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Windows XP-64 Delayed Into 2005
vincecate writes "Although
Windows XP on AMD64 was demoed at ComDex in 2002,
Microsoft is now
delaying the release till the first half of 2005.
Given Microsoft's history on this product, it could be
even more than a year before it is really released.
At least
one person at Intel says they did not ask Microsoft to delay
the release.
In any case, for the near future if you want to run a 64 bit operating
system you will either be using
one of the free Linux versions
or the
free download of Windows XP-64 beta.
Though Sun started well after Microsoft, they are
progressing well on their Solaris port to AMD64 and could well release earlier."
Really, I'm not sure why they are bothering with XP-64. Longhorn is due out soon enough... I'm just not sure I'm interested in paying for the product that will come out just before Longhorn. It's like if you had a choice between buying a flintlock pistol or a single-shot bullet operated colt, when you could wait and spend a little more money on a colt six-shooter. My point is that there's not much difference between XP and XP-64 compared to XP and Longhorn. I'm moderately satisfied with XP, apart from all the annoying Microsoft crap that comes with it, and there's no telling how much *more* of that will ship with XP-64 or even Longhorn. So I wouldn't be upgrading to get rid of the annoyances in Microsoft's products, just in some hopes of better features! I wouldn't hope for better security in future Microsoft products, because that would be futile, IMHO. The best solution for going 64 today looks like a Linux!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's better they release it a little late than with more bugs.
This will give Intel's offering time to get established in the marketplace....
Agile Artisans
i didn't know that, always linux was sronger then windows ;)
Microsoft bashing will commence in 3....2.....1...
Bashing has commenced.
Scrab
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
Do they have to wait for the bad guys to finish their ports?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"In any case, for the near future if you want to run a 64 bit operating system you will either be using one of the free Linux versions"
There are supported linux versions available as well. I know Red Hat and SuSE have released versions supporting the amd64 and I think Mandrake does as well
Now I'll have to wait a little while longer to have another Microsoft operating system to neither install or use...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Or you'll be running Mac OS X...
In any case, for the near future if you want to run a 64 bit operating system you will either be using one of the free Linux versions or the free download of Windows XP-64 beta.
Um, what about Mac OS X?
Find me in ~/.sig
"The delays are quality driven," a Microsoft statement said. The company needs more time for tuning and testing "in order to meet the high quality requirements of our customers."
Doesn't that mean they have to pack more crap into it so it runs slower than molasses in winter?
Really, though, it's nice if they are working on the quality of the product. Maybe this one won't ever crash, eh?
I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah!
But those who are fortunate enough to posess a G5 can already run Mac OS X as a 64-bit os.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/
-Tom
Besides Linux and Windows, you can also use FreeBSD, for which amd64 is in tier 1 (full support), along with i386. Other BSDs of course support it :
NetBSD
OpenBSD
I've been running a 64-bit operating system for the past five or six years, and it isn't one of those mentioned. It just happens to be OpenVMS running on Alpha.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Egads, did you babblefish this? I believe you actually meant to say:
Dan blijf ik nog een jaar de coolste van het dorp met mijn gentoo 64.
This would still be arguable depending on whether you truly are the only one in your small town with a 64 bit OS, unless you happen to be your own small town....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"In any case, for the near future if you want to run a 64 bit operating system you will either be using one of the free Linux versions or the free download of Windows XP-64 beta. "
someone has to say it: You could use Mac OS X and the PowerMac G5
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Key qualifier: near future
OS X Tiger will be 64 bit, but that isn't scheduled for release until 02005 either.
SteveM
Yes, this looks like flamebait, but I'm actually surprised that it's taking MS this long, considering the resources they can throw at any given problem.
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/
x /prof/index.html
http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linu
You might have noticed that there are other 64 bit CPU's than AMD64 that are in wide use, and other OS than Linux suports AMD64.
FreeBSD supports AMD64, and so does NetBSD.
Also OpenBSD supports it, but the support is even better in current. In addition, OpenBSD will use the NX-bit to increase security.
