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Microsoft to Launch 64-bit Windows on Monday
maotx writes "Several news outlets are reporting that Microsoft will officially roll out 64-bit versions of its Windows operating systems on Monday. As compared with existing 32-bit versions: 64-bit Windows will handle 16 terabytes of virtual memory, as compared to 4 GB for 32-bit Windows. System cache size jumps from 1 GB to 1 TB, and paging-file size increases from 16 TB to 512 TB."
640k ought to be enough for anybody.
> paging-file size increases from 16 TB to 512 TB
:)
Hope that's a maximum, not required
It still has Solitaire, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
64-bit Windows will handle 16 terabytes of virtual memory, as compared to 4 GB for 32-bit Windows.
16 terabytes! That oughta be enough for anybody!
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Just wondering. Obviously Solaris, IRIX, Linux, AIX, Mac OS X and whatever other UNIX flavors are out there (well, except for maybe SCO...) have had 64-bit support for some number of years now.
:)
Is Windows the last major commercial OS to add 64-bit support, or are there others I'm missing?
(Even if it is the last one, I'm sure Microsoft will tout this as supremely innovative.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
They have caught up with Ninendo64!
seems nice, fast, haven't had any BSOD. The only problem, not many 32 bit apps run for me. You MUST run IE, WMP, etc. Windows 64
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
This isn't meant to be a big release. It's simply a slightly different version of the current OS'es but tweaked for the 64-bit extensions found in Opteron and new Xeons. I wouldn't be surprising if the CPU makers are the forces behind the "big news" here.
Microsoft has sought to add more features to make their releases more "earth-shaking." But most of those features are of no use to most people. What features could they have added that many wouldn't have seen as either a monopolistic strategy or redundant?
With a history like Microsoft, you have to be careful where you step.
As for Steve, he would most probably name this iWin.
Mmm... well sort of. AFAIK, Tiger isn't fully 64bit. The only thing that is 64 bit in Tiger is its support for 64 memory for POSIX based apps...(Command line apps; server daemons and such) Tigers kernel will reside in 32 bit address space so that it can still run on the G3 and G4. XPx64 is fully 64 and as such can only run on the x64 architecture and is by no mean a patch up job.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
...has somuch more useless information that you need a dual monitor set up just to read it.
BlackNova Traders
64-bit Windows has been available for Itanium for several years now.
MS: "We finally have a 64-Bit version of Windows. Page file and virtual memory sizes have increased substantially. In recognition of this, all native Windows apps and all new releases of Office, Visual Studio .Net, and other core Microsoft products will be quickly bloated to take full advantage of these new sizes!"
I've been messing around with Ubuntu for x86-64 lately and while it is pretty snappy, I miss things a lot of the little things (like the flash plugin) that were never compiled for a 64 bit system.
Is Microsoft going to have a similar problem, in that it has a nice OS, but few apps to run on it?
Goatse alert!
Mod parent down
No sig for the moment.
Microsoft also provided 64-bit Windows NT for Sparc. However, this is their up-to-date operating system ported to a 64-bit arch.
Do they release it because It Just Works?
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
It means we will be able to run "bloatware" such as Emacs without it constantly swapping!
I mean, as I do not own any computer that will ever reach the amount of 16 TB of hard drive space (assuming that there won't be any super-low-price 16 TB hard drives for sale during the next few years), the 16 TB limit would be enough for me as it is.
Were the cache and page file maximum size limits the only changes (besides making the OS work at 64 bit)?
I hope they updated the integrated drivers list because if the installation still requires me to use floppy disk in order to use SATA drives, I'd quit the installation instantly. I don't have a floppy disk device nor do I intend to buy any extra hardware just to make an OS work on my computer.
The submission is absolutely misleading.
Windows Server 2003 has supported 64-bits (Enterprise Edition and Datacenter edition) since its launch on IA64(Itanium). Before that, they also had 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 Server.
Windows XP Professional also had a 64-bit version since 2003, again running on the Itanium. However, XP on Itanium was discontinued as no one was using it outside MS testing labs.
Whats gonna be launched are x64 editions of XP and 2003 Server.
Life is just a conviction.
We aren't talking quantum leaps in computing. . .
Actually, this is a quantum leap in computing. The leaps have gone in the sequence 4,8,16,32,64. I leave it as an exercise for the student to determine what the next quantum leap in the sequence might be.
Now, let's not always see the same hands.
MS simply made the jump a bit later than some.
AMD supplied the needed energy to jump to the next, ummmm, shell, by applying a cattle prod to their collective posteriors.
KFG
With kernel 2.6.11 I had no problem malloc()'ing 2^47 bytes (128TB) ! Memory overcommitting is on, of course. While it seems like an unneeded feature now, remember that W$ limitation means you cannot mmap() stuff >16TB, and this will be a painful limitation in a year or two (1TB IDE disks will soon be launched, I heard).
In addition, I was _really_ surprised to see that Intel's compiler still keeps "long" to 4 bytes on windows (didn't check, but so says their doc). With NO standard integer type for 64 bit, programming is set to be no fun on x86_64 under windows.
