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Chapter 3 What's New with the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows?

Table of Contents

Each release of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows includes bug fixes and new features. Find out what's new in each release of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows.

For information about the latest features and enhancements, bug fixes, and known issues, see Oracle VM Windows PV Driver: Latest Release Information (Doc ID 2852790.1) on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com/oip/faces/secure/km/DocumentDisplay.jspx?id=2852790.1.

3.1 New in Release 3.4.5

Release 3.4.5 of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces new features and enhancements along with a cumulative list of bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows release 3.4.5 provides the following new support:

Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2019 64-bit guest operating systems in an Oracle VM Release 3.4.6 or later environment

Notable Bug Fixes

Release 3.4.5 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Under some conditions, uninstalling the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows leaves older versions of the drivers in the system Driver Store. Bug 31176082
When TCP receive checksum offload is enabled for an Oracle VM Virtual Ethernet Adapter and a packet is received with a TCP checksumvalue of 0xffff, the driver for the Oracle VM Virtual Ethernet Adapter incorrectly informs NDIS and the Windows TCP stack that the checksum was incorrect and the packet would be dropped. Bug 28664657
A virtual machine might crash when it has a large number of virtual Ethernet adapters or disk devices configured. Bug 30682645
Following an upgrade from a release version of Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows to a maintenance or patch version, the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows version string does not reflect the correct maintenance or patch version number. Bug 29584186
Virtual machines with high input/output running Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 crash due to a xenpci driver issue. Bug 30680622
Packet reordering by xennet.sys causes really low TCP throughput across the WAN. Bug 29200652

3.2 New in Release 3.4.4

Release 3.4.4 of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces new features and enhancements along with a cumulative list of bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows release 3.4.4 provides the following new support:

Support for a maximum configuration limit of 1024 GB virtual RAM and 64 virtual CPUs for the following 64-bit guest operating systems in an Oracle VM Release 3.4.6 or later environment
- Microsoft Windows Server 2016
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Supports X86_64 ABI to allow for higher disk IOPS similar to that of Linux and Solaris operating systems.
Support for setting Windows MTU in 100-step increments instead of 500-step increments which allows MTU settings of 8900, for example. Reference 27996456
Support for configuring Windows guest operating systems using OVMAPI. Reference 28447799

Notable Bug Fixes

Release 3.4.4 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Windows 2012 Datacenter R2 guests with Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.2 or Release 3.4.3 rebooted unexpectedly. Bug 28309263
Upgrading Windows guests to Windows 10 failed if Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.3 was installed. Bug 28104969
Windows 2016 VM crashed when a ZFS storage array active/passive cluster takeover was executed. Bug 27684947
During performance and failover testing of Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.3 on Windows guest operating systems, the VM shut down unexpectedly on Windows 2012 R2. Bug 27662016 and Bug 27934031
When upgrading from Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.2 to Release 3.4.3 on Windows guests and rebooting the VM, the IP address was not reported for the VNIC. Bug 27465883

3.3 New in Release 3.4.3

Release 3.4.3 of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces new features and enhancements along with a cumulative list of bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Release 3.4.3 provides the following new features and enhancements:

Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2016 with Oracle VM Manager Release 3.4.4 or later and Oracle VM Servers running at Release 3.4.2 or later.
Performance improvements have been implemented that result in lower CPU utilization rates on Windows guests.
Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows now supports a maximum configuration limit of 480 GB Virtual RAM for the following guest operating systems in an Oracle VM Release 3.4.4 or later environment:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2016
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Notable Bug Fixes

Release 3.4.3 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and SP2 guests crash periodically. Bug 25233360
Installation errors may be displayed during Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows installations on Windows Server 2008 SP2 guests. Bug 25458370
Migrating multiple Microsoft Windows guests to a destination Oracle VM Server instance fails due to short interval times between migration jobs. Bug 25676373
Windows blue screen occurs on Microsoft Windows guests under heavy load during live migration. Bug 25769259

3.4 New in Release 3.4.2

Release 3.4.2 of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces new features and enhancements along with a cumulative list of bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Release 3.4.2 provides the following new features and enhancements:

The Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows now support Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) on the following guest operating systems in an Oracle VM Release 3.4.3 or later environment:

Guest Operating System with Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows	64-bit	32-bit
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Windows Server 2012	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1	Yes	N/A
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2	Yes	Yes

Note

Before using WSFC capabilities, you should review the following points:

Physical disks only can be shared among Windows Server guests that use SCSI-3 persistent reservations to form a WSFC cluster.
Live migration is not supported for Windows Server guests in WSFC clusters that have a shared physical disk assigned to them. The shared physical disk must be moved to another guest before live migration can occur.
You cannot run Windows Server guests in the same WSFC cluster on the same instance of Oracle VM Server.