It is time for Linux and xxxx (put your favorite free OS here) to hit hard on M$, with XP-64 and Longhorn no quite close to release, and the already availability of lets say fedora on 64bit AMD, I think the time has come, lets face it, the latest kde, for those who like it, I dont, and Gnome just look gorgious (people always ask what kind of thing I run when the see my fedora desktop) and usability is on the way. I'm currently doing an academic research about the opinion of the general public on Linux, but when you told them that they can surf the web(mozilla) read their mail(evolution) write their docs(open office) watch their movie (xine) im(gaim) and everything else a yum search away for the price of a cd (hum 10p) well they start to look at you differently My personnal opinion is that to widespread Linux we should have an Apple politic at some point, a distrib optimised for a given hardware for non technical person. One example is the xbox, as it is standardize, you get a distrib (gentox for instance) that it is optimized for the hardware, and work out of the box....there is even lots of bucks lying arround...
Uh, you are wrong. For the early XBox 2 dev kits, Microsoft has a version of the NT kernel running on a slightly modified G5 system. Not an x86 architecture there.
Hmm, why is this modded as Informative? Windows NT ran on MIPS (I've seen it running on modified SGI Indy boxes), PowerPC, Alpha and x86. The HAL makes it possible. Windows 2000 Beta was running on Alpha. What makes you think Windows is an x86-only product?
Mike Bouma
Windows (fill in your version here) has always been an x86 only OS.
Except for when Windows (NT) ran on Power PC, DEC Alpha, AXP, and MIPS. They even had a prototype for the Sun SPARC.
That I will be able to Duke Nukem Forever with 64 bit processes!
Yay!
The comment about Sun is not quite a fair comparison. Porting Solaris to x86-64 should be easier for Sun, since SOLARIS IS ALREADY 64 BITS!!!. The Sparc processors have been 64 bits for quite a while (I am typing this message on a Sun workstation right now).
Windows has been 32 bits for quite a while, so the jump to 64 is a bigger step than for Sun.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
These people that are fixated on the current X86/PC world have missed out on the elegant hardware of Sun, SGI, and DEC.
Yes, kids, there was a world before Linux became popular.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Inertia.
I seem to remember NT 3.5, 3.5.1 and 4 running on PPC, Alpha and MIPS, and have all been able to run on MP systems. So I would say that your statement that "Windows (fill in your version here) has always been an x86 only OS" even with your mentioning of Alpha is so far wrong as to make me wonder as tot he veracity of other comments you have made. NT on Alpha even with the requisite 32 -> 64 bit code morphing was really quite a nice system. I ran it quite regularly until the summer of 2000, and if i still had access to it I likely still would.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
I think mainly their delaying for two reasons: WOW64 and driver support.
Having played with the beta of XP64 on my laptop, I can tell you that the driver support on XP64 absolutely sucks. There are hardly any drivers, and good luck finding any for older/abnormal hardware.
WOW64, if you're not familiar with the acronym, means windows on windows 64. It's basically their "emulator" (it's more of an interpreter) to run code not compiled for 64 bit. Instead of going the FreeBSD route and allowing for both 32 and 64 bit programs to run at the same time (props for freebsd), Microsoft decided to go with an emulator - which happens to suck horribly, and freeze alot.
Your best bet for the AMD64 extentions is FreeBSD, hands down.
++Good!
Precisely. I've read the NT5/XP kernel was designed to be portable. However, there's a lot more to windows than just the kernel. I think the parent was referring to the other (insert very large number) lines of code that would have to be checked.
While people contend that linux has good 64 bit support, you have to remember that windows is designed and optimized for 32 bit x86. That's why microsoft compilers will beat gcc in terms of x86 speed. I think the Linux design for portability makes more sense in the long run, but if no one on ppc or alpha is interested in running windows, why would it make sense for microsoft in the short term to spend resources to worry about compatibility for them.
While you're right, Windows definitely was available for a variety of architectures, unfortunately there was a _serious_ shortage of software for Windows NT for PPC, MIPS and Alpha/AXP. A few Microsoft packages, like BackOffice, Visual C++, and a few other things, were available; most third-party software, however, was not ever built for anything but x86. The only reason the Alpha/AXP version had a longer lifetime, and apparently more software, was due to the FX!32 dynamic translation software that Digital developers created to run x86 binaries on Alpha. There was no real technical limitation to speak of, just momentum of Windows on x86.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
It has extensions but it is far far far from being 64 bit all the way. Now I remember why I quit at Apple...good lord people.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I'm sure that at least one person at Intel did not ask Microsoft to delay the release. It would be kind of weird if all 80,000 employees asked. I'm sure it was no more than 50,000 of them who did.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
one person at Intel says they did not ask Microsoft to delay the release
yeah right... sure they didn't after all it is not like that:
Windows 64bit + Cheap 64bit Proc for AMD = Goodbye Intel...