Last time I tried one of the Betas for this on my AMD64 box I couldn't get network live as there were no drivers for either my Yukon Marvell onboard NIC or my Netgear wg311v2 wireless card.
Has this changed or are we going to have an OS that is largely useless due to lack of drivers for common hardware ?
By cpu makers you mean Intel I pressume (face it: AMD has no real influence on such things). Diclaimer: I'm using AMD
One that hath name thou can not otter
So are they catching up to linux or far ahead? I found an announcement from april 12
here (google cache as html) about IBM's new linux based OpenPower series that can handle 64GB of memory, is ubuntu-64 or other distro already able to do what xp-64 can as far as the accessible memory/disk?
Not that we'll ever need it (hah hah).
I guess the race is on to see who can write the biggest "hello" program.
Dude, please, don't say shit like that. It might be taken as a challange. Next thing you know we'll be having people bragging about their "Hello" programs including Feel-O-Round support.
KFG
To try and take away the thunder from Mac OS X "Tiger".
section .text
global _start
msg db 'hello luser',0xa
mov edx, 0xc
mov ecx, msg
mov ebx, 0x1
mov eax, 0x4
int 0x80
mov ebx, 0
mov eax, 1
int 0x80
hehe, assembly is still the way to go.
Freedom or George Bush
Now, with the world's first 64-bit operating system, they have further extended their lead.
How long will it be until competitors such as IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer and Linux Technology get their code ported to 64-bits?
Will this finally render all other operating systems obsolete?
Corporations and novice users the world over have come to appreciate the simplicity and ease of installing and administering Windows(TM) systems. Now they can do this it 64-bits, with the added speed and simplicity this provides.
Internet downloads, MP3 music and DVD video have never been so fast, stable, efficient and high-quality.
Programmers too will feel the benefit of 64-bit .NET technology, allowing portability across all versions of Windows on diverse processor architectures from intel(TM) and cheap Advanced Micro Devices(TM) not-quite-work-alikes, making them viable in the Enterprise and for home gaming for the very first time.
I've pre-ordered my 5 license pack for Windows-64 Home Edition(R)(TM)(pat pending) already. Have you? What are you waiting for?
Stick Men
"Maybe I'm lucky"
Yes, you are. I'm running Windows XP Home Edition right now and I'll be damned if it doesn't blue screen two times a day.
DEC had 64 bit ALPHA processors in 1992, Linux didn't gain 64 bit support until 1996. That's still early, but your statement is not true.
Even 32-bit Windows (at least the enterprise editions) can address up to 36-bits of physical memory using PAE.. not 32-bits, providing far more than 4GB.
Windows NT 3-4 ran on the Alpha and MIPS, yes. I know. I have that OS media, though I lack the CPUs.
Windows Server 200x ran on IA64 (FSVO "ran").
That said, in terms of versions of Windows that Joe User might actually have, running on hardware that Joe User might actually have... this is big news.
(Especially if you look at Windows on previous 64-bit platforms, as a percentage of total installed base...)
That said, I do, technically, sit corrected.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Will they bit 64bit too? Then we could use them for mplayer on pure 64bit Linux's which currently only supports dll loading on 32bit due to the fact that no 64bit dll is around. OR will Microsoft cheat and just provide 32bit versions of these which I think is more likely.
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
Technically, Windows NT on Alpha (and Solaris I do believe) was merely running in 32bit "mode" (Still used 64bit pointers, however the top word was merely masked off.)
It wasn't until Windows 2000 for Alpha (the version that was literally cut right before shipment... some people managed to get a copy) that full 64bit apps were available!
-Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Essentially what the new version of Windows XP does is support the full functionality of the x86-64 CPU instructions. Something that is now practical given the large number of sales of machines using the Athlon64/Opteron CPU architecture and recent-production Pentium 4's that also support x86-64 instructions.
The biggest vendor of chips that Windows runs on was still 32-bit until recently. As far as the market is concerned, there was little demand for 64-bit Windows on the desktop until Intel started talking 64-bit. Maybe Windows should support 128-bit x86 processors now so that in 20 years it will be first?
I must admit that W2k for Alpha was the best and most stable version of Windows I've ever had. It had essentially zero application support though.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
Eek! Not solaris... MIPS / PowerPC!!! Must been something funny in my corn flakes this morning. I heard someone did a SPARC port, but I never saw the techincal details of it.
-Panb
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Cool. PAE must really come in handy on all those x86 boxen with room for 64GB of RAM. But there seem to be a few catches.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Ballmer: we've been working hard to find more bits for some time now
Press: so what exactly was found?
Ballmer: well i'm not entirely sure, you see everyone has been raving about us lacking in the bits in our products
Press: so what did you actually do about it?
Ballmer: we simply acquired the bits we were missing from our product offerings, various high profile acquisitions were conducted to ensure all bits were accounted for
Press: can you tell us preciously who was acquired ?
Ballmer: that would be telling, however I can say that I don't have the slightest idea what all this means, our customers have just been saying "give us more bits!" - we firmly believe we've been innovating for 20 years to continuly improve our products to contain more bits, or features as you will.
