Sony explains why it disabled Intel VT in VAIO laptops

Z owners don't hold your breath.

Sony VAIO product manager, Xavier Lauwaert, addressed the issue on the Windows Partner blog. His post [answers] to a specific comment about the lack of VT capability provides an astonishing explanation and fix roadmap:

The comment

It's great that Sony are "looking forward to leveraging [Windows 7] on their platforms." However some of their recent laptops are unable to leverage all the features of Windows 7.

Sony's decision to disable Virtualization Technology on the Intel chips on their high-end notebooks makes little sense when you consider that these machines are targeted at business consumers. It was also annoying to find this out _after_ I had bought the machine, since none of the pre-sales literature mentioned it.

Even more so when you realise that Windows 7 will include a virtual Windows XP installation to provide backwards compatibility. This will run with impaired performance on any Sony laptop where VT has been disabled. I would be interested to know what the Windows 7 team think about Sony crippling their customer’s ability to use their carefully constructed backwards compatibility feature?

My Vaio Z11 is in all other respects a fantastic bit of kit, but when I upgrade to Windows 7 - which I intend to do - I will be missing out on one of the most important features.

I urge Sony to release a BIOS upgrade for the Z11 - and any other so affected machines - to enable the VT features of the processor!


The answer given by Xavier Lauwaert

Contrary to perceived opinion, we have 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.



Source: http://www.virtualization.info/2009/08/sony-explains-why-it-disabled-intel-vt.html http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/partner/archive/2009/07/29/sony-executive-weighs-in-on-win7.aspx

 

I can't imagine what if there was no hack to enable VT on Z...

 

That comment is not surprising to me. Isn't it typical of Sony to be super anal about "similar" issues such as software piracy & so on? Just look at their music/movie division.

 

Sony divisions are like completely different companies - they have no idea what other divisions are doing. As for

- it's either a lame excuse or their engineers are incompetent.

 

Anyone know which laptops are going to have VT enabled? I'd really liked to use it on my FW when it gets here.

 

I would suspect that VT would be enabled on FW & Z's replacements instead of FW5xx or Z8xx, if they exist.

 

What about older models such as the TZ series? Come on Sony. Pull ya finger out.

 

Will it be enable on the SR?

 

Sony is dumb.


Just because you don't get request doesn't mean to just forget about it.

 

I never understood why they enforced VT-x to be disabled. They might have their reasons...

... I own a Vaio Z11 (first generation). I enabled the advanced bios menu and then VT-X following this description: http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/2009/07/enable-vt-on-insydeh2o-based-sony-vaio.html . Everything worked fine using Vista Business 32 Bit. Yesterday I tried to install Windows 7 x64. Lots of problems... bsod ... freezes and so on. And their is one way to reproduce: Installing 7-Zip 64bit version - right after pressing the install button: system freeze. After disabling VT-X again, everything seems to work fine!

I think: Vaio Z with enabled VT-x has problems with 64bit OS. Can anyone reproduce?

 

Installed Windows 7 Pro from MSDN subscription and had 7-Zip 9.05 alpha and later 9.06 alpha running just fine. That's on Z690Y with advanced menu and VT-x enabled. In fact, I had Windows 7 XP Mode RC installed and fully working.

Got back to Windows XP because user interface of W7 is still awkward compared to XP, networking still sucks (it's like it's working in bursts with periodic hiccups), Z is running hotter (fan is more loud and on more often), using 1GB of RAM for OS and basic services (with 1GB more reserved) on fresh install is ridiculous.

Still, an improvement from Vista and, yes, VT-x and x64 is working fine on Z.

Kabelsalat, check your RAM with memtest86. It's possible that the problem is in upper addresses of RAM, which are inaccessible/unused in 32-bit OS but cause BSODs and freezes in x64.

 

Go check the Sony Support site. There's already a BIOS update for the SR4xx series that adds the option to the BIOS.

 

Also thought that, but memtest does not check upper ram (> 3GB). Instead I used the windows memory check utility and that one did not find any issues....

 

If you use it properly, i.e. boot from memtest CD and use version 2.11 that recognizes chipset in Z, it tests as much as there is RAM detected by BIOS (currently up to 6GB). It does that in chunks but you need to let it work through all of it. Have you ever let it complete at least a single run-through?

Anyway, I see in another thread that partitioning scheme might have been the culprit.

 

Yes, Bios Mode boot seemed to solve the issue. Hower I can't understand why...

.. anyhow, when I have time, I will also run memtest. I still have guarantee. Hower it's not urgent for me, as the MS utility did not report any issues.

 

I just update my BIOS and I can enable or disable the VT on my SR.

I am in W7 RTM.

Is that right?

 

Is it possible that Sony was under pressure from Microsoft not to enable VT on their high end machines so that users (supposedly got enough dough) would be forced to buy new productivity apps (think Word)?
I can imagine Microsoft would lose billions of dollars if users kept their current XP compatible apps operating in VT on Win 7.

 

will the vaio VGN-FZ38M have VT enabled? will sony enable this?
also i have never seen a bios update for my VGN-FZ38M laptop since i got it in march 08... very poor service from sony... more restrictions on their products like the apple crowd,,

now i also hear that this laptop may be affected my the GPU issue too!

 

Huh? What does a new version of Office have to do with Vista versus XP? Both the old and new versions of office run fine on either OS. Sorry but I think you ar jousting with windmills here.

Gary

 

Can anyone explain me what is VT and why should I need it? And how can I enable it? I'm running Win7 RC x64. Bios: 2168M3.
I could never have installed both Win7 x64 and any kind of linux (ubuntu, mint...) because linux' partition managers didn't work well (they didn't see partitions that I've created with Win7 installer). Is there any connection?
anyone... please.. I need to get this all clarified

 

Would Office 2003 (for XP) work on Window 7 on those Vaios (Z series) with the VT disabled? If the answer is no, it means I would have to purchase new Office for Win 7. That's what i meant. Hope this is clear.

 

You are confused. Office 2003 is not "for XP". It runs on XP, Vista or Win7. VT has nothing to do with this. The only reason why folks are clamoring for getting VT is so they can run the free virtualization of WinXP under Win7. But that is NOT because of Office. It is because some folks still have some things that they need to run under XP, but again Office does NOT fall into that category.

Gary