Is that a rhetorical question?
:-)
My Ultra 5 is propping up my television
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
They've long known all the hidden 32-bit bottlenecks in their OS and dealt with them. So I suspect, Sun's shipping date is mainly a matter of testing and verification.
Windows NT wasn't originally designed for x86. Hell, initially it was developed for a CPU that didn't even exist - when it was first being developed, it was targeted at Intel's i960 RISC architecture. However, because the i960 RISC chip was plagued with delays, it was ported to another architecture (I believe the first one was MIPS32). Dave Cutler's clean OS design (one of the major designers of DEC's VMS operating system, hired away by Microsoft) made this possible relatively quickly.
And by the way, the original NT moniker was actually a reference to the CPU simulator - named N-Ten - that the first i960-native builds of what became Windows NT ran on.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I just got a new AMD64 laptop, and am wondering about getting a version of redhat to run on it. Anyone know of any torrents or download links to get a good version?
Also, is the XP64 beta even worth trying yet, or should I just run XP-Pro until there is more support?
Boxing Equipment Reviews
Not quite always.
"Portability is for people who cannot write new programs"
-- Linus Torvalds, on comp.os.minix, 29 Jan 1992
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
the only thing these threads produce is a ton of flames and ranting back and forth. Can we get some interesting and useful news?
You must be new here.
As an AMD supporter, I'd rather them make it available sooner so that AMD might be able to leverage their lead in the 64-bit field. But from Microsoft's perspective? This might be the best move.
(of course, all of this ignores that they're usually chronically late with releases anyway)
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Micro$oft's delay in launching XP-64 buys time for Sun's survival. If Sun launches its Solaris for AMD64 first, then the market share for 64-bit OSes on AMD will be the following.
1. Linux
2. Solaris
3. Windows
Sun has horribly treated its customers, shareholders, and employees, so I cannot applaud this result. Sun, as a company, should go bankrupt and release its resources to better companies like Microsoft and IBM.
case in point: Sun refuses to pay dividends on its shares even though Sun is not a growth company.
At this rate Microsoft won't be able to release longhorn this decade. If they can't even preform upgrades to their exisiting operating system on time how can they build a completely new one?
Will we get the same problem with 64-bit processors as with DVD-ROMs ?
It's indeed quite possible that as for the DVDs, software editors may decide it's cheaper to only make one version, the one that's going to work on any system.
How many PC video games are available on DVD ? Very few. Because of the 10% that only own a regular CD player, we still have to swap disks.
I can see the same coming for 64-bit processors, especially for the AMD64 that are x86-32 compatible.
My guess is that they're delaying the release in order to get the manufacturers to release more x86-64 drivers. Microsoft has always understood this to be important for their success (unlike OS/2).
Whenever I shop for new hardware, I look at the drivers first -- having good drivers is more important than the hardware itself.
Chip H.
The BSD's support 64-bit chips too.
...I'd bet Intel whispered the release dates of their new & improved Xeon MP processors. They happen to be Second quarter 2005 which lines up nicely.
If you go back and look at the history of release dates you'll notice they keep coinciding with dates that the Potomac processor was to come out. It keeps moving out, and so does EM64T/AMD64 release of windows.
For example, does their really weird size conventions (with 64-bit pointers but 32-bit long) cause more porting problems than it solves?
Has anyone here tried porting a program to Win64?
AMD has their 64 bit chips out. Rorking. Running. Here NOW.
Intel does not. They changed course a few months ago... they were originally going to have 64 bit chips that were not backwards compatible with x86, following AMDs lead (They put their own market-speak on it, but yes, they are following AMD's lead in this area. more info.
So, Intel has to catch up. Intel are Microsoft are pretty buddy-buddy, being two halves of the Wintel hegemony.
Intel figures out that if Windows releases a 64 bit version before their chip is out, they will LOSE MARKET SHARE to AMD. They can't let that happen.
A few phone calls later, and Microsoft delays. Hell, they could use the time anyway to fix bugs, but its not like they wouldn't release it with those bugs anyway... The primary reason for the delay is to preserve intel's market share and screw AMD.
There are some different theories on the name. Notice that the abrreviation for Windows NT, WNT, is one letter "ahead" of VMS(W comes after V, N comes after M, T after S). Something to think about :P
Can someone explain to those of us (who don't really know or understand the significance of 64bit processors) how this will affect my experience with a computer? Who is this important to? Why should we care? I can understand Servers and perhaps Engineering and/or Design, but what about Joe-Blow SixPack?
