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No Windows 7 XP Mode for selected VAIO owners

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 10 Aug 2009 at 09:05

Sony has confirmed that owners of VAIO laptops will not be able to run XP Mode in Windows 7.

The Intel Core 2 Duo processor powering the current generation of VAIO laptops supports Intel's Virtual Technology - the feature required to get XP Mode running in Windows 7 - however Sony has admitted it has disabled the technology.

"We have received very little if any requests to enable VT technology up until very recently. 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," says Xavier Lauwaert, senior manager of product marketing at Sony on the Windows Partner Blog.

"For these two reasons we have decided, until recently, not to enable VT. However, with the advent of XP virtualisation, there is impetus for us to relook at the situation and I can share with you that we will enable VT on select models. Though, I fear to say that the Z series will not be part of our VT-enabling effort."

Unsurprisingly, the comments drew the ire of Sony VAIO owners. "My Vaio Z11 is in all other respects a fantastic bit of kit, but when I upgrade to Windows 7 - which I intend to do - I will be missing out on one of the most important features," notes one poster on the blog.

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Disabling Virtual XP Mode has made SONY BIOS attractive to hackers

Xavier Lauwaert, senior manager of product marketing at Sony says: "Our engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code". Somebody should have advised the management team at SONY that disabling the virtualisation feature would make their products and especially their computer BIOS, a most attractive target to hackers all over the world. SONY VAIO BIOS code has already been published on the internet, most likely by well intentioned hackers, hoping to re-enable the feature. Unfortunately, others may choose to hack SONY BIOS in order to punish the company for their unfortunate choice. It would probably be a better strategy for them to apologize and fix the problem, than continue to make their products too interesting to hackers.

By PSFTGURU on 8 Dec 2009

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