Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Dump 32-Bit After Vista
SlinkySausage writes "Microsoft has used its annual hardware engineering conference to announce that Windows Vista and Server 2008 will be the last versions of Windows capable of booting on 32-bit CPUs such as Intel Pentium 4 and Core Duo. AMD, which introduced 64-bit CPUs early — much to the derision of Intel, which said there was no use for them at the time — must be delighted with Microsoft's decision. Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run."
....I assure you, I'll be alright.
let's hope that they can get the driver situation figured out by then.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Does this mean that MS are going to inflict another operating system on us in the near future?
that we'll see 32 bit computing for another 20 years? Seriously, it took them how long to bring Vista to the market? Something tells me that its going to take a lot longer for MS to move beyond that to the next version of Windows. There doesn't seem to be a lot of uptake on Vista. It might take 3 more years to get to SP2, never mind beyond Vista.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
made today will be able to run the Microsoft replacement for Vista. Why worry?
Are you kidding!? I'm ecstatic that Vista is the last Windows that could potentially run on my beloved MacBook Pro - even after I sell it at some time in the future, I'll sleep better at night knowing it won't be running the latest showstopper bug from Redmond.
Wasn't all the talk during vista's development that it would be the last operating system they'd make?
I know that was taken back a while ago. Just saying.
"Gharbad no Hurt!" -Gharbad
I can only hope this somehow leads to better 64bit support with the various Linux distributions.
BETTER I say!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Owners of intel macs are mostly laughing up their sleeves because they're not running Windows.
I doubt many mac users will install Vista at all, opting for Windows XP for compatibility.
Windows software is only becoming less important in any case.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Anyone running a Mac is used to major upgrades not working (or rather, not working well) with old software. That's not going to be a problem. Besides, if the release dates of Vista and Vista++ are as far apart as the release dates of XP and Vista, most of those 1st gen Intel Macs probably won't be in use anymore.
Legacy Intel Mac owners are more likely nonplussed by the fact that if there was any advantage to running Vista over XP, be it through Boot Camp / Parallels; and the licensing of Vista didn't already forbid this in most cases, then after a product scheduled for release in 2008 reaches End-Of-Life, they will be unsupported.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
Could it possibly be because the next version of Windows will require more than 4GB of memory to run? ;)
(Yeah, yeah, I know about PAE. It's a joke.)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This will matter in what, 2014?
We're likely to keep running Server 2003 in the office for years before even contemplating an upgrade. By the time we hit the 64-bit wall, it'll be time to retire these servers from the frontlines anyway. (5 years, maybe more?) I think a greater concern is the utter piggishness of Windows in the first place, requiring so much horsepower just to boot to the friggin' desktop. If you want to get your ear ripped off with a rant, just ask a programmer to contrast the performance and bloat of simple "hello, world" programs as written in C vs. C# and the whole .net nonsense.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
... it will be at least 5 years before a new version of Windows comes out. That is, if they even want to install Windows in the first place.
Not only that, but it doesn't apply just to Mac users - it would apply to anyone running an early Core Duo, would it not?
The Real Motivation:
Buh-Bye Flash, hello Starlight! (or whatever it's called)
Won't have to worry about it for the next 5-8 years...or however long it takes them to put out a new OS.
I wouldn't worry about that. When the next version of Windows comes out 5 to 10 years from now, those macs will be nearly out of date anyway.
Warning: The intelligence of this post may be larger than it appears.
Linux, *BSP, etc, etc, are happy to support 32-Bit/64-Bit at the same time. I tried out the 64-Bit version of Windows Vista in VMWare (which can run 64-Bit Vista on top of 32-Bit Vista) and the only "benefit" I got was that my old 16-Bit apps stopped running. (Got several great 16-Bit games, and a 16-Bit dictionary.) What can the newfangled 64-Bit future Windows do that won't be feasible with a 32-Bit version lurking around?
If the XP to Vista roadmap is any indication, I figure they have at least five years before they have to worry about the next major Windows release not running on their machines.
Why bother.
As a programmer I've been waiting for this. I was actually disappointed that Vista would support 32-bit CPUs, but I guess there was no way around that, given how common 32-bit x86s still are. Having one architecture to support will make things much easier, as well as get people to actually update their legacy code. Now if MS could get them to actually fix all the problems due to generally crappy code (like requiring admin)...