... run an operating system with such a pitiful track record for lack of security and stability.
Anyone who runs a Microsoft operating system is guilty of indirectly contributing to the viruses, trojans, worms, blatant lack of security, and all the other problems which face MS users.
It's like owning a firearm and lending it out to any stranger who asks to use it, regardless of what that use will be.
+5 Funny as SH!T. Ha!
We all know that 10% of Windows 3.1 was 32 bit (with Win32s installed) Windows 95 make it 50%, so where does that leave NT-XP? I'm sure these things have 16 bit code still in them. It maybe down to 1%, but it isn't all gone is it?
(We don't have to count code for 16 bit compatibility)
Linux and OS2 were the only entirely 32-bit maintstream PC OS from the start.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
- FreeBSD also has a decent AMD64 port
- "of course it runs NetBSD (tm)"
- OpenBSD too lists it as supported target
- DragonFly BSD has it in the works (they wanted to release 1.0 first)
From these I daily use FreeBSD on a dual Opteron box, and it works fast and stable. I have no experience with the others.
I hate being a pedant, but it was definitely a tad more than re-compiling the source with a new Gee-See-See.
You're right though - considering the number of both 32 and 64-bit ports of the linux kernel, targeting amd-64 was just about filling in the missing pieces.
If you hunt around the linux source tree, you will find this asm/generic stuff, which is an implementation in C of the stuff that should really be done in the architecure's assembly (cause that would be faster/efficient). Thats the stuff they use for new ports until the write they native versions of those algorithms.
Windows XP64 Forever, anyone?
Curious that no one mentions the stability of current x86-64 Linux implementations. I'm running one (SuSE 9.1) and it's very disappointing. Binary software doesn't recognize the processor type and browser plugins don't work. 32 bit browsers would fix that but they are unstable for me. In fact, firefox in any form locks my machine consistently. I certainly wouldn't use the machine for any critical work though most things seem fine.
Any user of a 64 bit x86 system should expect all 32 bit applications for that system to "just work". That's certainly not the case for linux and I expect Microsoft has a much higher standard in that regard.
It is called Prescott, aka P4E. Launches monday in 64 bit guise. I outed it last September on the Inq, see the links below.
: //www.theinquirer.net/?article=11781
-Charlie
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11668
http
Rock solid, stable and no bloat
Microsoft has to hunt down every pointer in their windows code, which is vast. Even with Microsoft's resources it's going to take them a while before they have a fully 64bit version of Windows.
I think Microsoft will delay the release of the x86-64 version of Windows XP so 1) they can get true 64-bit driver support and 2) they can recode all the programs that come with WinXP to true 64-bit versions (Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and so on). It also gives more time for third-party software vendors to complete development of true 64-bit versions of their software, too.
You're a Linux newbie, right?
Linux originally ran only on the x86. Then it was ported to other architectures...the original ports were far from clean - e.g. the VM system relied on the specific structure of x86 page tables.
Actually, the above is true even ignoring very early versions of Linux, which were even less portable, since they relied on x86 segments...
Windows...well, Windows 3.x was x86-only, as were 95/98/ME, but the NT kernel was originally written to be portable (unlike the Linux kernel), the Alpha port was one of many (and not the first, IIRC MIPS and PowerPC were supported earlier).
I'm not saying that the NT kernel is superior to Linux, but considering that Linux originally wasn't portable and had to be hacked for the intial ports, whereas NT was originally written to be portable, your post is nonsensical.
What you can say is that for the last 5+ years, Linux has actually been used on multiple architectures, protecting the other ports from bit rot...
The Windows kernel is probably reasonably 64-bit clean already, though, considering that the IA64 has been in use a couple of years.
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winserver2k3_g old1.asp
1. It's all they've been releasing publically, since the first version of NT or so at least.
2. It takes them YEARS to code the HAL for a new architecture? Yeah, possible. But highly improbable.
Theory and practice.
not Mike Bouma
Bullshit about this alleged higher standard.
Try Mandrake 10 64bit edition. Everything freeking works.
Just like IBM is to HAL.
Jonathanjk.com
At least most games nowadays support more then one resolution (yes I am talking about you bioware).
64-bit is going to take an awfull lot of time to make it into games. Look for the ID and Epic games to support it first. They are the front runners. Everyone else will be trailing way way behind.
