Hardware-Assisted Virtualization (HAV) Detection Tool Free Download

More and more virtualization product or solution such as VMWare Workstation and Windows Virtual PC now requires Hardware Assisted Virtualization (HAV) CPU feature in order to function properly as allows a virtual machine hypervisor to run an unmodified operating system without incurring significant emulation performance penalties. The largest chip makers, Intel and AMD implement hardware assisted virtualization in their processors as Intel VT (VT-x) and AMD-V respectively. However, not all modern CPU has hardware-assisted virtualization capability built-in though.

For user who want to verify, check, determine or get to know whether his or her PC computer supports hardware-assisted virtualization, there is a software utility named SecurAble which able to display hardware virtualization support status as Yes, No, Locked On and Locked Off.
Microsoft has also released a application tool that able to detect status of Hardware-Assisted Virtualization (HAV) support on the computer system’s CPU microprocessor. Aptly named as Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool or simply as HAV Detection Tool, the utility can detect and check if the computer meets the processor requirements to run Windows Virtual PC, i.e. hardware-assisted virtualization.

Download HAV Detection Tool: havdetectiontool.exe
Using HAV Detection Tool is easy, just run the executable, and the results of whether hardware virtualization support is existed on the system or not (together with ability to install Windows Virtual PC) will be displayed on result dialog. It’s standalone program, thus no installation or uninstallation required.

How to Access Windows Virtual PC BIOS Setup Utility

The virtual machine created by Windows Virtual PC, the new version of virtualization software from Microsoft for Windows 7, may be simulated and run in within Windows itself, but that doesn’t mean it lacks features that an actual physical computer have. One such low level component of PC is BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which does exist in virtual machine too. Much of the modern common BIOS settings can be viewed or changed in VM’s BIOS too, such as system time, system date, IDE configuration, Num-Lock on boot, power management (APM), ACPI, boot devices sequence, and supervisor/user password.

Windows Virtual PC is equipped with AMIBIOS. In fact, the predecessor Microsoft Virtual PC (VPC)‘s BIOS has been modified by hackers in order to perform OEM activation crack. However, in Windows Virtual PC, the access to BIOS Setup Utility has been somewhat skipped and bypassed, due to the new enhanced integration features, which provides devices and resources sharing between host and guest operating system, specifically advanced features such as auto logon to guest Windows OS, and auto publishing installed application shorts to host Windows 7 Start menu.

Thus, in order to access and go into Windows Virtual PC (WVP)’s virtual machine’s BIOS configuration screen, the trick is to disable and turn off the Integration Features temporarily. To do so, start the virtual machine which you want to access its BIOS. Click on Tools in the menu bar, and click on Disable Integration Features. Then, go to Action pull down menu and select Restart to reboot the virtual machine.
On initial boot up, the virtual machine will perform POST (power-on self-test) sequence with black background screen like most PC computer. At this point, press Del key in order to access BIOS Setup Utility user interface of the virtual machine.

Tip: The POST sequence passes pretty quickly, so do press Del key quickly on boot up. After accessing the BIOS, just click on “Enable Integration Features” on “Tools” pull down menu to re-enable the integration features.

Overview of Virtualization