Microsoft Lifts XP Mode Hardware Requirement

An anonymous reader writes "This week, Microsoft published a patch that allows Windows XP Mode to run on PCs without hardware-assisted virtualization. Which begs the question: Why the bizarro requirement in the first place? Was it an honest attempt to deliver an 'optimal' user experience? Or simply a concession to the company's jilted lover, Intel Corporation — 'a kind of apology for royally screwing up with the whole Windows Vista “too fat to fit” debacle,' as the blog post puts it."

Comments

My best guess....

[jawtheshark]

The "weird" hardware requirements are probably due to the fact that they expected AMD and Intel only to produce CPUs with hardware support for virtualization enabled. The fact that one of the major CPU manufacturers didn't, is most likely what bit Microsoft in the ass. Still, some OEMs also are at fault, I think: Just recently I got to look after a defective laptop (RAM module was broken...) and I looked in the BIOS. The CPU could do hardware virtualization, but by default it was disabled in the BIOS. Why? I have no idea...

Begs != raises

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The phrase "begs the question" does not mean "raises the question", or "makes us ask the question", though lots of people are using it in that sense. Begs the question means, it assumes the as true what it intends to prove. The Latin phrase "petitio principii" means, the answer (or the answerer) begs (petitions) the questioner to be accepted as true, to concede what is being contested.

But this mistake is so common, so many people are using it this way, it is high time we start de linking "begs the question" from "petitio principii".