64 bit has perhaps the biggest advantage in games as well as they are about the only application in home PC's that really push a modern machine. Then again just check how many people still game with 128mb memory. 64-bit? Not any time soon.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You are the kind of person I was talking about when I wrote the article about the bridge dwellers in the article linked as 'one person at Intel....'. Read it, there really is no conspiracy.
-Charlie
Basically the question is how bad is the beta. We know that SP2 is bad because people who use it say it is. So how is the XP-64 beta holding up? Does it work or not? Is it slow? No support for hardware? If there are real enormous gigantic bugs then MS couldn't release without getting burned once again.
Can MS really be so crap as to take years and years to make a 64 bit version of windows where a bunch of hippies had it ready in days? Well linux runs on real hardware as well, hardware that been 64-bit for ever so they had a head start. As to MS being that crap. I remember Windows 3.0 do you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well - what makes _me_ think Windows in an x86-only product is the simple fact that it is an x86-only product _now_.
And having OS run on an arch is sooo different from having apps available for that arch. Even GNU/Linux have this issues.
next year you will see that "SCO is the owner of all 64-bit operating systems and a leading provider of 64bit-based solutions"
Most of the problems are SP2 related. MS decided to base Win iAMD64 off of XP SP2, and SP2 is having 'issues'. From what I hear, they are pulling people in to get it out the door, and those people are mainly coming from Longhorn.
They are taking security seriously, but they are realizing exactly how impossible it is to do what they announced, IE lock things down. The deeper they dig, the more problems they find. The more they find, the more people they pull in.
People tell me that it is a quagmire of monumental proportions. Golly, who would have guessed.
-Charlie
(I write for the Inq, and I talk to people, this is more than idle speculation)
Does anyone have any experience?
64 bit hasn't got any kind of widespread uptake yet, theres a 64 bit OS on the way and MS have to support stuff they release...
I smell a troll. If you actually spend any time setting up an AMD-64 with linux you know that it is all still very experimental (and this is clearly told on user forums). Basically it is only for people who really know what they are doing. If anyone told you it was plug and play then go kick them.
As for stability, I have setup up three opteron servers with gentoo (none of that binary crap for me thank you except for some reason I needed the binary of grub) and after the nightmare of installation the machines have behaved perfectly. 100% uptime. Granted nothing unusual there. My joke hardware home linux machines don't crash either once I finished with installation (What I mean is that recently I added an tv-tuner to my linux desktop machine, after the new kernel was installed whenever I used alsamixer to open the line-in or anything else I had a hang. Changed to latest kernel changed some options (had alsa running inside and outside the kernel) and now I have a stable machine again, so plenty of crashes during installation, none once I get it working (I first installed the tv-tuner in my W2k3 game machine and it the view app constanly "hanged" the machine.).
AMD-64 for desktop is definitly still in beta stages (maybe changed now my experience was about half a year ago) and while I messed with it there was/is an awfull lot of stuff not ready. Expecting everything to "just work" shows you are not a real linux user. Go buy an Apple and wait for the next version of Mac OS-X. Apple is the "just work" company and people say they are very good at it. Beta linux is for the geeks who enjoy a challenge. "Just work" is not much fun.
Apply == just work, windows == More choices but more headaches, linux == Do or do not there is no try, BSD == Abandon all hope yea who enter here.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As I posted above, I wrote the Inq piece that is one of the links in the main story. Unlike you, I went and asked the players on both sides, very high up players. They contradict what you are implying.
/. speculating.
Now, who do you believe, high ups at AMD AND Intel, with a couple of Microsofties thrown in for color, or an anonymous person on
There was a reason I wrote the article, it was to keep posts like this from coming up every few hours. I now see my fatal mistake was assuming the trolls can read.
-Charlie
I wrote the piece linked in the main article as:
"At least one person at Intel says they did not ask Microsoft to delay the release"
It suggests that only Intel people told me that it wasn't them. That is not exactly what I would call persuasive evidence. In fact it was AMD people who told me flat out that Intel had nothing to do with it. I then asked Intel, and they said 'yup, we a innocent'. MS also said it wasn't Intel.
Now, if Intel WAS behind it, AMD would have told me, and the other two would have denied it. That didn't happen.
-Charlie
Remember they want to name by the year of the release, so you feel compelled to buy the next copy of Windows XP-2074 when it is debugged...