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Microsoft themselves still don't support 64-bit yet. I installed the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005 only to find it doesn't support 64-bit for SQL Mail and SSIS - you have to run the 32-bit versions of them under WoW64. Someone else has already mentioned drivers. If Microsoft can't or won't support their own software under 64 bit environments, they are going to have a heck of a time convincing developers to push everything over.
I fear there will be a loooooooong transition time - just as well they gave everyone an early warning.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
64-bit will be overkill on embedded systems for a long time coming...
Thank Saint IGNUcious I won't have to deal with that monstrosity in the future.
So...everybody on slashdot proclaims that Vista sucks so bad that it is the final nail in Microsoft's coffin...yet they are not happy that Windows will be discontinuing 32 bit support in 5 to 10 years???
By the time the next version of Windows comes around people who currently own P4s and Core Duos aren't going to be worried about upgrading the OS on their existing machines.
Not to mention that it's all too common for software/hardware manufacturers to make these grandiose kinds of statements only to retract it at a later date. I've never seen the axe fall on such a standard without at least a few false announcements of abandonment. For example: I was told 2-3 years ago that both ATI and nVidia were both going to drop their AGP cards after the current (X800 era) versions. Way to go PCI-E!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This has been long overdue. From what I've read there's a lot more security enhancements in Vista 64-bit than 32-bit. I would like to move over to a 64-Bit windows platform, but the last time I tried it with XP, all my hardware was able to work with it except for Palm who insists on 32-bit drivers. Not sure about iPods either. Palm was higher on the stuff-that-must-work priority list than my iPod at the time.
;) Hopefully, they will really just gut the entire OS and start from the ground up this time. Windows has needed a clean break from its history for a long time in my book.
This also should allow Microsoft to cut back on the size of windows since they, at least in my mind, ought to be able to cut out a good portion of their legacy hardware support (things like the ISA bus and stuff which should not be found on (I hope) 64-bit processor motherboards). Although this will be a very scary version to be running for the first couple of months as hardware manufacturers are dragged kicking and screaming into 64-bit land. Same with software authors. UAC was just a test run
Insert Sig Here
But seriously, I think this is probably the least of any Mac users worries. Generally, Bootcamp is used for backwards rather than forwards compatibility. The forward compatibility is Mac OS. Windows is for legacy apps.
when you consider that it took many more years for Vista than was planned; the next Windows release ought to come about retirement age for most of us.
That and as Microsoft seems to feel that your next PC will be a cell/mobile phone, I'm waiting for the advent of the 64-bit mobile phone processor. Imagine its 128-bit predecessor. You'll be able to address every bit in the known universe with the memory map on *that* one.
Or, perhaps 'legacy' hardware will get some much needed added life, by utilizing ultra-fast 32-bit processors that just do work far faster than their 64-bit equivalents-simply because code maturity will force opmitizations.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
A large part of Microsoft's inability to modernize many aspects of Windows has been their need to retain backward compatibility with all sorts of crappy old software that did all sort of bad things that would break when the OS was recompiled. While it sucks for people with 32-bit machines, this is an opportunity for Microsoft to stop diverting resources to making old junk work and dedicate those resources to making actual improvements to the OS.
They have to do it this way. Apple doesn't have this problem because they made a clean break in 2000 with OSX. With OSX, they could start over with new APIs and a whole new way of doing things that shed a lot of the crud from the past. As long as Microsoft supports 32-bit and 16-bit Windows code, they're going to be held back. Ditching 32-bit processors is a forcing function that they can use to draw a line in the sand for all of the users. They'll surely still run Win32 code, but users won't have an expectation that all old stuff will work problem-free.
Microsoft is rightly bitched at for a lot of things that they do wrong. But what's ironic is that whenever they've broken backward compatibility, they get bitched at for that moreso than any other vendor. Of course, with old Linux code, that's mostly a recompile, but Apple was really drastic in their moves from OS9 to OSX and from PPC to x86. Some people complained, but most people just accepted it.
"Owners of first-generation Intel Macs ... may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run."
But they will take solace in the fact that they can still run OSX which is better.
since I have an AMD64. But wait I also have a 32-bit sempron. I guess I'm not so happy. Oh drat! Who honestly gives a toss about a planned operating system years away running or not running on their current hardware. I have a recent mobo and I still wouldn't want to try running vista on it.