Press: Steve, I don't think you understand what you're talking about
Ballmer: we firmly believe we've been innovating for 20 years to continuly improve our products to contain more bits, or features as you will.
Press: you just said that, do you have anything more to add?
Ballmer: we now have more bits than the rest of the software vendor industry!
Press: yeah sure, you do..... {cut!}
Agreed. There were probably 64-bit CPUs out there before Linux existed. :)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Wrong. A hardcore nerd doesn't have enough social skills to convert their relatives.
Linux is not Windows
A quantum is the smallest discrete amount.
So, the key word here is leap. It's a 32 bit leap.
Now this is a pretty big leap. Even at one G, it is much greater than say a 'giant leap'.
Think about it a minute (which is a huge number of Cesium state transitions). A small step might bypass one quantum unit. i.e. 5 bits to 7 bits. A giant step might bypass 2 - 6 quantum. The mother of all leaps, some 16 bits pales in comparisonto 32. NO! this is a mind boggling leap. More in the category of Rebus Kaneebus jumping to the center of the earth.
But don't forget. We owe it all to two state signalling. Thank you Morris the code cat.
Which brings to mind. If a chicken can learn to play the piano, why can so few humans learn Morris code?
Don't know what you're problem is but I have Windows 2000, and using NTFS i've got some files that are over 8gb.
Update Watch - Automatic software update notification
It's this kind of childish fanboyism that's keeping many people from trying Linux out.
Linux has it's reasons and uses, so does Windows. The secret is choosing the right tool for your job, according to your skills, patience and time. Linux can be a better tool for some (I use it at home and at work, after I convinced my boss it was ok to let me use it if I didn't lose any productivity), but for everybody. Flaming these people calling them losers is not going to win any of them to your cause, let alone leave them a positive impression about you and the operative system you're promoting. For this reason, your behaviour is more damaging to Linux than the propaganda you normally get from Microsoft.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
COME ON.
Please not again this "why is the maximum 1000, NOBODY will ever use more then 10" talk.
Why should it be limited to less than 512TB? Any reason for such a thing? No.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Nowadays I think it's more like, "Three user-land tasks should be enough for poor foreigners."
Stick Men
Will they dear to offend the EU commisioner?
your attempt at mocking windows loses some of its luster by your misplaced numbers :P 640GB is more than .5TB so you kinda just told the world you didn't know their values in relation to each other :P
Besides, Mr. Clippy provides a valuable service that the /. community needs and clammors for, right?
64 bit OS would be nice in the Windows Arena for me.. I can happily run the 64bit Linux distros, but have been sitting around on Win2k for games playing...
A large part of the reason I didn't get XP was the 'activation' after sizable hardware rebuilds (about a 12 month cycle for me, unless something breaks)..
If it's on the 64 bit Windows release, I guess I won't be getting that either.
the security problems that have dogged them for years, the good press from "innovation" will be overshadowed by the latest exploit.
64 bits will mean nothing to the small business owner who's data has been stolen by some kid in Romania.
photosMy Photostream
Well... it seems to work better that way.
Not that I'm using MS Windows, mind you. Hehehe.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
This just in: Google adopting Windows as primary OS of choice...
Uhh.. NTFS has always been a 64 bit filesystem. FAT is 32 bit and only supports 2GB files.
Also, many C based apps only use a 32 bit file pointer, so that could be your problem as well.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
They provided Windows NT for Sparc, or they produced it and kept it 'in the can'? I've never seen it 'in the wild' nor have I seen where to order it on www.microsoft.com.
I routinely work with files over the 2gb limit...
That's a filesystem limit, not an OS limit. Use NTFS (yuck!), and you won't have that problem...
AFAIK there was never NT for Sparc, there were "only" Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC versions. There were plans to port it to SPARC, but I'm not sure they ever did it.
Sounds a lot like NT 4.0 for Power PC.
I brought it up on a PREP box, then scoured the net using it's built-in Internet Explorer 2.0 trying to find ANYTHING that would run on it.
Felt kinda like the last passenger pidgeon flying around helplessly.
Not true. The system is based on Fat Binaries. These allow an executable package to contain code for multiple platforms. Theoretically, you could put versions of the same application for NextStep MC68K, OpenStep, OSX 32, OSX 64, Darwin x86 and several others in the same package and have it look like one program. Too big for you? Run lipo to remove versions you don't need. The whole system is based around this concept, allowing the OS to be fully 64bit on 64bit systems and fully 32bit on 32bit systems. Even XCode allows people on 32bit machines to design and compile applications for both platforms and release the compiled application in fat binary format.
BTW NT is little endian. Running on a big endian cpu would like change EVERYTHING..
Yep.. I really wish that Intel will kill the suckage Itanic and pickup the Alpha chips.
The fact that itanic depends on the freakin compiler to reorder instructions is beyond dumb. Only the cpu can know the appropriate order that works best in a multi-threaded environment.
HP and Intel, bring back the Alpha!
