1.182. virtio-win

An updated virtio-win package that fixes a bug is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Para-virtualized drivers are virtualization-aware drivers used by fully-virtualized guests running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fully-virtualized guests using the para-virtualized drivers gain significantly better I/O performance than fully-virtualized guests running without the drivers.

The virtio-win package provides para-virtualized network drivers for the following guest operating systems:

32-bit Windows XP 32-bit Windows Server 2003 64-bit Windows Server 2008 32-bit Windows Server 2008 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 32-bit Windows 7

The virtio-win package also provides para-virtualized disk (block) drivers for the following guest operating systems:

32-bit Windows XP 32-bit Windows Server 2003 64-bit Windows Server 2008 32-bit Windows Server 2008 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 32-bit Windows 7

This update fixes the following bug:

* Under certain circumstances, when a user installed a Windows guest on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 host and then copied the image, an attempt to boot this image from virtio block device on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 host could fail with an error screen. This error has been fixed, and such images now boot as expected on both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. (BZ#634529)

All users running fully-virtualized instances of Windows on Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based KVM hosts are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves this issue.