hope for Windows 8. As a tiny but well-publicized minority give up and switch to Ubuntu.
If this is true in it's technical aspects, expect some hurried re-implementation.
Parenthetically, I expected a little more objectivity from Ars Technica. Slanted much?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Apple did this, not once but twice. Why is Redmond so afraid of trading out the basic underpinnings? I guess they married the concept of permenant backwards compatibility when they used that very stick to beat OS/2 into the ground.
The fortune program describe this very well...
"I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means.
It means we get to keep all our old mistakes."
-- Dennie van Tassel
It had to have been a screw-up, not some subtle and clever mode on Microsoft's part.
The whole point of XP mode is to enable companies to adopt Windows 7 immediately, without the need to inventory and test every Windows application they rely on. The fact that most or all of their applications, when tested, will probably run fine under Windows 7 is irrelevant: they still need to test them all.
XP mode is supposed to solve that problem. It's supposed to get past the high-level meeting in which the CIO says "Whoa, not so fast, we can't do that until you give me the time and budget to embark on this company-wide testing program." The CIO is supposed to say "We can go full steam ahead right now. I think most of our applications will be OK and if it turns out that they aren't, they can just run them under XP mode."
If those same companies must now inventory and test every one of their computers to make sure it is capable of running Virtual XP mode, not that much has been gained. It's less work, but you still have the high-level meeting and the CIO still says "Whoa, not so fast, we can't do that until you give me the time and budget to embark on this company-wide testing program."
And again, it doesn't matter whether the number of machines that fail is small. They still need to be tested. What if the one that fails is the CEO's laptop (bought outside of company channels because he's the CEO, and he needs to be able to impress his golf buddies with a laptop that's a ounce lighter than theirs?)
Since the technology is old, and its omission from random chips is an artificial restriction in order to pay market segmentation games, Microsoft's technical people probably didn't even realize that there were modern Intel chips that didn't have it, since there was no logical engineering reason to expect it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The problem is one of naive, us-vs-them mentalities. Weak minds hold to such things because it is cognitively easier to deal with black and white situations. Like-minded people congregate together, and chant these half-truths over and over until they become their perceived reality. This self-perpetuation blows up small problems to huge proportions. The enemy is perceived as having a flaw, and every chance this happens is yet another chance to collectively say, "ha ha, unwashed masses using the wrong operating system!" and pat themselves on the back. Worse, the moderation system rewards such behavior. Such posts are often rife with logical fallacies, hand-waving, or a lack of technical information.
Go ahead, claim that there are individual people on Slashdot. There are. (This is always the complaint when these things come up.) But this stupid collective opinion, often with little logical basis, still manifests itself too often. Vista apparently still has horrible, horrible file copy performance according to many people here. Apparently, MS was lying about the service pack fixes. Thankfully, we have the all-wise population of this site to set us straight and tell us how it really is. I'm sure the tech world makes it a bit hard for these people. After all, Apple will probably include Bluray support in OS X 10.6. What does that entail? Oh, right - DRM in the OS itself. How will all of these people maintain intellectual honesty with Vista's DRM being horrible and OS X incorporating it?
Anyway, when you have a readership that is proud of the fact they comment on stories in which they haven't read, what can you expect? Ignorance is a virtue here.
(I'm the worst kind of troll - I tell the truth.)
With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a 'goof' at all?
Never blame on a conspiracy what you can blame on incompetence.
The ArsTechnica article makes an interesting point: could Microsoft have done an XP mode that works on all CPUs?
PC virtualization has been around for years, and predates the special instructions. There is a hack called Binary Translation (BT) where a VM system patches the memory image of the guest program to cause a trap where the guest program uses any difficult-to-virtualize instruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_virtualization
The new Windows Virtual PC feature is based on the old Microsoft Virtual PC. Microsoft Virtual PC does not require the virtualization instructions; it can run using BT. So, the point ArsTechnica asked is: why did Microsoft require the virtualization instructions?
I'll try to answer that question. But first, I'm going to rant.