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I had W2k blue-screen because of an imcompatibility with my CD burner's software. XP has blue-screened on me once and that was due to a DIMM not being fully seated. Other than that, it just sits and hums along.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
wow, who'd've thunk it, the day when a program would require more RAM than it does hard drive space;-)
We aren't talking quantum leaps in computing, and that's the problem.
Lol, you should go find out what a quantum leap actually is.
The jump from 32 bit to 64 bit Windows is precisely a quantum leap.
Unless you can show me the (infinite number of) versions of Windows that have 32 > bits 64 !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Plus, it will swap everything out to disk even when there's terabyte of free RAM no matter how hard you plead with it not to!
Seriously, when will Redmond stop eutrophycating and start engineering this platform, that once showed so much promise?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages; all alike.
Incidentally, all those old Windows NT RISC ports were all 32-bit, using the 32-bit compatibility features of those processors initially designed to run legacy software. The way that the AMD64 architecture handles backwards compatibility is quite similar to those RISC processors.
Stick Men
grr haha me idiot
32 > bits < 64 !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Windows ia a:
32-bit kludge running on top of a
16-bit patch to an
8-bit operating system written for a
4-bit microprocessor by a
2-bit company that can't stand
1-bit of competition
The only real advantage 64-bit has over 32-bit for anyone outside of the supercomputing realm is the memory it can access. ALL applications in Tiger can access 64-bit memory if they are written for it meaning the backend is not written for Cocoa but for Darwin. BTW, Darwin is different than POSIX.
The true genius of Apple is that the data model for Tiger is LP64 which means source for Linux, SGI and Sun is easy to port to the G5 with Tiger.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
If they were YOUR servers, you'd be wearing a suit, and not that smelly RPM sweatshirt. Face it, YOU ARE THE DATA JANITOR. It hurts when the people in the nice clothes walk by your floor scrubber without even noticing they're marring your newly waxed floor, but that's life when you decide to be a Janitor-grade employee.
NOW GET ON UP TO THE LJET4 ON THIRD FLOOR AND CHANGE THE FUCKING TONER CARTRIDGE, BOY. Hop to it!
...their error report server could not handle the Explorer crash reports.
16TB of virtual memory... 512TB page file... aren't they the same thing?
IIRC, SGI had it in 1992
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
The only real benefit to most people is the artificial limit of 2GB (user data addressable) for a single win32 process.
Everything else isn't really a benefit but actually decreases performance by a small amount (either increase memory usage and/or increased time due to increased memory usage)
It always makes me laugh when people think that 64bit is like the magical bullet of performance. For 99% of people, there is no reason to change for a few years yet.
XP x64 isn't fully 64bit. One example is Windows Media Player 10, which is still 32bit
:o :~)
Yes, but remember that Media Player most definitely is not, oh no, no way, not at all, move along nothing to see here, couldn't even possibly be, not even in the realms of possibilties be, no not even if we wanted to make it, part of the operating system.
You'll be saying IE is only 32 bit next
The big reason for going to 64-bit Windows has nothing to do with the word size. The main reason is that AMD64 has shed another chunk of the 8086 instruction set legacy. The IA32 has 8 32-bit general purpose registers, about the same total register storage as the Cosmac 1802... a 4/8 bit microprocessor from the '70s. AMD64 gives you 16 64-bit registers, which is pretty small for a 64-bit machine (Alpha and Power have 32) but big enough to give the compiler room to work in, especially since it's also doubling the number of SSE registers.
Here's some other computers for comparison:
PDP-11, late '60s... 8 16-bit general purpose registers.
VAX, '70s... 16 32-bit GPRs.
68000, ~'80... 8 32-bit GPRs, 8 32-bit index registers.
z8000, ~'80... 16 16-bit registers.
8086, late '70s, 8 16-bit GPRs.
MIPS, '80s, 32 32-bit registers.
SPARC, ~'90... 32 32-bit GPRs, but only 8 were really usable as GPRs for the optimiser. Thus has hurt the Sparc's performance.
Power PC, '90s, 32 32 or 64-bit GPRs
Alpha, '90s, 32 64-bit registers
I would say the 4x register-file space increase is going to be far more important than the larger virtual memory.
It is part of what comes with the XP x64. I am thinking of the OS in a broader sense.
Actually, it comes with IE 32bit and IE 64bit.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
Will there be a solid implementation of 64 bit java to go with this new system? I see benefit in allowing java server applications to go beyond the current 2GB limit that 32 bit java applcations are faced with.
Almost definately an issue with a driver, or some software which plays with lower level things (CD burners and firewalls are common things here).
I've never seen an XP box bluescreen for any reason other than bad/out-of-date drivers (or sometimes the aforementioned software), or genuine hardware failure.
Don't forget NT4 for Alpha.
Just in case anybody was curious about what the term LP64 implies, or what the alternatives choices where, this page describes them.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
There was a 64 bit version of NT, for the Alpha chip, when it first reached 500Mhz (around '95)
Yeah - FAT32 has some 48GB limit, I found this out when I installed a 200GB harddrive, and wanted it in FAT32 so I could have write access under Linux.
