Hardware virtualization as this is one of the requirements of the Windows XP virtual mode that is available in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise. What is most disappointing however is that all current Sony Vaio laptops that are sold have this feature disabled in the BIOS, therefore making Windows XP virtual mode impossible. Sony has yet to say that they will enable on past or current models (seems unlikely), but it seems probable for their new computers going forward. However, what would the Windows 7 team think about Sony crippling their customer’s ability to use their carefully constructed backwards compatibility feature?
Sony’s official response comes via Xavier Lauwaert, Senior Manager Product Marketing at Sony: “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.”
Most remain apathetic towards the situation, few are reportedly demanding refunds while others are calling for a class-action suit against a company they claim has not been clear in its advertising given that the Vaio machines are unable to work with a core feature of the Core 2 Duo chips they ship with.
