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Windows XP-64 Delayed Into 2005

Posted by simoniker on from the better-late-than-ever dept.

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."

5 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Re:supported linux versions available as well by rivaldufus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't forget FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. They all have 64bit versions of their OS, and they are all free.

  2. *BSD by c_ollier · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  3. Re:Windows is not designed for these things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  4. Re:Windows is not designed for these things by demon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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!"
  5. Re:WOW64 by turm · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    Lies.

    Windows and FreeBSD both do exactly the same thing, which is to let 32-bit programs run at full-speed, natively, on the cpu. Practically the whole point of AMD64 architecture is backwards compatibility. The world didn't need another Itanium.

    WOW64 Implementation Details