Sony Vaio Have VT Disable; No Win 7 XP Mode

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Even if there's VT, there is no VT.

One of the great things about Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate is XP Mode. Windows 7 will run a virtual Windows XP so that the OS can maintain full compatibility for old applications that don't work in Vista or 7.

In order for XP Mode to run, however, the CPU must have virtualization support and the feature must also be enabled in the BIOS.

While one would think that being able support virtualization is a great feature and selling point, Sony seems to be intentionally disabling it on its Vaio computers due to security concerns. Whatever those concerns may be, other manufacturers don't appear to be worried enough to cripple their own systems.

Xavier Lauwaert, Senior Manager Product Marketing at Sony, explained in a comment on the Windows blog, "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."

Lauwaert added that with the advent of XP virtualization, Sony will be reevaluating its stance on the technology and will be enabling the feature on select models.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • scook9
    fail
    Reply
  • war2k9
    Thank you Sony that is another reason for me not to buy laptops from you.
    Reply
  • NocturnalOne
    It's "DisableD"
    Reply
  • hellwig
    "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."

    Sounds to me like Sony's engineers and QA people don't really understand how VT works. I would think if this was that much of a threat, the OS vendors would not be supporting it. I really don't think Sony (who does nothing but assemble computer components into a working machine) really has any reason to control such a feature.
    Reply
  • yonef
    I hate sony since I bought a LCD-TV and it was not able to represent older system like SECAM and I was not able to watch my sat. receiver (foreigner sat. receiver) on the new sony tv. It's showed a Black&White picture :(
    1 word to sony: Bollox

    P.S.
    ...VT would expose our systems to malicious code...
    yeaaah right! That's why all servers in the world using it !

    Robbing people with their ultra expensive products that are purposely crippled.
    Reply
  • lifelesspoet
    This is the reason I don't like sony. It's not like they don't make decent products or technology, they have some great ones. They could Just give a rat's ass about their customers. I'm not sure however that is better then microsoft who often make faulty products and bend over backwards for the customer.
    Reply
  • dheadley
    Not saying they are right or wrong, but I remember reading an article on one of the sites recently that was an interview with a Security Researcher that specialized in exploiting VM's to get below the operating systems and could place something below the hyper-visor on systems and render all forms of anti-virus, root-kit detection and security measures useless on the effected machine and in all virtual machines run on the machine or something along those lines. It got to be a boring read after a bit.
    Reply
  • amnotanoobie
    Well it would be easier for the Sony engineers and QA, there's less questions on them for people who might not use them in the first place. Before the XP mode of Win 7, there aren't any typical user apps that would use VT. For the apps that use VT, I think if you are a user that's going to use such apps I think you'd know how to get into the BIOS and change this setting.
    Reply
  • FUtomNOreg
    This, from the company that was busted installing rootkits on their customer's PCs.
    Reply
  • yonef
    It doesn't matter if VT is harmless or not. They could build in simple BIOS option: enable/disable VT and users that want it will have choice to enable it! Simple as that. But forcing VT off is just insolently.
    Reply