Bonum Certa Men Certa

Windows Vista Service Pack '11' Will Have “Virtualization Based Security” Theater That Slows Down Games Almost 30% and Enables Security Vulnerabilities on Intel Tiger Lake CPUs (Probably Others Too)

Guest post by Ryan, reprinted with permission from the original

Windows 11 will have “virtualization based security” theater that slows down games almost 30% and enables security vulnerabilities on Intel Tiger Lake CPUs (probably others).



According to PC Gamer, “Microsoft ‘will be enabling VBS on most new PCs over this next year’ and that can tank PC gaming performance by around 25%.”.



"Nothing Microsoft has ever done has slowed them down for long, and I suspect your svchost will still be svchosting malware in short order."Where VBS is “Virtualization Based Security”. (Not to be confused with Visual Basic Scripting, which was their scripting language, and what the Melissa and I Love You viruses, along with countless others were written in.)



The interesting facts about VBS (the “security” thing, not the virus scripting language) is that it is designed to wall off “critical parts” of the Windows OS so that it’s harder for malware to inject malicious code into them. But I wouldn’t count out those industrious malware authors. Nothing Microsoft has ever done has slowed them down for long, and I suspect your svchost will still be svchosting malware in short order.



What it does do is cripple performance, at least gaming. Could be one reason why my games run so much better in Wine on Debian 11.



I had turned “VBS” on when I had Windows because it’s in Windows 10, and it didn’t mention anything about performance problems.



To get it to even turn on at all required uninstalling a useless incompatible driver meant for Windows 8 that Windows 10 had brought in from the manufacturer of my old WD EasyStore drive.



"So to enable VBS “security”, you have to make your system impossible to secure against a speculative execution attack, and then in exchange for this, you get to slow your video games down 28%. Wow, sign me up!"So it appears that pretty much all an attacker needs to do in order to shut it off is manage to get a driver that’s written for an earlier version of Windows installed somehow, which shouldn’t be difficult, and then at least in Windows 10 it’s gone and you don’t get an alert(?).



Also, buried in the details are that since this thing relies on Microsoft HyperV, it will stop other virtualization software from running correctly.



And if you look in the Event Viewer (sorry, I didn’t take a picture, I should have), you’ll see that Windows lists CVE numbers belonging to Spectre attacks that it isn’t mitigating because they want the “Hypervisor” to perform well and don’t want to get in the way of Intel’s Hyperthreading, which is being used to speed up HyperV, which is running VBS.



So to enable VBS “security”, you have to make your system impossible to secure against a speculative execution attack, and then in exchange for this, you get to slow your video games down 28%. Wow, sign me up!



“While we are not requiring VBS when upgrading to Windows 11,” explains the post, “we believe the security benefits it offers are so important that we wanted the minimum system requirements to ensure that every PC running Windows 11 can meet the same security the DoD relies on. 

Microsoft


It’s amazing what money can buy. Microsoft bought a Pentagon. Former President Trump was about to hand them “JEDI” to put in their Azure Clown, which has caused so many security disasters for other organizations that we don’t have all day for me to list them.



"Microsoft bribes and “lobbying” got the government to ditch them and weaken them so that Windows could get government contracts."In the 1980s and 1990s, there were these security standards that the US government still used called the Rainbow Books, which pretty much only a UNIX system could provide. Microsoft bribes and “lobbying” got the government to ditch them and weaken them so that Windows could get government contracts.



Then in exchange for bringing Windows in, we got the “smart ship” stuck at port due to a Windows NT crash, worm mess on Windows 2000 and XP (which didn’t even enable the software firewall in the first release and logged everyone in as Administrator or apps broke, and had raw sockets for normal users), Vista LULZ (and their current operating systems are still basically Vista service packs), and everything else that Windows has brought with it but to name a few.



It’s time to bring real standards back to computing.



Microsoft is better at public corruption than they are with security, as you can no doubt see.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
In Göteborg
 
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
Justice for Wildlife
animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
Boys will be boys
Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
We may never know the dialogue or its nature
Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
Old Isn't Always Inadequate
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
The Monkey Business of Rust People
Compatibility won't matter
Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
avoid many perils of today's Web
Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
Links for the day
4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025
Links 29/09/2025: Opposition to Surveillance Giant Google and Conflicts Worldwide (Moldova Sides With EU)
Links for the day
Why the EPO Never Managed to Silence Us (After Over a Decade of Trying)
Firms like Mishcon de Reya and Brett Wilson LLP contribute to a bad stigma, staining the entire occupation
Links 29/09/2025: Datacenter Fires and "Too Much Internet Use Is Changing Teenage Brains"
Links for the day
Almost a Couple of Years After Microsoft Hijacked the Name 'Sudo' (to Describe Unrelated Windows Stuff) Microsoft Canonical Breaks Sudo in Ubuntu
These are vandals in "goodwill" or "security" clothing
Does the Good Law Project (GLP) Know the Director of Brett Wilson LLP Deems It OK to Endorse Violent Actions Against Trans People?
We were miffed to see this morning's report
Names Are Not Unique IDs and the UK Government's "Digital ID System" Would be a Nightmare
Digital surveillance, "apps", and worse (all the time)
What is Roy and Rianne's Righteously Royalty-free RSS Reader?
A news reader that uses OPML files and parses RSS feeds
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in 5 Days
We should be talking about software freedom, not "Open Source"
It Feels Like Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Tacitly Admitted That It Defamed Me
It arguably admitted many other things by refusing to deny or address them (altogether)
Stefano Maffulli's Front Page Mentions "AI" 11 Times
They're more focused on slop (plagiarism) than sharing or Software Freedom
CMS Rot
With "modern" (bloated) content management systems (CMSs) there is a long chain of dependencies
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 28, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 28, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About Linux 6.17 and Microsoft Meddling in Linux Development
today's Slopwatch is short because the picks are from Sunday
Gemini Links 29/09/2025: The Labor Wars and Retro
Links for the day