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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."
It's better they release it a little late than with more bugs.
"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...
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.
Not a full 64-bit OS, at least at the moment.
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
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.
Com Op: Error it appears the bashing launch codes were stolen and bashing commenced earlier than intended.
Captain: Quick into the time machine to stop this all from happening at the wrong time.
Sarg: I'll go
Sarg: I'm back
Captain: how can you be back? this reality was supposed to just disappear if you suceeded.
Sarg: that particular mission objective could not be satisfied. Instead I changed the earth's rotation on it's axis so that the microsoft bashing would occur in the right "time zone" thus making the parent poster, technically, correct.
Captain: that's absurd!
Sarg: well, at least we tried, sir.
Captain: true. How did you get the earth to move?
Sarg: I went back in time and aided the release of I, robot with will smith. Asimov was buried in the perfect location to allow for a violent spinning in his grave to realign the earth.
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.
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
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.