(Remember to apply SP1, SP2, and the security patches to Win XP-2064 in 2065)
Think the architecture: Windows' application is all-in-one, when you have a word processor, you have spellchecker, font, colors, graphics manipulation, and much more *all in one piece*. But in Linux, I use VI to edit the source, ispell to do spell check, latex to generate a postscript, gv to preview my result and cups for printing. When my gv got problem, I didn't need to care about the ispell -- because I am so sure that it is not the cause of the problem! But in Windows, who knows? There are tons of interdependencies and a bug in one part will eventually cause problem on some other unthinkable parts. So the UNIX way is the divide-and-conquer game and it is the decent way to do things.
So, you can tell -- one should expect Windows porting to another architecture needs tons of work and much more costy in money and time.
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
Well, I am some how a big fun of Windows. And I believe that XP already was and is a great product on the market. MS did huge improvement with security, blah, etc. So, if they need to postpone the release due to the even greater improvement with security, blah, etc. I think it is 100% worth to wait. So, without further analysis, thanks MS and keep up the good work. P.S. By 2005 still only small % of ppl around the world will be happy with their 64 bit system, so rush wont solve anything.
Why was this modded down? The statement was true - NT for Alpha was infact 32-bit.
What free (as in beer) distributions of Linux support x86-64? (ie. will let me run in 64-bit mode)
As well, do these distributions play nice with a dual boot setup with Windows? (That leaves Fedora out.. unless they've fixed the bug I'm thinking about..)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
"Clippy64"
I cannot wait!!!
If I'm not running windows I don't care if XP64 is delayed. If I'm not running on an AMD64 I don't care what OS choices for that platform are. Windows is no longer available on Alpha, and OpenVMS has never been available for AMD64, so for all the parties this article applies to, your comment is nothing but a distraction.
"The delays are quality driven," a Microsoft statement said. The company needs more time for tuning and testing "in order to meet the high quality requirements of our customers."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
But seriously.. this could be a good thing.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
I write for the Inq, and I talk to people, this is more than idle speculation
Here's our big dilemma: We're looking at making a big investment in new AMD x86-64 hardware, especially the new line of 940-socket motherboards from Tyan.
Compare e.g. the S2880-S2885 line (http://www.tyan.com/products/html/matrix.html) - I don't think we'll be able to afford the S4880 range.
So here's my question: If we invest in this hardware, what do you think the chances will be that, when Win64 finally starts to appear next year, it will be able to run on this platform?
I've got this foreboding sense of dread that we'll spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on hardware, and thousands of man hours getting everything up and running, only to discover, a year from now, that Win64 won't be stable on that platform.
Any thoughts on this, or any gossip? At this point, I'd take any information I can get my hands on.
Thanks!
PS: This WOW [Windows on Windows] software emulation crap may be the kiss of death for Win64. The whole purpose of x86-64 is to be able to run 32-bit programs at hardware speed.
Software emulation could very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back - it certainly sank the Itanic.
Sorry, wrong digit. The i960 is (and has always been) an embedded processor. I was designing stuff with them in the early 90s, and they are still used in some RAID controllers and the like.
NT was actually prototyped on the Intel i860 processor - I know as I used to work for MS and have seen some of the original dev kit (co-processor boards that plugged into another system). But once it was obvious that the i860 was not going to be the 'next great thing' from Intel, they switched to x86.
This all means quite a bit to joe sixpack, you see...
"Before you wonder how much Intel paid me to write that, let me say that the people I talked to, bitter CPU rivals, would tell me who is at fault if one of them were. OK, one of them would tell me, the other would hem and haw. They didn't, the story matched.
So, go back to the bridge, and put the conspiracies to rest for now. There is no grand plan, just programming to do. No story here, keep moving along."
This doesn't mean anything. If there was no Intel string-pulling, both would say so like they did. But if there *was* Intel pulling the strings, obviously Intel would say no, but AMD has many reasons to not incur the Microsoft rage by publicly accusing them or even hinting at an accusation.
I'm not saying these results prove a conspiracy. I'm saying these results don't mean anything either way.
Damn, where are those mod points when you need them
Disclaimer: This opinion was created without the use of any facts
Windows NT (and family) have shipped in x86, Alpha, Clipper, PowerPC and were ported to several other chips as tests.
It's also worth noting that the Windows API is NOT native to the Windows NT family and another API could be dropped in as needed. Early versions shipped with OS/2 and Posix.1 native support as well as Win32. (And, no, these are not emulators or porting layers on top of a native API, they're just as native as Win32)
16-bit appps will no longer work if you run Windows XP 64 (as I understand it, that means no DOS app compatibility and I think it even kills Windows 3.x compatibility).
