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Laptops and hardware virtualization



On Feb 13, 2010, at 3:04 PM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
> 
> Just like long mode (aka LM, aka 64bit), the extra functionality for VM or
> LM inside the CPU costs extra to manufacture or purchase, so I'm going to
> make a disputable claim that laptop manufacturers won't put VM or LM enabled
> CPU's into their laptops, unless they're going to build the rest of the
> components in the laptop to support it too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but either the CPU supports VT-x/AMD-v or it doesn't. No external support hardware is required.

> There are lots of laptops and netbooks out there that do not have these
> options.

Depends on the CPU.  Atom and Celeron processors don't have the premium features.  Core 2 and Core i series processors have the VT-x extensions; whether or not it is enabled is something else.

> I think if you don't have the VM option in BIOS, it's either enabled by
> default, or it's not in the CPU either.  For example, I know my macbook pro
> supports vmx, and I don't think there's any way to disable it.

Apple's Intel-based Macs don't have BIOS; they all use EFI, every one of them.

All of the Core 2 and later Macs have VT-x.  Some of the early Core 2 models like the original MacBooks have it disabled by default, but it can be enabled via an EFI script.  It should be possible to reverse the process on any Intel Mac.

I have run into a few systems that do have VT-x, extensions enabled, and no BIOS option to disable.  To the best of my knowledge there is no way to disable VT-x on those systems.

--Rich P.








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