Virtualization

Anyone know the status on Sony's support for virtualization? What models support it?

Thanks,
Mike

 

Sony has provided a driver update for the bios to allow enabling Intel VT on the Vaio Z.

 

I haven't been following Sony laptops for a while but hear that they have released BIOS updates to enable virtualization on most (if not all) their models.

I suppose they finally did it when they realized that "XP Mode" on Windows 7 Business and above doesn't work with it disabled and it would be embarrassing for the rest of the competition to have it and they not.

Its a shame that finally got them to take action, when before "XP Mode", hardware based virtualization was still very useful and sought after on Vaios.

 

Having worked now for a month on a Sony Z Series with VT enabled bios and installed the XP Mode, I can tell you it's better to dual boot and ditch the virtualisation. It's one of these things that Mac have managed to do, and Microsoft have not. If you're dependant on your old XP software working well, you will regret using XP Mode, and if you have the knowhow, you'll end up installing XP in a seperate partition and just running it as an XP laptop when you need it.

Just my 2c.

 

Rather than just trashing XP mode, how about telling us SPECIFICALLY what troubles you had. Because many of us, me included, are using XP mode on a daily basis with absolutely excellent results.

Gary

 

No release of a new BIOS for many of the models with an AMI BIOS. Like my FZ for example. But there is a thread here on NBR that allows many of us to enable VT ourselves.

Gary

 

It could be driver related. Microsoft's execution of VM's as far as the Virtual PC derived XP mode goes does have problems with hardware drivers (odd USB devices for example), which paid-for VM solutions don't have - definitely in 64-bit, and in some cases in 32-bit.

XP Mode isn't a panacea for sure - it will work well for most, while those with some additional hardware needs might need to turn to a paid-for tool.

'Mac has managed to do, and Microsoft have not' is neither here nor there. VM solutions are addressed to a superior degree under Windows as long as you don't need to run OS X (and that's essentially a licensing issue why no-one supports it) - it's just that you have to pay for it, just like with 'Mac'.

ScuderiaConchiglia, I've been noticing some notable slowness (or more specifically, a sort of subtle jerkiness) in the VT-enabled SZ in XP Mode compared to what I would expect out of XP mode on a machine of it's general calibre. Is this something that anyone else has mentioned with the 'user-converted' machines?

 

Is hardware virtualization required to run VMWare, anyone know?

 

No it's not - but it does benefit from it. MS's implementations require VT.

 

ONLY the XP Mode of Win 7 requires VT. Microsoft's Virtual PC software does not.

Gary

 

The latest BIOS update (R1130Y1) adds it the SR240 and SR290 models...

 

Not if all you want to do is run 32-bit guests -- for 64-bit guests, you need VTx (or the AMD equivalent).

But even for 32-bit guests, which you can run without VT, there's a rather large speed penalty to running without VT. A small test someone here did showed a 20-30% speed difference for a large compile. That's significant.

There's also a device virtualization part to VT, which Sony's new BIOS doesn't enable (but the old EFI-hacked BIOS lets you turn it on). It won't matter to most people, but for those running paravirtualization, where the guest can use hardware directly, it makes a night and day difference. For VMware, this setting makes a difference if you give the guest its own disk partition and not just a file on the existing file system.