Hardware that was out when WinXP came out can run vista.
Apparently, it's just too hard for Microsoft to do what Linux distributions have done for several years now: support 32 bit and 64 bit simultaneously.
... won't be bothered with Vista or even XP anytime soon, 64-bit or not. I have enough of that junk to deal with at work, and home I don't need one bit of it. If there was even one Windows application that truly mattered to me, perhaps - but there ain't. It is difficult to imagine why I would ever bother with a dual boot setup in order to get real things accomplished. That's just sad. It is true that I don't play games on computers, and if I did I might want Windows for that (at least for the next couple of years until Windows is less common) - but there are plenty of other things to do in my life right now. I barely have time for all the people and projects in my First Life, and so there is no Second Life!
Sure, we scoff now.
You forget, Vista was originally announced when 8 bit CPUs were common. It was only delay after delay that held them up until 32 bit CPUs were the low end and 64 bit ones were pretty common.
In 2088, when they finally ship their new version, we'll likely all be running megabit CPUs. We still won't have our long promised flying cars however. This of course assumes Moore's law - which will still have regular discussions on Slashdot about how it's reached its limits.
Well I don't expect any future windows to run at decent speed in the latest hardware either. :D
Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run.
Call me crazy, but I didn't buy my Mac to run Windows. So I won't be "not so happy". Thanks for speculating though!
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
In the 6-8 following years of Vista, wouldn't a entry level 64-bit cpu that's faster and more efficient than your old machine cost a rather small amount? Is this important?
My bigger worry is if Microsoft can create a 64-bit OS that functionally operates on my Core2. That's the day I'm waiting for. I'm tired of not having any functionality of my custom box when running XP64 or Vista64- no ATI or Nvidia drivers that work without kernel panics, no sound drivers that work with my Realtek on DVDs, randomly scorched Raid 0 with an Intel controller. I should say, that the 64-bit Linux kernel works fine, and I can do most everything but watch YouTube in Ubuntu running at 64-bit
Fixing that will be much harder than creating very affordable new cpus. Seriously, does anyone expect their computers to run the latest Microsoft junk in 6 years?
So what, we'll need to upgrade our machines in 6 years or so? That's well within the typical Mac lifecycle... though just barely. Unlike standard PCs Macs are typically used for ~5 years before being upgraded. The OS just keeps getting better and faster so the older machines actually work better than when they were introduced... Linux seems close to this, though only if you limit your media options.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
This is certainly good news for Win95 and Win98 users. For a minute there, they thought they were going to have to upgrade, but with the future Windows OSes no longer competing for the 32-bit space, the market share for even Win2k should now become stable.
Bearded Dragon
If MS was smart, they'd provide some sort of virtualization functionality into the next OS that allows stragglers to run their old applications on the OS. However, hardware manufacturers *cough* PALM *cough* need to wake up and do something. This decision isn't exactly a big surprise. We've had 64-Bit XP since 2002-2003ish.
Insert Sig Here
Is this really an issue? I mean, isn't XP Pro the last reasonably respectible OS Microsoft made? Why would they run Vista at all? Why would they want to?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Windows has always bit off more than it could chew.
Answer: Both.
Please. I wouldn't be surprised or disturbed to learn the latest version of OS X isn't be supported on 32 bit Macs by the time Microsoft replaces Vista. If history is any guide there is at least one processor architecture change-over in store for Apple between now and then.
* Figuring XP-to-Vista development time as the lower bound for Vista's replacement.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
It would be nice if they would "fix" the current problems with windows XP x64 and Vista x64 before through all their eggs in the 64 bit basket. I've regretted the purchase of XP x64 and sure wish I would have gone with the 32 bit version since almost nothing works properly from drivers to software. Sure it's the fault of the 3rd party drivers and software but where is the backwards compatibility support? And if large manufactures like HP won't provide drivers for new printers they release who will? I still can't print on my HP2600n using XP x64!