Notable Bug Fixes

Release 3.4.2 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Windows blue screen occurs on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 guests during live migration. Bug 23542956
Cannot copy large files to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 guests after installing Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows. Bug 23326764
Packet loss occurs after installing Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows. Bug 21430532
Microsoft Windows guests do not start correctly when using the Xen driver domain. Bug 22243923
Performance issues occur on the host machine when you create a WSFC cluster from Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 guests that share 10 or more LUNs in a SAN array. Bug 24595207

3.5 New in Release 3.4.1

Release 3.4.1 of the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces new features and enhancements along with a cumulative list of bug fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Release 3.4.1 provides the following new features and enhancements:

Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows now supports Microsoft Windows 10.
As of this release, Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows provides informative notifications to help you troubleshoot common installation issues.
Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows introduces multipage ring buffer support in this release.
The Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows installation program now verifies that the guest operating system is supported. If a user attempts to install Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows on Microsoft Windows XP, or other operating system that is not supported, the installation program notifies the user.

Note

The Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows Release 3.4.1 have not been signed by Microsoft for the Windows software logo program. Because the Oracle VM Paravirtual Drivers for Microsoft Windows are not signed, Microsoft Windows does not recognize them as compatible and a security alert occurs during installation. See Section 9.2, “Security Alert for Unsigned Drivers”.

Notable Bug Fixes

Release 3.4.1 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Windows blue screen occurs during the uninstallation process. Bug 23198931
Windows blue screen occurs during the upgrade process. Bug 22482031
Installer properties do not provide a build version. Bug 23198943
Build number is not included as part of the release version. Bug 22589921
Cannot create a dump file when Windows blue screen occurs. Bug 23102589
Windows virtual machines reboots when using the Iperf3 tool and the virtual machine MTU is set to 9000. Bug 23032144
The Microsoft Windows device manager displays a black exclamation point (!) on a yellow field next to Oracle VM Virtual Ethernet Adapter after installation. Bug 23022322
Low network throughput on Windows virtual machine. Bug 22657587
Cannot dynamically access grant references for page ring order. Bug 22518244
Virtual machine network TX performance issue when pinned to the NUMA node #0. Bug 22342913
Virtual machines do not function as expected when using a Xen driver domain. Bug 22243923
Windows domU behaves unexpectedly when using the Iperf tool with the MTU set to 9000 in the Ethernet adapter properties. Bug 22203768
Network delays occur after installation. Bug 22201572
Windows blue screen occurs when running network performance tests. Bug 22058506
Windows guests do not inherit IP addresses after installation. Bug 21845785
RDP communication does not function after installation on Windows Server 2012. Bug 21803860
Network performance issues occur after installation. Bug 21458061
Cannot communicate with Windows guests using RDP or the Oracle VM console, even though the guests are running. Bug 21457678
The Xen VBD driver causes a Windows blue screen to occur when running network performance tests. Bug 21373489
Running network performance testing with the MTU set to 9000 on a guest causes Windows blue screen to occur. Bug 21303484

3.6 New in Release 3.2.3

Release 3.2.3 provides a cumulative update of fixes, as follows:

Fixes a BSOD issue when running a netperf test with 10 TCP streams from a remote Dom0 to a Microsoft Windows guest. Bug 21302935
Modifies the Oracle VM service to remove spaces from the executable path name. Bug 20863991
Fixes an issue to allow more than 1Gbps speeds on 10GBE links. Bug 19833775
Fixes a issue where packet loss occurred when pinging some virtual machines. Bug 19820063
Fixes an issue where the default policy on virtual disks was set to write-caching, which resulted in a loss of data integrity. Bug 19452465
Fixes an issue where the network interface of the Windows guest was lost when an Oracle VM Server was upgraded to Release 3.3 in Cisco UCS server. Bug 19449368
Fixes an issue where the current network interface settings are not applied during an installation of Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows. Bug 18865098
Fixes an issue where it is not possible to format disks on a Windows virtual machine in some circumstances. Bug 18707840
Fixes an issue where a system crash, or fatal system error, occurs when upgrading from a previous release of Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows. Bug 18702781
Fixes performance degradation issues if more than 16 virtual CPUs (vCPU) are configured on some Windows guests. Bug 18593684 and Bug 18558015
Fixes an issue where a virtual disk provisioning failure occurs if the virtual disk is greater than 1TB. Bug 18553901
Fixes an issue where a system crash, or fatal system error, occurs on a 32-bit Windows operating system. Bug 18361346

3.7 New in Release 3.2.2

The new features and enhancements in Release 3.2.2 include additional support for the following new guest operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2012
Microsoft Windows 8.1
Microsoft Windows 8

The following maximum limit configurations have been tested with the Oracle VM PV Drivers for Microsoft Windows:

Maximum number of virtual CPUs: 32
Maximum RAM per 32-bit guest: 64 GB
Maximum RAM per 64-bit guest: 256 GB

3.8 New in Release 3.0.1

Release 3.0.1 includes support for the Storport miniport driver, which delivers improved performance compared to the SCSI port driver.