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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?"
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
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
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.
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:[.]
That suite of applications that you're testing doesn't accurately represent the target population for XP emulation.
XP Emulation is primarily geared towards businesses with legacy/custom business applications which have not been re-written for Windows Vista/7. Not to mention, some of those vendors for those business applications will charge large hefty upgrade fees to get their software compatible with the newest versions of Windows.
The troll with karma.
Price discrimination/market segmentation.
Disabling that feature is an easy way to make an otherwise adequate product unsuitable for corporate buyers(IIRC, some of Intel's "Active Management" sauce either depends on, or is bundled with, VT extension support). By disabling the feature on some chips, they can capture more of the surplus value. Pretty much the same reason that all versions of Vista aren't Ultimate.
The parent isn't insightful, because he erroneously believes that a new machine guarantees that virtualization will be available. Not so.
Buy a $3000 Sony Vaio-Z, for example, and despite it having a chipset and a brand spanking new Core 2 Duo CPU that both supports VT-x, the manufacturer has chosen not to give the users the ability to turn it on in the BIOS, so it doesn't help one bit.
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.
That suite of applications that you're testing doesn't accurately represent the target population for XP emulation.
XP Emulation is primarily geared towards businesses with legacy/custom business applications which have not been re-written for Windows Vista/7.
We run an ancient version of Televantage here.
The Televantage server itself is still running NT4. The client software refuses to run on anything newer than Windows XP SP1.
The solution has been to go ahead and update our machines to SP2/SP3/Vista/whatever and run Televantage inside a small virtual machine running Windows 2000 SP4 - it works great.
This is the kind of problem the XP-mode is intended to address.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
No, most people don't say the "three year rule". Where have you been?
Microsoft's suffering revenue shortfalls because Vista was a bad idea. You'll see the tip in September, real McCoy in October. That's not 'late fall'.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
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