Aero compatibility (shadow paging, SMP, x86)

[hellfire]

I have implemented VMM with shadow paging. Works fine but there is a compatibility problem with Windows Aero.

When VMM is started with Windows Vista/7 x86 as a guest, the Aero stops to work (windows stop to be transparent). A message "The Desktop Window Manager has encountered a fatal error (0x8898009b)" appears in the event log.

Only SMP systems are affected, bug does not happen when guest OS is runned in UP mode.

I heard this is the common problem and major VM vendors have had to deal with it.

Can you suggest possible reasons of the problem?

Thank you!

[David_O_Intel1]

I was told that Windows Aero requires 3D graphics support. QEMU VGA in virtual platform does not support Direct X, thus Aero is turned off.

David Ott

[hellfire]

Several existing VMM implementations (VMware Workstation, Parallels, VirtualBox) are compatible with Aero.

What should be implemented in VMM to provide Direct X support?