Fujitsu-Siemens pulls a Sony with Windows 7 virtual switch off Fujitsu-Siemens has become the second maker of PCs to earn the contempt of customers for apparently preventing its machines' BIOS from working with Intel chip virtualization. The BIOS of its ESPRIMO Mobile V55x5 range do not work with the hardware virtualization technology (VT) in Intel's Core 2 Duo chips. It is not clear …
Not going to run Windows XP in virtualised mode once Windows 7 arrives (in fact the Home Premium version does not have virtualization built-in). I can't see how the majority of ordinary customers will care considering that is the version they will be getting. Business users I can understand - but I rarely think much about them anyway.
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XP mode is a horrible, horrible cludge. There are much more elegant virtualisation solutions out there. It seems to me that the only real benefit of XP Mode is the officially licensed XP within.
What many seem to have missed is that a lot of European enthusiasts who are privately upgrading to Windows 7 will get the full version rather than the upgrade thanks to the EU shenanigans. If their previous XP installation was also a retail purchase this means they will end up with a 'spare' XP license once they've installed 7. My advice is to install Sun VirtualBox on your new Windows 7, set up a virtual machine, and run your old licensed XP on that in 'seamless' mode. I've used this method and the official XP Mode and there's no comparison. The former is so much faster and easier to administer. And VirtualBox doesn't require hardware VT.
The same will apply to some new hardware purchases. If your new machine comes with Windows 7 and your previous XP was retail, you have a valid XP license to use in any VM package you like. You don't need Microsoft's 'solution'.
For anyone who doesn't fall into any of these categories, now might be the time to shop around for a cheap second-user retail XP. If your only reason for choosing Windows 7 Professional is the XP Mode and you can obtain a cheap enough XP, you may well find it more economical to buy Windows 7 Home Premium -- or a new machine preinstalled with the same -- and a separate XP to run on VirtualBox.
It's only a pity you can't legally use OEM XP on VMs, or there would be an even cheaper solution.
I also found the story on the poster's personal blog, which may come in handy, if the story takes off and fujitsu tries to "mod" the story out of the forum has they've done before.
http://gunadeluxo.blogspot.com/2009/01/fujitsu-siemens-celsius-h250-and-h270.html
I, for once, would like to see fujitsu burn and watch how they dodge this bullet. I also had my own short horror story with a fujitsu laptop. Happily, it wasn't even as tough as this one, and ended up with the store taking the fall for the brand.
I have yet to find much _documented_ XP software that doesn't work on Vista or 7, and personally have found nothing with any issues running on all three OSs.
@Piloti "Bugger windows"
Wine? Seriously? I've been watching Wine for a long time hoping to maybe make use of it.
Maybe you should go take a look at the software compatibility db on the Wine site to see ALL of the software that DOESN'T work on Wine. I guarantee that Win7 will run substantially more software successfully than Wine will.
And please don't make me list ALL of the common software on the Windows platform that just is not available on Linux. :-/
"..If your only reason for choosing Windows 7 Professional is the XP Mode .."
In that case, why not install a 'bare minimum' Linux on your PC, run Virtual Box on that and create your properly licensed XP environment that way? Or have I missed something?
No it isn't! VT capable is a completely hit and miss affair in Intel chips. Some have it when others don't. Intel are now hastlily trying to make sure that all their latest CPUs have it, but at present it is completely random - I suggest you get your facts straight before attacking someone! All PC manufacturers who use Intel CPUs have the same issue. See http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-xp-mode-virtualization-intel,7709.html for a list of Intel CPUs which do support and do not support VT.
And I am quite sure it will be possible to do it on Fujitsu, too.\
Someone managed to hack into Insyde EFI and find how to unlock an "Advanced" menu which offers VT-X and VT-D enable/disable (among other goodies)
I already did it on my Vaio Z - and it works great
It doesn't really matter if you use the MS bundled XP mode, or VirtualBox (etc.) you'll still need two (licenses for) anti virus, secondary firewalls etc. etc. What fun you'll have :-)
Now, if MS just *did it properly* like, say, Apple did when something similar happened, you'd not need all that hassle.
I was about to buy a pair of Lenovo IdeaPads for my kids to go to college with. They have all the multimedia bells and such they wanted.
Then I ran across a forum post. If you buy the latest and greatest "Y" model, the chips support VT but the BIOS doesn't. We want VT support to so they can run VMs and practice configuring and running various O/S setups.
I'm not going to buy either how, still shopping for VT support.
Anyone remember the "Great Fujitsu HDD Fiasco" a few years back? Fujitsu drives were failing at a very high rate, everyone except them agreed that there was a serious problem, yet the company issued blanket denials while procrastinating for the longest time and weaselling its way around the problem. It took a class action lawsuit for them to eventually settle out of court- the complaint was that they continued selling the faulty drives long after they knew about the problem. Here's a nice starting point:-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/24/great_fujitsu_hard_drive_fiasco/
Looks like they haven't changed that much in the intervening years. Moral- avoid Fujitsu like the plague.
For anyone who wants simply to move to "something else" but retain the ability to run some XP-only software, your point about Linux is valid. In fact I would go so far as to say virtualisation in this situation is overkill unless you really need to share files and data instantaneously between the two OSes. Rather install Linux and XP as a dual-boot and take full advantage of both.
But my scenarios are aimed at those who have already made the decision -- or had it forced upon them for compatibility or other reasons -- to move to Win7 and for whom XP Mode might seem like a good reason to splash out the extra readies on the Professional or Ultimate editions. In some cases they may already have everything they need to virtualise a legal XP installation; the extra expense of Pro or Ultimate may not be necessary.
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