I've yet to come up with a legitimate reason for why they'd drop support for that since (IIRC) AMD64 supports running 16-bit code while running in Long mode, but there's one thing to be mindful of.
As for 32-bit apps, you'd be in luck-- they should run without a problem.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Well here's a start:
= "#A69D78"] td[bgcolor="#EBEBE1"]{background:#eee}= "#A69D78"] a[href]{color:#066}
/. page and add:
body[link="#A69D78"] td[bgcolor="#A69D78"]{background:#099}
body[link
body[link
body[link="#A69D78"] td font[color="#A69D78"]{color:#000}
May need some '!important's, and if anyone else uses the same colors/markup it'll interefere there too, but they'd deserve it anyway.
If you get the Edit CSS extension for firefox, you can just open it up on a
*{background:#fff;color:#000}
And lost in this discussion is whether the x86 architecture is actually good for consumers in the long run? It's got tons of exceptions, has an asymmetric instruction set, and is really outdated.
It's time to break the compatibility chain to allow forward progress. Kind of like depending on BIOS, ISA architecture, etc.
I'm so tired of M$ portrayed on Slashdot as a comic-book villain, often without substantial discussion of the issues.
Yea! Cool! 64bit! Blah blah blah. When it really comes down to it, is it really going to be anymore different than any other typical upgrade when 64bit OS's become available? I'm curious, for ANY OS out there, is upgrading the OS to 64bit going to be significantly better than...say, upgrading my mobo/cpu from something like a 200MhzFSB/1.2GHz to a 400MHzFSB/3.2GHzCPU system? If not, I'll just treat it as any other upgrade and wait for the Performance/Dollar actually makes sense.
We all know how server-side apps & dB's along with specialized workstations alread need 64bit goodness, but...
What common usage could joe-sixpack get from 64-bit'ness?
I know what 64-bit offers and doesn't offer so I am not talking about: "Gee my word processor seems to type faster now."
64bit allows for larger memory address' and/or _more_ parallel executions.
If a 64-bit aware app was written to handle xvid/ogg encoding would ripping/encoding movies be quicker?
I don't know about the math involved in the encoding process but ~2hrs to rip a 2hr movie seems like it is excessive. Faster CPU's do encode faster, but the difference is not linear.
The 'killer-app' for any new technology is always an obvious evolution to the existing paradigm, could movie ripping + encoding/decoding at exponentially faster then Real-Time be the next killer-app, that all of us* _need_?
*us only refers total dweebs like myself who are too impatient to wait 2hrs to watch a ripped movie. =)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Been there. Done that. Or did you think the Win64 Itanium port didn't already flush all that out. As for the "Vast" number of version specific pointers, glad you have an opinion of the internal code in an OS when you don't even realize that it's been ported for 64-bit for a LONG TIME now.
We know that SP2 is bad because people who use it say it is.
I'm running it on my Athlon 64 notebook and while there are some bugs (mostly interoperability issues with my Samba server, CPU usage occassionally jumps to 100% and stays there and I have to reboot to get rid of it, it's probably Explorer bugs rather than anything to do with Samba specifically) it's pretty decent for a Release Candidate. Microsoft is planning to carpet bomb the world with SP2 upgrade CDs though so they want to make Absolutely Sure they get it right. I'm not overly surprised that it's been delayed so much to accomplish this.
Can MS really be so crap as to take years and years to make a 64 bit version of windows where a bunch of hippies had it ready in days?
It took a lot longer than that, but 64-bit Linux has been solid for at least a few months now. That said, the delay to 1H2005 for 64-bit WinXP is rather disturbing.
Who was it, Dave Cutler at Microsoft I think who worked with AMD to help design the AMD64 architecture? Microsoft needed AMD64. They didn't want to deal with Itanic. Don't worry, eventually they'll cough up a 64-bit WinXP release, but if we've all gone 64-bit Linux by then, that's OK too.
Thanks. The grandparent had me scared there for a second.
Actually, when NT development dropped i860, they switched to the MIPS architecture (R3000 I believe), not DEC Alpha. (I remember using NT 3.1 on a MIPS R4000 system in 1993.) Once NT on MIPS was up and running, then they ported to x86. Alpha and PowerPC support did not come until later. There were also rumors of NT running on SPARC as well.
