Petition : Sony, please enable VT (Virtualization) on the VAIO Series

According to a post in the german VAIO-Club-Forum from moderator benste
http://club.vaio.sony.de/clubvaio/gb/en/forum/viewthread?thread=63491&offset=10
this morning Sony doesn't plan to release firmware updates until enough people complain via vaio-link about the missing VT-x support. So if you want VT-x write an email or open a call via phone to vaio-link.

 

IMO, I honestly do not believe this Sony BS about "enough complaints." This is just a lame excuse.

Isn't this case going to be similar to how Sony handles the Nvidia 8000 series GPU fiasco? I feel that for us, current Vaio owners, nothing will be done to provide us with VT support. There will probably & likely be VT support for future Vaio releases but definitely not for older & existing Vaio models.

 

I think, if enough customers complain they probably will do something for the existing models if not they have no reason.

 

Didn't you notice how Sony always does things differently from other manufactures?

Furthermore, "enough customers" is still subjective. You may gather "enough" customer complaints but Sony can still say that they don't have "enough" customer complaints & not do a thing & you'll still have nothing to do against them. The big question is how do we know what the number of customer complains will need to be for Sony to even consider them "enough" in order for them to proceed with their decision to provide VT support?

 

More to the point, we have no word from Sony that they may release a BIOS with VT-x if enough people complain. We have an unsubstantiated claim by a poster who I believe posts wishful thinking.

Bottom line: If you want VT-x, don't buy a Sony without it.

 

It couldn't have been better summarized.

 

So, I want to get something clear, could the Vaio TT potential get VT support if Sony gives us a bios update, or does the cpu on the TT not support it?

 

If the missing VT-x would have been mentioned on the german sony-sites... Don't know about the other european sites but on the german FW-product-pages I couldn't find a word about VT-x.

 

signed..............

 

Take a look here, but be careful!

http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/2009/07/enable-vt-on-insydeh2o-based-sony-vaio.html

 

impressive
Just tried it, works perfectly

 

I know the TT has VT support, but will this hack work on the TT(or all Sony's that have VT disabled) or is it for just the Z?

 

Worked on my Z21 WN no problems - well after I got a suitable flash drive.

 

Does it work on FW? (I still haven't received mine yet, but I am eager to know)

And can someone post a picture of the Advanced Form that was mentioned in the blog? What other options are available in the Advanced Form?

 

The FW uses a different BIOS. There is a thread going about this.
This is the thread for laptops with an Aptio BIOS.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=350209

Just for reference, this is the discussion thread for the Sony Z and enabling VT.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=345282

 

What is this going to happen to us?

I don't like what Sony is doing.

I want it enabled. Is there a hack for this by anyone?

How is this different then running Vmware with XP?

 

Dear Sony...

:tongue:

 

Speaking of which: Sony Executive Weighs in on Windows 7. See comments and Xavier's responses regarding VT policies and plans. And don't hold your breath waiting for Sony to enable VT. Sony positions Vaio as a novelty, not as a professional tool.

 

I'm glad this whole VT thing got space on engadet. Hopefully this will open up this problem to a wider audience and not just the geeks on NBR.

 

What can we do without VT?

I am running XP using Vmware now on my Sony SR.

 

I managed to get VT running on my tz.

I have a VGN-TZ291. You can enable it by editing the registers of the CMOS but you will need to disassemble your laptop to find the proper registers because it's a trial and error basis. I needed to pull my cmos battery about 12 times during the course of process of elimination.

In the end however I managed to enable AHCI, VT and also a CMOS diagnostics screen that shows you a snapshot of your installed peripherals like com ports (none), CPU, MEMORY, INTERRUPTS etc.

I posted a video on youtube to show it in action. It's 10 minutes long for just 2 minutes of content. I filmed the entire installation process to prove it's legitimacy. I knew if I had cut the install out and just showed the final product someone would cry fake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKgwMDr8YY4

There ya go.

Enjoy!

 

Congratulations on enabling VT on your model.

In this thread here several forum members have also managed to get VT enabled on TZ models.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=189228

 

The trial and error part has been eliminated for those with certain models as folks have been posting to that thread with specific BIOS versions and registers to change. Far down in that thread I have been maintaining a list of the all of the models, BIOS version numbers and register location. A direct link to that post within the thread is in my signature line below.

Gary

 

Thank you for sharing that. Stupid me for not searching first. Could have saved myself headaches. I spent like 3 hours trying to narrow it down to the right register. Oh well at least I can contribute. I'll view my notes when I get home and i'll be sure to post a reply there to let others know I too found the same register.

I also found one that disables the touch pad. It's cool and fun playing with the registers. I'm wondering if there's more to find!

So far I found the AHCI, CMOS Summary, VT, Remove Boot Screen (Just post text instead). I think thats all.

 

These forums have been really helpful, so thought I'd contribute. It works perfectly on Z540. I had to use a couple of usb drives, seems like very old usb drives don't work very well.

Virtual box was complaining when I was setting up a 64-bit dev environment. Works perfectly now. Still have to go through all the other bios settings.

 

Sony has just released a new BIOS for FW100 series with support for virtualization technology. http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=52...download.pl?mdl=VGNFW190&upd_id=5304&os_id=30

There may be new BIOS for other older models too. It would be worth to check it out!