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[Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH] Unmodified VMX guest support (domain firmware)

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Subject: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH] Unmodified VMX guest support (domain firmware)
From: Jan Schneider <timberwolf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 07:25:59 +0000 (UTC)
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Leendert van Doorn <leendert <at> watson.ibm.com> writes:

> ...
> However, since most OSes rely on BIOS support during
> their early bringup, we need to provide a surrogate ROMBIOS and VGABIOS
> firmware layer.
> 
> What's more, we need to support real-mode which is required by
> the firmware and bootstrap loaders. 
> ...
As far as I know we don't need VM86 for OS that start with the letters
"Windows..." (at least since 2000) right ?
Cause their bootloader switched directly to protected mode at startup if my grey
cells recall that correctly without any coffee till now...
If thats right, one could disable the VM86 extension completely if Windows is
about to be started.
I don't get the point about the firmware loaders, we don't whant a guestOS to
load firmware do we ?

Regards
Jan


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