I would buy it by the truckload if I had the money. I don't know how long it could sit before it corrodes away, but it sure will come in handy to insure that at my neighbors could have an affordable machine over the next decade at least. I would advise also that people stop buying the latest new gadget every week. This all really stinks for those who normally have no need to upgrade when the old stuff is working perfectly fine. Got a ten year old MMX machine that works perfectly with win98 and office 97. And these people are trying to break it by making all the new formats incompatible. At the same time, I think I'll take up the fine art of dumpster diving and continue to help people break away from Microsoft. Come to think of it, this really shouldn't an issue anymore. The Microsoft stranglehold is an irrational illusion, now that we have a viable alternative. Just need CAD and some games to keep gen-pop happy.
What?
Step 2 will be to restrict booting unless the board has TPM enabled.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
IPV4 addresses are obsolete, we'll get rid of them and adopt IPV6 by 2002.
So you're saying that 5 years down the road, Microsoft isn't going to support Intel processors from 2 years ago. Maybe you haven't noticed the Vista system requirements, but the only newsworthy element of this story is that there's a 7-year delta to "unsupported" in there instead of the current 3-year delta.
That's odd. I thought they already did that before Windows 95.
And giving system admins more time between applying Service Packs is a bad thing?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
And Windows 95 was the last 16/32 hybrid
Oh no, Windows 98 will *really* be it.
Whoops, Windows 98SE will be it!
Windows ME will, we really mean it this time!
The 4GB memory barrier is fast-aproaching for high-end users, and dealing with it is a MESS. Most motherboards don't support PAE (either due to lack of re-mappable PCI address space, or even lack of 36-bit address lines!), so we have a hard-limit of 2-3GB in the most popular version of Vista (32-bit). This is going to be a rough few years for game developers.
I really don't see why Microsoft went 32-bit on this version anyway...I'd say over %80 of the potential upgrade platforms and over %95 of all shipping PCs today support x86-64 mode. But when you look back, history paves the way:
Windows 386 = Windows 2.0 with 32-bit enhancements bolted-on. Equivilant of Windows XP 64
Windows 3 = crossover version with support for 16-bit and 32-bit processors. Equivilant of Vista.
Windows 95 = supports only 32-bit processors. Equivilant to the next revision of Windows.
Too bad Microsoft didn't have the balls to jump the gun and make Vista 64-bit only.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
OK, we have heard that before...
There is also the question about where the Linux bandwagon goes if Microsoft has the stamina to produce another major OS release after Vista. There have been arguments that Vista is the last of it's kind. From what I have recognized, Vista is a step forward from XP as NT was a step forward from W98. (ME doesn't count).
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Did anyone seriously expect whatever follows Vista to run on ANY current hardware?
This isn't a slam. But you would have to be blind not to realize that every new version of windows makes requirements that net out to you have to get a new machine.
This has always been the case (since Windows 98 required a computer with a CDROM?)
You could get away with upgrading a beefy NT box to 2000, or a beefy 2000 box to XP. I haven't heard of anyone upgrading a box from XP to Vista. The requirements of Vista are just too high for most XP boxes.
Whatever follows Vista will have SEVERAL requirements that make reusing existing boxes (including most existing 64 bit boxes) impractical.
I know the Company had decided not to buy in to Vista because of the many issues with the test farm. But Vista is going to be the last OS that will run on our 32 bit infrastructure so I think we need to buy those 500 licenses NOW.
Cordially,
Eddy (your nephew)
But running an emulator just for a quick game of Missile Command, Asteroids, Centipede, Battlezone, tempest, Tetris, etc, etc, is annoying.
The other day I put Win 3.11 up against Windows Vista at Chess. Just to clarify I played Chess Titans up against Chess.exe from the Microsoft Entertainment pack, at expert level.
With Vista being the newcomer Titan's got to play first. After about 30 seconds of thinking, Vista made it's _first_ move, in which chess.exe responded to immediately. From there a furious battle across the board started, with chess.exe taking more and more time to think along the way.
After about a half an hour of playtime the game ended with Windows 3.11 crashing, In some sort of ironic twist, one move from checkmating.. Vista.
Heh.
Chess.exe might have had an advantage in that it is thinking on the opponents turn, but I'm still surprised Chess Titans was beat out by a fifteen year old program made for a computer a thousand times slower. Go Microsoft!
...to do something they should have done (but didn't) at one (any one) of the previous Windows releases:
Shitcan the old code and start from scratch. At its heart, Win32 is dangerous and unsecured, an acceptable, if generally undesirable, answer to the needs of a more 'civilized' age.
