[fedora-virt] WinXP & Slow Network Startup (BallonService)

[Jorge Fábregas]

Hi everyone,

I'm running Fedora 19 (with Preview Repo) and just installed Windows XP
(media already had SP3) and applied all 100+ updates (no additional 3rd
party software installed) with VirtIO (on Net & SCSI controller).  I'm
running the latest virtio drivers.

I proceeded to install the SPICE Agent Tools and rebooted the VM and now
I can copy/paste from guest to host (very cool).  However, I noticed
that the network takes about 1.5 minutes to start.  I have the "show
icon when connected option" and  literally takes 1.5 minutes.   I
searched the mailing list's archive and there was a similar post but
apparently the situation there was related to the .NET framework (which
I don't have installed).

After some trial & error I finally pinpointed the problem to the
"BallonService" installed by the SPICE tools.  If I set the service to
"disabled" and reboot the VM the network starts right away.

Has anyone bumped into this?

Regards,
Jorge