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I'm running Vmware Server 2.0 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T61, on Windows XP. Normally, VMs run fine on this setup, but I installed a Vista VM and it's running painfully slow. Too slow to even use. There's enough memory (1.5GB) allocated to the VM, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Any ideas? Is there a known issue that I've overlooked? Thanks in advance...

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Verify whether your laptop supports hardware virtualization (check your BIOS). If not, Vista is going to be incredibly slow. Sometimes the setting exists in BIOS but is disabled.

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Thanks! In other programs (I think MS Virtual Server), I think I remember checking the box to disable HW virtualization because my BIOS didn't support it (this was a different machine). But it sounds to me like you're saying that Vista requires HW virtualization; turning it off is not a realistic option. Is that correct? – johnnyb10 Sep 8 '09 at 21:12
Vista doesn't REQUIRE HW virtualization, but without it the performance is going to be bad because Vista does a LOT of processing. If your Thinkpad can't do HWV, then I would try shutting off all non-essential services on the vista guest (I mean REALLY strip it down) and see how that goes. – Matias Nino Sep 17 '09 at 4:38

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