Instead I just ran into numerous problems and formatted the drive w/ NTFS leaving a smaller FAT32 partition.
I am not aware of a 64 bit port to SPARC. I know they had 32 bit build for alpha, ppc, MIPS. I have heard from reliable sources that there was a 64 bit port of NT 5 beta (eventually named Win2k) to Alpha. Apparently, a lot of the code from that port was used to make the 64 bit Itanium port.
Just think, you could have a Windows NT (i.e. XP or Professional whatever) machine that would run Windows, Solaris and Linux binaries on AMD64 hardware.
Stick Men
I have an Athlon 64 system I built, and I'm currently running regular Windows XP Home (which I had a license for from a previous computer, and didn't feel like buying XP Pro). One thing I haven't seen yet is what the costs will be of this x64 version of Windows XP. Will it be a free upgrade? If not, any idea on what it's going to cost? One reason I never tried out the pre-release version of x64 is that it seemed to require an XP Pro key, which I didn't have.
Considering they had a version of Windows NT for the 64-bit DEC Alpha over 10 years ago...
M$, like everybody else, totally lost 7 years of 64-bit potential by sacrificing the Alpha. Compaq could have taken the chip when they bought DEC, slapped the intel instruction set onto it in some fashion, and had a 4 year head-start on AMD and Intel BOTH in producing the 64-bit PC.
but they blew it. as did everybody else.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I've heard that MS will give this version free to current licencees of 32-bit XP Pro. Does anyone know when/how we're supposed to get the x86-64 version?
Windows XP for 64 Bit processors is already available for download on the MSDN download site.
If it was "simply stated to incense" it would be flamebait. Learn how to fucking mod.
This sig is false.
You know, I have never once heard a user complain about bloat, or joke about Clippy, for that matter. Even when Clippy jokes had the virtue, at least, of novelty.
What is this obsession with duel booting? It's all very well being able to access your Windows data while running Linux, and your Linux data while running Windows, but then you need to run something VMWare-ish to process your data with the application you really need from the other OS.
Or just get a 2nd PC and network them.
NT is endian-neutral (else it wouldn't be able to run the new PPC970 Xbox2, as the 970 is only big-endian).
I'm not entirely sure *when* that happened, as the old Alpha, etc, versions of NT all ran the chips in little-endian mode, but it is certainly true today.
What's your problem with dual booting? I have a reasonably good computer, and I want to have the maximum performance possible in either operating system.
Plus I have no problems with having a dual boot setup and it's quite functional.
As for VMWare, VMWare is not free unless you warez it, and really VMWare has several limitations. Eg. Multisim 7 runs very slow, 3d applications just don't work, etc (it's a good product otherwise, I love VMWare for what it can do)
I need these applications and I have no choice in my need of them unless I seek another profession. If I had all the software I needed under Linux, I probably wouldn't bother with dual booting. But reality dictates otherwise...
A second PC is something I have used for a long time, but then that second PC got outdated, and I don't want to spend the money on another PC. Keeping one computer upgraded is enough of a financial burden on me, two is just not realistic.
I imagine IE 32bit is included so that it can be embedded in 32bit applications that rely on it.
-Lucas
Activation involves a painless, short call, and no personal information being released.
A switch of numbers, and on your way.
What a troll. I've been using XP Media Center for years with plenty of 6+ GB files (2 hour TV recordings at 6 mbit/sec) - and files of this size have been supported since long before that. In fact I think NTFS has always supported this.
IIRC there was an Alpha port of NT 4 as well. Wasn't Alpha 64-bit?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
But is it 64bit native one or a 32bit one run in a virtual machine? I suppose that a 64bit solitaire runs better than a 32bit solitaire. :-)
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
that is will crash twice as much since 32x2=64
The Alpha was 64-bit, the Alpha version of NT was mostly 32-bit due to the architectural limitations of NT.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I've had so much more performance and stability, (until of course you use up installed physical memory), since paging has been turned off.
So if that's the best feature MS can offer, then it really is a pointless upgrade...umm or in my thinking *downgrade*.
Sure for some special applications this might be good, but for the average Joe running his email and an occasional spreadsheet why does it matter? What we have now vastly exceedes 99% of users needs now.
Except of course to help force people back into the upgrade cycle.
"just beacuse" isnt a reason to do something.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I know they had 32 bit build for alpha, ppc, MIPS
The port (3.51 and NT4) to Alpha was definitly 64-Bit...
Windows NT
I am not an up-time junky, but rebooting is a serious break in multi-tasking and continuity. That is my problem with duel booting.
Well, technically Windows x64 Edition will be out a few days before OS X "Tiger" - which is the first version of OS X to have any real 64-bit support.
It's also worth noting that adding 64-bit support to a PowerPC-based OS is much easier than adding it to an x86-based OS. PowerPC was designed with 64-bit operation in mind, x86 was not.
Prior to "Tiger," the best OS X could do was to support 4GB of memory per processor, with a maximum of 4GB of memory given to one application (because of the 32-bit address map).
