acertimeline team mailing list archive

[Albert Vilella <avilella@xxxxxxxxx>]

At least for the Sony Vaio Z models, the VT features were disabled to
"avoid exposing the systems to malicious code", according to Sony's
engineers and QA staff... see below. I don't know how much of that has
happened in the Windows world, but I've never heard of anything like
that in Linux. So it could be that the companies are being overzealous
with security with the majority of their user base being Windows, not
Linux. Maybe, I don't know.

http://www.virtualization.info/2009/08/sony-explains-why-it-disabled-intel-vt.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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.

    For these two reasons we have decided, until recently, 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.

    Though, 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 3:27 PM, el_lunatico <el_lunatico@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> This definetely is a pain in the a... - i can't even see the point in
> selfcastrating a product in a way a couple of manufacturers are doing it.
> Why do you voluntarily remove a feature of  your product that the hardware
> is naturally capable of and risk to annoy your customers in doing so?
> I really do not get it - and i thought that the badly coded Bios in matters
> of ACPI compliance leading to not working suspend on linux platforms was bad
> enough.
>
> Whatever "FTC" and "feds" might be, i will contact the customer support and
> hope they will fix this if not done so in 1.17 already.
>
>
> Joseph Annino schrieb:
>
> I used the hack that involved booting into an EFI tool on a USB key, which
> requires older bios versions to work.   It was a pain to do, and it seems
> the method to patch newer bioses is even worse, so I don't want to touch my
> bios unless Acer finally smartens up and enables VT or provides an option
> for it in the CMOS settings.
>
> This VT issue on a lot of laptops is really ridiculous.  Maybe a bunch of us
> should write letters to the FTC and let the feds handle it.
>
> el_lunatico wrote:
>
> Hey Joseph,
>
> i've got a 3810t too and was shocked to see that i couldn't start a VM i
> created on a different machine because of the lacking or better disabled
> (grrrrrr...Acer) VT-x feature.
> Another unhappy customer...
> Did you use the method described by Alexander or the one to dump, set VT to
> enabled and reflash bios described here?
>
> BTW, is it still necessary to do it that way or is this feature enabled in
> the latest 1.17 bios upgrade as this is necessary for future VM- WinXP
> emulation in Windows 7? Could somebody please comment on this?
>
> Cheers,
> Nix
>
>
> Joseph Annino schrieb:
>
> I have an Acer 3810T.   My bios definitely had VT turned off, as VMware told
> me.  I did the hack to turn it on and that has been working great.
>
> Can someone confirm if newer bioses for this model have VT turned on?   I
> don't want to upgrade unless I am sure I won't loose the VT functionality.
>
> Emiel Kollof wrote:
>
> On newer bioses VT is enabled by default. So if it's not on, update your
> bios.
>
> 2009/12/21 Thomas Martitz <thomas.martitz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>
> Am 21.12.2009 12:05, schrieb Albert Vilella:
>
>
> Maybe VT is not on by default in all Acer Timeline models. I've seen
> different forums where people complain it's not on...
>
>
>
> I have the 3810TG (which Alexander Simon has too). Perhaps it's another BIOS
> bug?
>
> Best regards.
>
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