OS/2 version 3.0, released in 1994, was labelled as OS/2 Warp to highlight the new performance benefits, and generally to freshen the product image. Warp had originally been the internal IBM name for the release: IBM claimed that it had used Star Trek terms as internal names for past OS/2 releases, and that this one seemed appropriate for external use as well.
Although IBM began indicating shortly after the release of Warp 4 that OS/2 would eventually be withdrawn, the company did not end support until 2006-12-31.[26] Sales of OS/2 stopped on 2005-12-23. The latest IBM version is 4.52, which was released for both desktop and server systems in December 2001. A company called Serenity Systems has been reselling OS/2 since 2001, calling it eComStation. Version 1.2 was released in 2004. After a series of preliminary release candidates, version 2.0 GA (General Availability) was released on 15 May 2010.
As of 2008[update], support for running OS/2 under virtualization appears to be improving in a number of third-party products. OS/2 has historically been more difficult to run in a virtual machine than most other legacy x86 operating systems because of its extensive reliance on the full set of features of the x86 CPU[citation needed]. During a pre-launch session (ESX3) with VMware in Oslo, Norway, December 2005, they specifically said that OS/2's use of the CPU's ring 2 was the reason that it would not run in VMware. A beta of VMWare Workstation 2.0 released in January 2000 was the first hypervisor that could run OS/2 at all. Later, the company decided to drop official OS/2 support.[28] One can run OS/2 Warp 4 at Fixpack 5, but installing later Fixpacks will make the virtual machine unusable. eComStation 1.2 and 2.0 beta 4 will not install.[29]
VirtualBox from Oracle Corporation currently supports OS/2 Warp 3, 4 and 4.5 as well as eComStation as guests. It also provides “additions” code in both Virtual PC and Virtual Server which greatly improves host-guest OS interactions in OS/2. However, attempting to run OS/2 and eComStation can still be difficult, if not impossible to run, because of the strict requirements of VT-x/AMD-V hardware-enabled virtualization and only MCP2 is reported to work in a reliable manner.[30]