Windows XP has been able to do that in PAE mode ("Physical Address Extension") for years now. That's why two years ago you could buy 32-bit Xeon systems with 12GB of memory from Dell (and you still can).
Given the nature of the move to 64-bit architectures, I think the industry as a whole is doing quite well.
If you want to bicker about Windows x64 vs. Tiger, then Windows clearly wins. In Tiger, GUI apps can't be 64-bit (you have to write 2 executables to support 32-bit graphical output from a 64-bit backend service). Windows x64 has no such limitation.
Windows: A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.
Looks like its time to add a new line for 64 bits... any suggestions?
Does Windows allow you to install multiple versions in the same partition, and select which to run on boot?
I have some devices that will not have 64 bit driver support for the foreseeable future (HDTV receiver cards), so I can't go completely 64 bit. But, I would like to try my Athlon64 at full power for other stuff.
Also, I wouldn't mind trying out XP Media Center for some HDTV stuff. Can these co-exist?
Actually NTFS has supported files upto 16TB in size since 1992.
type Convert c: /FS:ntfs on the command line if u are using a non 9x OS
Some people like having a little break in
multitasking and continuity.
Remind me why 64-bit windows only provides a virtual address space of 16 TB, when a 64-bit address can address 2^64 = 16 exabytes.
NT worked fine on the Alpha. Not MS's fault that few people want (and even less need) 64 bit CPU's - hence the lack of third party interest.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
- why don't you order a 8-way Opteron? Each CPU supports 4 DDR modules and 2GB ones are available (probably $1K/piece). This gives you 8*4*2=64GB ...
-The largest SATA drive on Pricewatch is ~400GB. You need 160 of them to reach your limit, but again, I don't see why it's not possible
Of course, you more likely to call Sun/IBM with such an order.
Microsoft worked hand in hand with AMD on this OS. AMD has more clout than you think, they just don't have the marketing muscle that intel has (or their heaping loads of cash)
Was that a nod to Tom Lehrer?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And that's exactly why I've said that Intel is the force behind it - with their marketing muscle, they'll really benefit from this, not AMD (unfortunatelly...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
On the other hand, it's not only a recompile. They disallowed some practices for drivers (made a few structures write-protected after boot and so on), but to fit your kind of description, I think a recompile fits quite well...
The word you're after is "relevant". 13 years ago a 64 bit desktop's advantages over a 32 bit one were completely irrelevant (personally I think they still are today and are likely to remain so for another couple of years at least).
Lol, +1 insightful. Mods on crack or what?
I am trolling
The Blue Screen of death will now appear in gorgeous 64-bit color. Which is still ummm, blue, actually.
Yeah, Microsoft is jumping the Tiger gun by 5 days. That's to be expected. With the specs that are quoted, what exactly is the net gain to the enduser? Are users going to suddenly go, "Oh! Gee, that's what I've been missing all this time?". Other than the increased memory footprint, even on OSX there's very little in way of "Holy Cow!" increases for the enduser. This isn't to say that this isn't the groundwork for some very interesting long term gains. Overall, those that leverage the advantages of 64bit design in the most inovative ways are going to distinguish themselves - that alone will rule out Redmond. Inovation isn't their hallmark. Now, if I could just get a 64bit version of Textedit. Then we'd be cooking with gas.
Sigs? We don't need no steekin Sigs!
But, I think the time might be now, after all. If more people got used to the idea of just memory mapping their data, that could really bring some benefits. And, as it happens, their data may be several hundred MBs, at least. The 32-bit memory space is crammed. Also look at Windows, which without an automatic rebasing creates quite a few relocation conflicts that needs to be resolved at load time. Without any real need for it...
Of course, NT on AXP was never 64-bit. It used the 32-bit mode of the Alpha CPUs. IA-64 was the first _actual_ 64-bit version of Windows. And really, there were never any real application ports for any of the other major arches Windows was ported to back in the day (MIPS, PPC, AXP) - at least Alpha/AXP had FX!32 to allow x86 apps to be run...
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
That's because it ships with BSOD disabled. It can still freeze or reboot though, and I've found it will. Rarely enough to be tolerable, and nowhere near as bad as old versions, but it definitely happens, roughly once a month or so. (My linux box hasn't crashed since christmas, and I've been using it more).
I am trolling
Is that clear?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I was counting reboots like that as occurences of the blue screen (this is very much a "friends begging you to fix their computer" issue here) since you can still see it for a second, and I usually disable the automatic reboot.
Seriously still never seen it outside of the conditions I noted. I've had XP boxes run for 4 or 5 months (rebooting for updates kills windows uptime though) without problems. I've certainly never seen a "slow approach" bluescreen like you describe, and as were so common on previous versions of the OS. Admittedly though, most XP installs I've seen were post-SP1 (until about that time, most people I knew were either using a 9x system or 2k...).
Even there...
I use NTFS...
And there is STILL a very stupid 2Gb limitation on Windoze XP that pisses off anyone who ever had to do video or sound editing: the fscking recycle bin recycles up to 2gb max.