Circa 1996/1997, MS started porting the NT kernel to 64-bit mode on the DEC Alpha. The 64-bit DEC Alpha version of NT was never released commercially (the 32-bit version was, of course), but porting to 64-bit Alpha helped MS get ready for the upcoming Merced (Itanium) platform.
The code that loads the Master Boot Record and launches NTLDR is 16 bit IIRC. Other than that it's all 32 bit.
Source: Inside Windows 2000 by Mark E. Russinovich and David A. Solomon.
IMHO Don't EVER purchase hardware based on the assumption that it will be compatable with some future software. You really need to decide if you would be happy with this hardware running currently available software and purchase or wait based on that. FWIW I've got a few light servers based on this series of motherboard and running 32bit Linux (Debian) and I'm perfectly happy with the performance and reliability.
Yeah, I think we're in agreement there: I'll assume that there will be problems in upgrading to Win64, and, when they day comes, if there aren't any problems, so much the better.
The other option is to go with something older, like the Athlon MP/760MPX series of boards (such as the Tiger MPX S2466N-4M, http://www.tyan.com/products/html/tigermpx.html).
But AMD seems to have utterly abandoned the 32-bit Athlon MP line, so those platforms are pretty much a dead end, in that they offer no hope whatsoever in terms of future upgradeability. Plus, they're stuck at a 266 MHz FSB.
I suppose there's Intel, but, quite frankly, I'm not in much of a mood to give them any of our money.
Sorry, forgot to ask the questions:
1) Any problems [or "issues" or "gotchas"] that you could warn me about with the Tyan dual Opteron boards?
2) If you have experience with them, same as 1), but for the dual Athlon MP/760MPX boards.
Thanks!
I think you're off by a year on the Alpha 64 port. I remember it starting in '95 (about the same time the PowerPC port being done over at Carrilon Point was stalled while IBM and Apple argued over whether the CHRP platform ABSOLUTELY MUST or ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT support a parallel port) but that's based on memories of what building I was in so that may be hazy.
Yes, if you can find a manufacturer with 64 bit Windows drivers for their SATA controllers. Otherwise your WinXP beta won't be seeing any harddisks. (Debian pure64 installed just fine)
A pointer can address more than 8 bits (or even less than 8) if the CPU vendor really felt like it. It would make people writing a C compiler and other programmers cringe though.
A 64 bit processor that has 64 bit pointers can even decide to ignore bits (making it useless) but address less than 4 gigs.
You can already address more than 4 gig on today's hardware (see PAE on the x86, exposed in windows 2000 and above). Even without that, you can address it all using memory mapped files but you have to view chunks of it at a time.
They do require EPS12V PSUs and are physically fairly large but nothing unusual for a dual board.
We were hoping to standardize on the Enermax 600W "Noisetaker":
It's supposed to be "Intel ATX12V Ver. 1.3", but I'll have to make sure that that's the same thing as "EPS12V".You know, in the good old days, it seemed like matching a power supply to a motherboard wasn't such a royal pain in the ass.
Come on we all know that Windows XP 64 isn't going to be released tell 3Q 2064 at the ealyist and that will be a rush job. Iactualy usable verson won't be out tell late 2065.
I have a Tyan S2882 here and it rocks hard. It runs Win64 quite well, I occasionally throw it on to test something. Since the beta they handed out at the A64 launch, there have been no problems, drivers are all on the CD. It is VERY stable, no crashes for me yet, but I have not done all that much with it.
As for WOW64, the people who say it is emulation don't have a clue, it is not. It is a simple thunking layer. Ugly? A bit. Slow? Nope. Kiss of death? Hell no. WOW32 doesn't screw XP all that hard does it? There is no software emulation, it is just trollish FUD.
Short summary, Tyan+AMD64 is a damn good bet. No compatibility worries, no problems. Have fun, mine is great.
-Charlie
If you want to go with Enermax you'd probably want something like EG651AX-VH(W)FM
Good grief, those are some expensive parts:
I guess the Antec is not quite as bad: FYI: For some reason, the new Slashdot code is inserting blank spaces in all these URLs, typically after "qc=" [making it "qc= "]. Anyway, bottom line is that none of these URLs work as is.Do you remember what you used as a power supply?
Thanks!
It seems like you might as well just run the free Beta.
If NT PPC/Alpha/Mips still existed TODAY - they'd have a much better chance of survival (mainly as web/application servers), because the core apps like backoffice, etc, coupled with a more mature Java implementation, and/or
As opposed to an NT PPC/Alpha/MIPS box in 1995, which would be pretty much useless.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.