Microsoft has made this much weirder and more confusing than necessary. The new feature is "Windows Virtual PC" and the old, rather different feature, is "Microsoft Virtual PC". In three years, will we have some new third thing that is completely different and is called "Microsoft Windows Virtual PC"? I'll use some abbreviations: I'll call the shiny new Windows 7 virtualization solution, Windows Virtual PC, "W7V" (Windows 7 Virtualization). I'll call the old Microsoft Virtual PC "VPC" (Virtual PC). My first draft of this article was full of "Microsoft Virtual PC" and "Windows Virtual PC" and it was hard to keep track of which was which. Also, Microsoft has broken their web site: links that used to go to VPC are now redirected to W7V. If you are trying to get information on VPC, ha ha! You lose. I was able to find the download page for VPC 2007, but all the links for information now redirect to the W7V page. <end_rant>
So, why did Microsoft require virtualization instructions for W7V? I'm just guessing here, but I think it's pretty obvious.
Take a look at the comparision page for Windows Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/features/compare.aspx
W7V adds some new features over the old VPC. Smart cards work, USB devices work, storage drives can be shared. This means that Microsoft did a nontrivial amount of work for W7V. I'll guarantee you that it was easier to just require the virtualization instructions than to try to use BT hacks across the whole Windows XP infrastructure; and this requirement slices away a whole bunch of old computers that now don't need to be tested for compatibility with the new W7V features.
So, the work to create W7V was easier, and testing and support costs reduced, by this decision. Since only the very cheapest new CPUs don't have the virtualization instructions, and this feature was chiefly aimed at corporate customers (who usually don't buy bargain-bin hardware), this decision was likely viewed as a no-brainer.
VPC is still available; customers who have old hardware and don't need the full features of W7V can just use VPC. And VPC remains a free download. (Of course, those customers could also switch to Ubuntu and run their old apps in VirtualBox. I'm just sayin'.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Well Microsoft, that is what you get when you don't build your own hardware like Apple does.
Microsoft should get out of the software business and start designing their own computers together with their own software. Want Windows? Buy that WinBox from Microsoft!
That way you know what kind of hardware is needed and you can drop support for all kinds of crap.
Let Dell, HP, etc try selling computers without an usable OS.
What I cannot create, I do not understand
we port WINE over to Windows 7.0? I am sure that it will run Windows XP programs better than this half-arsed Intel VT goof.
Open Source software to the rescue!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Windows 7 Will be released on 20 November 2009, the 24th Aniversary of Windows 1.0
Remember when Windows was actually something relevant and to be feared?
I think it was about the time people used Yahoo!
It is way easy to figure out if your pc is one of them
http://www.grc.com/securable.htm
Someone has to say it, might as well be me, but Microsoft is actually doing the right thing wrt virtualization.
It's Intel that's at fault here for disabling VT on some of their SKUs. I recently got burned by this, having bought a quad-core CPU for Xen, when I found out the hard way that this chip didn't have VT (a Q8300). Now the funny thing is of the fifteen or so quad-core Intels, only two have VT disabled.
What the fuck is Intel thinking ?
That sort of nonsense is enough to get me thinking about AMD again. That's how pissed off I was, to have blown $300 on a processor that surely has the feature on-die yet is disabled. I would understand this pedantry on $50 Celerons, but certainly not on a quad marketed to developers and gamers.
If Win7 requires VT, that means Intel will need to pull their shit together and stop releasing crippled products to artificially segment the market. They have officially entered the world of commodity computing, either they play along or they get their ass kicked to the curb by value-leader AMD.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I take anything Steve Gibson says with a grain of salt, but SecurAble is one of the simplest ways to see if your Windows PC supports hardware virtualization.
Windows 7rc is running happily in a virtualbox and here i am wondering what to do with it. Any suggestions ?
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Get people to migrate to Seven because they believe they have full compatibility. But then they find the compatibility is limited and they need new versions for most of their software.
BTW we can't call the change "upgrading", because this implies 100% compatibility with the old OS. New versions of Microsoft products have offered migration and not upgrades for at least 10 years, as Microsoft will simply drop any part of the old system they don't like
It is not done yet but it is still being developed on. One day there will be a WINE for Windows Vista and Windows 7.0 to run XP applications.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Because any text processing job can be done with sed.
Notice that the unique string TAB should be replaced with a literal tab character; typically, you can do this with Ctrl+V and then the Tab key in a terminal:
This has the additional feature of displaying a special message if the file passed in is not formatted as a real /proc/cpuinfo file would be.
I leave it to you, the reader, to understand how it works.