I have a 200gb drive. I have a 4gb file. I cannot make any mistakes while trashing that file, or else I need to undelete.
That's the world upside down. I would say you'd need to be more careful of bigger files than smaller, don't you think?
Mike
Does Windows allow you to install multiple versions in the same partition, and select which to run on boot?
Yup.. and XP64 creates a Program Files (x86) and a WIN64 directory so it doesn't conflict with your regular XP32 install.
It doesn't seem to be monthly, just random averaging about once a month, and this is post-SP2. Could be hardware but memtest ran ok and there's not much else which could go wrong. The nic is quite old but they tend to run forever, the one in the linux box is from the same time. It seems to be good old random windows instability to me, though admittedly I'm biased.
I am trolling
Sounds like a case of YMMV to me. I can assure you that it's certainly not common, in any case.
And you would still be wrong for saying so. AMD still pioneered the tech behind it and Microsoft is even using their hardware for themselves. While it makes for a good theory, your thoughts on this are just wrong.
There is a conjecture that if an infinite number of monkeys were set pounding away on an infinite number of typewriters, and given an infinite amount of time, one monkey would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.
Others believe that a work such as Shakespeare's, which requires creative judgement to produce, could never emerge from randomness and chaos.
However, I believe that at Microsoft's campus, there are an infinite number of monkeys pounding away at an infinite number of computer keyboards, and whenever something that looks like computer software emerges from the chaos, Microsoft's marketing department packages and sells it.
"64-bit Windows will handle 16 terabytes of virtual memory, as compared to 4 GB for 32-bit Windows. System cache size jumps from 1 GB to 1 TB, and paging-file size increases from 16 TB to 512 TB."
Seriously, yesterday I was downloading tons of babe pictures from model sites using FireFox. Windows XP repeatedly told me my virtual memory space was too low and it was upping it, and while doing so, requests for memory might be denied. Whereupon the system got noticeably slower. Rebooting solved the problem for a while, but after another hour or two, it happened again.
So either FireFox has a serious memory leak, or Windows just can't handle memory no matter how much it has. I have 512MB and the only other thing running besides my usual tray utilities was my file manager. The same config right now shows only around 256MB being used with a peak of 300+MB.
Besides, who cares? Having more access to memory merely means Microsoft will bloat Windows with more "features" that nobody uses, anyway.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I use NTFS...
And there is STILL a very stupid 2Gb limitation on Windoze XP that pisses off anyone who ever had to do video or sound editing: the fscking recycle bin recycles up to 2gb max.
No wonder I've never heard of this limitation... I turn off the Recycle Bin at first boot. And since my bigger files tend to be "more valuable", yes, I do take better care of them. (Backing up 16GB database files does suck...)
No, he was right. No one would ever *NEED* it.. ( though i bet he meant GB not MB. As back then Floppies were pushing 1 MB )
Anything more is just wasteful *WANT*.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A year or two ago, I read, here somewheres, that ALL drivers had to be 64-bit, if one switched. . .
IF that is true, and one has to get drivers for a bunch of strange stuff for one's AMD64 notebook ( dig the screen-space & capability on this barebones Asus 'book ), and such aren't going to be all available, then it makes sense to go with SUSE AMD64 & Win-32, doesn't it?
I don't want to buy 2 copies of WinXP just because the first one won't really work. . .
Specifically, I'm thinking of 3rd-party drivers. . .
IPTables enhancement Fail2Ban bans cracker-login's
That seems strange. You may be correct, but during the beta there most certainly was a 64-bit version of WMP. However, it would not work with 32-bit plug-ins, which may be the reason they decided not to ship it with an x64 build (and WMP doesn't really *need* to be 64-bit anyway).
Also, 32-bit IE is there so that 32-bit viruses, err, ActiveX controls can be used. You can't easily embed 32-bit code in a 64-bit app.
Correction: an alpha of 64-bit windows has been available for both itanium machines for at least 18 months now.
Stick Men
Today.. but in time it will become required ..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Do these guys know no limits (for their memory hungry OS)? Must remember... to buy memory manufacturers stocks...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
x86-64 Windows is completely incapable of running 16-bit DOS executbles. While you may think this is unimportant, unfortunately far too many dumb websites still distribute those "self extracting" archives that are 16-bit DOS executables. In many cases these archives containly ONLY a PDF, or other cases 32bit/64bit software. Distributors somehow think self extracting archives are "friendlier" to users and keep using the same old archivers that they used 10 years ago because it wasn't a problem for anyone.
Of course this always was annoying to me because I use nothing but Linux. And the very idea of executing untrusted programs from 3rd parties is somewhat scary...
... I was supposed to receive a copy in Friday, but things got messed up. I will try win 2003 64 bit on Athlon 3000+ machine. If it is good enough I might search for a corporate license. If not, will put the cd in the microwave and torch/torture it to death :)
sex is better than war!
I also used RedHat on the same machine, and its pointers were 8 bytes long (64 bits).
I'm not sure what makes you think that... Even the web page that you linked in your post disagrees:
"NT runs on 64-bit Alpha hardware and offers 64-bit files and file systems but has yet to address the key 64-bit requirement to support large amounts of physical memory for enhancing database performance."
