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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
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
"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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
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!
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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
and yes, it looks rather attractive, as usual.
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 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
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)
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
You call your parent a troll, yet totally confirm what he says - that 64-bit Linux is still basically beta, and that if Microsoft is also at the same stage as Linux in this regard it is fully justified in delaying the release of 64-bit XP, as it would obviously not be a 'good thing' to release beta-stage software as as a final product.
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.
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)
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.