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Windows XP Starter Edition Snubs P4, Athlon
Apu writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft's Windows XP Starter Edition operating system specifically checks the result of the CPUID instruction on bootup and fails to continue if a Pentium 4 or Athlon processor is detected."
That's nothing! My copy of WinXP fails to continue if any kind of CPU is detected!
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
But will it run on a 386?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Windows XP Starter Edition ain't done, 'til... umm... Wintel and AMD won't run?
OK, boys, time to haul ass over to DEC^H^H^HCompaq^H^H^H^H^H^H^HHP and dig out those Alpha chips! Anyone got an P-II or a K6-III we can borrow until then?
Don't forget Microsoft CEMENT. (Alternate link)
This is either a misprint or misunderstanding, or a one of the dumbest things I've ever seen a company do. FFS, I built an athlon 1800+ two or three YEARS ago. Does anyone still have K6II's?
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
There is an option to automatically restart on errors. Though, I agree with you, it would seem like MS would be jumping all over themselves to allow some customisations to high traffic BSODs. I know, if I was an MS Rep, I would offer airlines a customised OS that says "OS/2 has crashed again" whenever it would normall BSOD.
the real solution would be to go to a more reliable operating system
You misspelled more reliable operating system.
..that users will try Starter Edition, find out it has all these restrictions and assume that all versions of Windows must suck and just load a free, non-crippled OS (mentioning no names!).
or 'worse', say 'screw this' and get a warez version of full xp pro, with sp2 already integrated.
its not hard to find. the corp edition has no need to phone-home to register and reregister whenever you change hardware.
or so I hear, from rumor. yeah, rumor.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So did you friend. http://www.freebsd.org/
I fail to see any airline buying any product that displays the word "crashed" upon any error.
//FIXME: Bad
something truly embarrassing is going to be displayed on all of those big displays.
something like this?
(work safe link)
(really!)
music lover since 1969
Well, I ran the past few comments through MS Word's spellchecker and it changed every link to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp I guess that must be right if Microsoft said it is...
Is there anyway to reverse the polarity of that darlington transistor to direct a tachyon pulse through the optocoupler?
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
Marketing person #1: You know, we have a real problem with piracy in developing nations.
Marketing person #2: Why is that?
Marketing person #1: I'm not sure. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that our OS costs more then most families make in a month.
Marketing person #2: If they're poor, why do we even want them as customers?
Marketing person #1: Because they're probably not going to be poor forever. Plus, there's like a billion people in India alone.
Marketing person #2: A billion? Please, we're professionals here. Stop making up numbers like "billion" or "gazillion".
Marketing person #1: Sorry about that. But there *are* lots and lots of people there. I think most of them do tech support for Dell computers for like a dollar a day.
Marketing person #2: Wow. That is a lot. Well, we have to figure out a way to make money off them.
Marketing person #1: I just got a great idea! Let's strip out some of the functions of our operating system and sell it really, really cheap over there.
Marketing person #2: Awesome idea, dude. We can call it "Windows Jr."
Marketing person #1: I don't know about that name... it sounds too much like IBM's PC Jr. and nobody liked that product. I mean, wireless keyboards? What kind of crazy person would want that?
Marketing person #2: The PC jr? That was released like a gazillion years ago. What are you, 30 or something?
Marketing person #1: Shhhh!!! I'm 31, but the boss thinks I'm 23.
Marketing person #2: I'll keep my mouth shut if you buy us drinks after work, old man. How about we call it "Windows XP: The Revenge of the Sith". Wait, no, even better, "Windows XP: The Starter Edition"
Marketing person #1: That's way better! I would have never thought of that on my own. I guess it's because I'm so old.
Marketing person #2: I see a problem though. How can we strip down a product when 95% of our users never use the extras we bundle with Windows to begin with?
Marketing person #1: We could pull out Internet Expolorer
Both: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
Marketing person #2: That's rich old man. But seriously, how can we do it?
Marketing person #1: We can make sure it only runs on obsolete computers.
Marketing person #2: Of course!! Celerons, Durons... poor people use those, right?
Marketing person #1: Heck if I know. I'm not poor.
Marketing person #2: Then it's settled. We'll make a version of Windows XP, remove the "calculator" and "MS paint" applications, and sell it to poor people. We can even market it as an upgrade to Windows ME.
Marketing person #1: Didn't you get the memo? We want people to use ME. That was one of the clauses with Gates' contract with the devil.
Marketing person #2: Whatever. Let's go to the bar.
The Internet is generally stupid
The Mac OS X writes data to the machine's NVRAM on kernel panic, which is then retrievable and interpretable once the system reboots.
Well, Linux flashes this information out of the keyboard lights in Morse Code
So There!
The major advantage of MacOSX, of course, is that when there's a kernel panic, the system displays a multilingual error message. This could be useful in places such as airports, where the users/hapless bystanders might not speak english.