Running on a system capable of 64 bits does not mean the OS itself is 64 bits. The Win64 API didn't even exist when NT4 came out.
Actually Scandisk was introduced in Dos 6.2 http://www.nukesoft.co.uk/msdos/dosversions.shtml Although Mediaplayer existed, it was packaged seperately. Also Windows 3.x was a 16-bit system- there were some awful memory hacks to keep that kludge going
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
x86-64 Windows is completely incapable of running 16-bit DOS executbles. While you may think this is unimportant, unfortunately far too many dumb websites still distribute those "self extracting" archives that are 16-bit DOS executables.
Oh good, that means that maybe, just maybe, they'll have to quit using these Windows-specific malware-promoting abominations! Thank you' I really appreciate a bit of good news.
Well, technically Windows x64 Edition will be out a few days before OS X "Tiger" - which is the first version of OS X to have any real 64-bit support.
Or not.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
You're still missing my point...look at it not from the perspective of techs/geeks/ms even, but managers/average consumers. That is what matters unfortunatelly..
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually you've been able to buy Windows XP x64 for weeks now from several OEM vendors. I was speaking of official announcements, however.
Oh, great!
Oh, joy!
Dispite being able to support (currently) more than needed amount of RAM, this post thinks it's impressive to tout the size of 64-bit addressing for paging files!?!?!?
"Windows based mandatory paging: It's not a weakness in design, it's a feature!"
you think it takes true genious to come up with that?
and bigots.
I've owned an Athlon 64 for about a year now... I'm happy that now I can get it running in the mode it was designed for.
I can finally justify my purchase... well... Sort of...
Of course perhaps I'm too pessimistic...but where money are we'll going to hear probably something among "look how wonderfully ms and intel cooperate, just like in the good old times; this product must thus be amazing, we have to buy it"
One that hath name thou can not otter
When AMD designed the x86-64 instruction set some of the early prototypes had more registers exposed. However that left less registers available to the optimizers on this chip (I forget what they call this), so the performance was less with more registers.
FAT32 is limited to 2GB for any single file, not 2GB of total files.
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Yes and no. FAT32 has a 4GB limit on NT, but on Windows 9x it's 2GB.
n /W indows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resour ces/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc _fil_tdrn.asp
Also, NTFS file pointers are 64 bit, but as implemented in XP have 44 bit limitations in the device drivers, which means a maximum file size of 16TB (not GB)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentatio
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Service Pack 1 prerelease beta 1 is do out on monday as well with an expected release time of next week.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
This 16TB paging-file has been holding me back, 512TB here I come! Now, how many of us are running Windows XP on a system with 16TB lying around for paging-files much less 512? Isn't that type of system reserved for *real* server software? (I use XP at home and love it, and will probably buy XP64 for my laptop next week, but all my servers are belong to *nix!)
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
Not true. x64 (AMD64 and EM64T) also introduce additional general purpose registers (GPRs; double the amount available with x86) and additional SSE registers (also doubled). That's a lot of additional scratch space for compilers to use to keep things from being moved back and forth from memory.
I'm not saying it'll make huge improvements of course, but it'll be a noticeable improvement once optimized compilers are available and you see native x64 games (for example) or encoders.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Now windows apps can be even MORE bloated.
1) XP 64 and 2003 32/64have been avail. as beta downloads from microsoft on an evaluation basis- they would even ship cd's to you for the cost of media.
2) OS/400 is already ready for the next jump to 128 bit and in fact uses 128 bit pointers/etc.
thought:
If we designed things correctly in the first place switching our hardware like that would be relatively easy.
disclaimer:
currently employed by a company that has literally said 'efficiency is not a design goal'/somewhat disgruntled.
By far, the most interesting gain in 64 bit computing (except in the x86 world, where AMD64 also introduces a couple much-needed registers that make a lot of a difference) is the extended address space. You must know a 32 bit address space (such as offered by pre PAE 32 bit x86 processors) limited processes to address 4 GB of memory at once. A 64 bit address space, OTOH, gives you 4096 times as much space.
IIRC (it seems nobody cared about it at the time enough to write it down), Windows (up to 2000) on Alpha could map at most 32 GB (a 35 bit address space) of memory to a single process. I am not sure what MIPS had available, but this falls short of a 64-bit address space.
I give you that Windows NT was conceived as a workstation and small server OS and having 4 GB of memory at that time was almost unthinkable and 16 TB of address space was almost a joke. Maybe NT on Alpha and MIPS was more than a 32-bit OS, but to call NT a 64 bit OS running on 64-bit CPUs is a bit of an exaggeration.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Anecdotally, IME it still is common. Everyone whom I talk to uses windows, and they all have their computer crash every so often, even the XP users. Of course this could be hardware problems etc.
I am trolling
Strange, I find the opposite! Most cases I've seen crashes are down to lack of updates (the usual worm suspects). Post-SP2 boxes I've never see go down other than hardware or bugged system software. Anecdotal, I know!