Pointing my browser at www.windows.com/business/downloads told me that I needed to download Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode separately. Downloading and installing these two packages would allow me to use Windows XP as a virtual machine on my Windows 7 computer. I’ve used the open source virtualisation solution VirtualBox for a few years to enable me to run Ubuntu as a guest OS on my Windows XP & Vista environments. So the idea of using a virtual machine to provide an XP environment on my Windows 7 machine made sense to me.
Unfortunately, my attempts at installing XP mode came to an abrupt halt at the hands of a little tool called the Microsoft Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool. It turns out that “Windows Virtual PC requires processors capable of hardware-assisted virtualization with AMD-V, Intel VT or VIA VT turned on in the BIOS”. In my case, the tool says my processor is not capable.
Want to run XP Mode? Be wary of Acer* laptops!
This can’t be right! My processor supports virtualisation. I’ve checked. Twice. I might have paid for a machine with a processor that supports virtualisation, but Acer have decreed thou shalt not use the virtualisation support provided by the processor you paid for. Sure enough, there is no setting in the BIOS to enable virtualisation. In fact, there’s very little you can do with a typical Acer BIOS. You can change the boot device order, and the clock. That’s about it.
Acer have been playing cat and mouse with their customers on this one for a while. There are a number of discussions, rants, “support” articles and so on online which show that Acer are unlikely to release a BIOS version that allows their customers to enable virtualisation.
Some clever people managed to hack the BIOS and provided a mechanism to modify hidden settings to enable virtualisation… only for Acer to release a new BIOS version that plugged the holes that were exploited by these clever people and the workarounds no longer work.
Unfortunately, my first move was to go to the Acer website and upgrade my BIOS, expecting to see a setting to enable virtualisation. Only after being disappointed by that approach did I find the articles on the web about hacking the BIOS… only to be further disappointed to find they only worked on the version of the BIOS I’d just replaced.
My own attempts at requesting support from Acer on this have failed to produce a satisfactory response. Acer referred me to their premium support line, I’m guessing because I was (a) out of warranty and (b) had installed an operating system different to the one the machine was shipped with. Though I admit I’m reading a lot into a single line response that wasn’t even proper English.
The “Acer” premium support line in the UK is just a third party helpdesk that services the needs of various PC manufacturers customers. They were no help to me though, saying I would need to speak directly to Acer about my issue. I’m still waiting for Acer to respond to my second query, though I’m not expecting a helpful response.
Next time you buy a PC, don’t just look at the technical specs, get the people in the store to let you poke around in the BIOS and make sure you’re getting access to everything you’re paying for.
While it’s possibly unfair to blame Microsoft for my problem, I would like to know why Microsoft have designed Windows Virtual PC to only work with processors that support virtualisation, when solutions such as VirtualBox manage with or without such support.
If Windows 7 is so great, why bother with XP Mode?
If you go to download XP Mode from the website mentioned earlier, you will find yourself asked a couple of questions – the first of which is:
Windows XP Mode runs some older productivity applications that may not run otherwise on Windows 7 (or Vista). Well I want to be able to run Nokia S60 SDKs and associated Symbian OS toolchains. Unfortunately, the S60 SDKs and Symbian toolchain don't get on too well with either Vista or Windows 7.
It is possible to persuade the S60 SDKs and associated tools to work on Windows 7, but for me there are just too many workarounds and hacks required in order to do so, particularly when I develop for a number of platforms but only have issues using the S60 SDKs on post-XP Windows releases. For example, Nokia's Qt SDK & Google's Android environment run on Vista and Windows 7 without complaint.
An XP virtual machine running on Windows 7 sounds like a good solution to allow me to develop for S60, without needing to maintain a dedicated physical XP machine.
Unfortunately, Acer disagree.
Next steps…
I’m not beaten yet. I know VirtualBox can read Microsoft Virtual PC virtual hard disks...
(*Acer are certainly not alone in their approach on this issue. Ask your favourite search engine…)
