Comments on: Windows 7 Runs XP in Virtual Machine– Sony Says Not Here

By: sarnyn

sarnyn — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:32:39 +0000

I see. I don’t envy you Windows guys for this kind of concern. But keep up the great Tablet stuff!

By: paratwa

paratwa — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:57:12 +0000

Its a big deal because of licensing. MS is saying you are essentially getting and XP OS license to virtualize. While the actual implemenation of virtualization is trivial, I agree, the cost of a now unavailable XP license isn’t. This is especially true for the poor folks with OEM Windows licenses.

By: sarnyn

sarnyn — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:38:43 +0000

“One of the best inclusions in Windows 7 is the ability to run XP in a virtual machine.”

I don’t see why this is supposed to be a big deal. Virtualisation is quite common these days. It is very sad in the first place that they can’t achieve native XP compatibility.

By: GoodThings2Life

GoodThings2Life — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:54:08 +0000

This is absolutely insane for any vendor. Purposely gimping functionality of your hardware is a great way to shoot your sales in the foot.

Lucky for me, I’ve been boycotting Sony for years now.

By: Scotty

Scotty — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:21:30 +0000

The Sony Reader software EULA says “Though Shall Not Use This Product Under Virtualization”. So by killing VT Sony is helping protect you from violating one of their EULA’s using their own hardware. :-)

I smile above but I wasn’t smiling when I realized I couldn’t use Windows XP mode in Windows 7 on my highly over priced Vaio P. :(

By: MarceloR

MarceloR — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:39:34 +0000

Although disabling VT can have a security benefit, I smell a digital rights protection rat, especially coming from Sony.

By: tal

tal — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:30:30 +0000

lets call it silliness and bad customer relations and move on :)
Sometimes you have a feeling companies didn’t realize how messed-up the economy really is.

By: Gordon Cahill

Gordon Cahill — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:23:07 +0000

I had this on my AW series, which is the most expensive Vaio made, so it’s not pricing related. There s a patch for most models available and I now have vrtualisation enabled.

Gordon

By: paratwa

paratwa — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:50:49 +0000

I seriously doubt its for security. HP does this on their Business Desktops too. I found this out when I tried to use the AMD version of VT (AMD-V).

A call to HP support cleared it up. “We don’t allow you do use AMD-V even though the processor in that machine (DC5750) supports it. If you want Virtualization buy a more expensive HP machine where we DON’T disable it.”

wow