Virtual Machine Driver pack causes Windows DomU to crash

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1
Microsoft Windows installed in Xen DomU, with SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack applied.

Situation

After installing the SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack (VMDP) on a Windows (XP, 2000, 2003) DomU, the machine fails to boot or a "blue screen" is triggered while performing large network transfers.

Resolution

The problem is related to XEN DomU installations that are configured to use multiple virtual CPUs. The workaround is to use only 1 CPU for the DomUs.

Recommended solution
Upgrade to SLES10 SP2 which supports up to 4 virtual CPUs for fully virtualized DomUs.

Additional Information

For DomUs that use full virtualization, Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) with more than one virtual CPU is technically working, but not recommended or supported for production.

Disclaimer

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