Windows 8 and i7 950 (Bloomfield) CPU and Virtualization

[hct_de]

Hi,

I have a problem with i7 950 (Bloomfield; i7 first generation) and Windows 8 virtualization techniques. VT-x feature is not recognized even if Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS settings (Windows 7 in a dual boot configuration works fine and recognize VT-x hardware virtualzation correctly). Is this type of processor really already to old to support hardware assisted virtualization with Windows 8 (final version 6.2-9200)? Can someone acknowledge that i7 950 (or 940, 960, 975, etc.) really does not recognize VT-x BIOS enabling (this is what Intel processor ID tool reports).

This is what Intel's Processor Identification Utility Version: 4.50.20120413 reports:
..
Intel(R) Virtualization Technology: No
Intel(R) VT-x with Extended Page Tables: No
..

Under Windows 7 on the same machine both entries are "Yes".

New Window 8 Hyper-V and also recent versions of VirtualBox cannot be fully used if host operating system is Windows 8 if I am right.

 

[GhislainG]

If it works under Windows 7, then it should also work under Windows 8. Did you report the issue to Microsoft?

 

[hct_de]

Between "should" and "is" is a decisive distinction ...
Reported to Microsoft as well as Intel - Microsoft referred me to various interesting Virtualization articles and Intel did not respond yet.

 

[GhislainG]

I agree, but if VT works fine under Windows 7, then an issue was introduced in Windows 8. Hopefully the commercially released version won't have that issue.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

VT-x is one of the features on the Intel® Core™ i7-950. I would check with Microsoft as to why it isnt working. http://ark.intel.com/products/37150/Intel-Core-i7-950-Processor-(8M-Cache-3_06-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI)

 

[hct_de]

Yeah, i7-950 "should" support VT-x, but it is still a question if the chipset drivers (built into Windows operating system) will support this feature. The commercially released version is that what I am using (thru MS TechNet subsription). Again, it would be very interesting if someone with an Intel i7-9xx CPU and Windows 8 (final or Preview does no matter) could test with Intel Processor Identification Utility (www.intel.com .. Support) and verify.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Windows 8 is a new OS. You're going to have to give it a year or so (SP1) before most of the bugs are ironed out. I doubt many people have yet to try out VT-x on the Windows 8 Commercial Release version thus far.

 

[hct_de]

In the meantime I did a clean new installation of Windows 8. And - suprise - everything is okay now. Don't know what happened but Virtualization and CPU features are properly recognized. Hyper-V role could also be added and that's it.

Thanks for all comments on this thread and please note that Intel Core i7-950 (or similar types of i7 first generation CPU) is probably still compatible with Windows 8 and virtualization requirements.

Helmut

 

[murdakillemall]

This maybe related to how Microsoft handles that VT-x bit/flag when you enable the HyperV platform. If you disable the HyperV platform, you should be able to run the processor utility and it will inform you that the processor supports those features as expected. If you enable the HyperV platform, you will noticed that same utility will show no as you experienced.

Microsoft created a blog back in 2008 that explains the behavior: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/05/07/it-doesn-t-feel-like-a-hypervisor-to-me.aspx