In the Personal computer globe, it makes minor feeling to generate your newest laptops long run evidence on the BIOS degree, but that’s just what Sony is up to with a recent decision to disable hardware virtualization on all current Vaio laptops using Intel Core 2 Duo processors, due to security concerns.
This may seem like an esoteric BIOS setting, but it’s required by any user hoping to use
Windows 7’s upcoming Windows XP mode, which allows XP applications to be virtualized without worrying about whether or not they will break, like they might under Windows Vista.
Sony’s response is typically corporate: “[We have] received very minor if any requests to enable VT technology up until very recently,” said Xavier Lauwaert, Sony’s Senior Manager for Product Marketing.
“In addition,
Office Pro 2010 Key, our engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very deep inside the Operating System structure of the Laptop and completely disable the latter.”
But that’s not to say they aren’t listening to their customers. “For these two reasons we have decided,
Microsoft Office 2010 Standard, until recently,
Office 2010 Key, 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.”
He continued, “Though,
Office Pro Plus 2010 Key, 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.”
In short, if you are intending on running
Windows 7 XP Mode,
Windows 7 Serial, don’t by a Z series Vaio… at least not without rolling up your sleeves for some deep system hacking.
Read more at The Register