Backward compatibility is only desirable if doing so doesn't compromise forward progress or prevent the correction of certain unacceptable conditions (like swiss-cheese security). XP (at the barest minimum, I'd have argued Windows 2000) should have been a complete OS rewrite.
Oh, big deal. So your freeware Solitaire game won't run on the new OS. If this is really that important to you, KEEP YOUR OLD BOX! No one said you had to throw the damn thing out, now did they?
If MS is really shitting bricks about F/OSS, then the way forward is clear: dump the junk. This late in the game, however, to bring a brand spankin' new OS about might be a moot issue. Free alternatives would then effectively be "mature product".
So, Bill? Given any thought to the next Age of Empires? Maybe MS should stick to writing apps FOR an OS, rather than the OS itself.
I'm wondering if the only change they are going to make is... Find - UInt32 Replace - UInt64 Compile... ship... PROFIT!
> Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo
> CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they
> will be able to run.
Is this some mindless dig at Mac users? Nobody that I see is bothering with Vista, least of all folk already running superior operating systems like OSX and linux.
Seing how Windoze is becomming more and more of a bug laden, DRM ridden peice of crap,
I won't be shedding any tears over this.
I want to know what the deal is with all the computer companies selling 64-bit machine with 32-bit versions of Windows. Shouldn't that be illegal? Like buying a Lamborghini, but only half the cylinders have spark plugs in them.
Most AMD processors (or maybe all now, I'm not too current) are 64bit capable. Intel has had EM64T for a while now. Mac users probably don't give a shift, and old 32-bit computers (they will be when the next Windows rolls around) are likely not going to be capable of running the OS anyways. From the point of writing software, drivers and the like, I would appreciate if someone could enlighten me as to how different/difficult/etc. it is to write or rewrite for 64bit instead of 32bit systems.
And window users not on Intel macs won't be upset by the same thing? Oh wait, I forgot where I was. Non-mac and non-linux people are not allowed to be upset by anything.....
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
I'm more angry about being locked out of any 64-bit version of OS-X, than Vista. Given that that it takes MS 5 years at least to to come out with the next OS, my current Mac will be long gone before that.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Considering how long it took Microsoft to field Vista there's a good chance we'll all be dead by the time the next OS limps out the door.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I've got 10.4.9 running on a computer I bought in 2000, that makes it 7 years, not 2 for running the latest OS X. It is true though that there were 1998 computer that can not run OS X, and OS X was released in 2001--so that was a 3 year window. But at the time, 10.1 wasn't really ready for prime time, and OS 9 was still the main OS.
Hmm.
I wonder if they'll finally have a 64-bit version of flash I can run on my soon-to-be-standard 64-bit version of Vista...
http://donutmonster.com/stuff/NoFlash.jpg
Of course does this mean my 16-bit DOS apps will have to run in a virtual VDM?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
"Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run."
I'd probably be more concerned about the hundreds of millions of PC users that won't be able to run Vista on their current rig. Then again, the timeline for a Vista replacement is what -- never + 3 months?
When are Microsoft going to get it into their *THICK MONEY-GRABBING SKULLS* that one operating system topology cannot be all things to all men. This is one of the major reasons why Linux is giving them an ass-kicking at the moment (and long may it continue to do so) - you take a single kernel that can itself be configured in a myriad of monolithic or modular ways, then throw on just about any combination of GNU tools that you like, meaning you can embed it into a mobile phone or put it on a big Beowulf (hurrah!) server cluster. You can run a GUI or not run a GUI and if you run a GUI, you can run a big fat one like KDE or a small thin one like FVWM - whatever you like.
This decision about supporting 64-bit only in future is *PURELY* about financial gain, nothing more. There will still be the endless layered bloat we are accustomed to that still ultimately drives your PC to a crawl, with (no doubt) the added instabilities of 32-bit software emulation as a poor attempt at providing backwards compatibility.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
... that'll be at least another five years for the next version of Windows to come along, then. It'll take at least that long for hardware manufacturers to start writing 64-bit drivers consistently. I got a brand-new 64-bit laptop and it didn't even include the option of 64-bit Vista. Heck, Microsoft's own anti-virus offering doesn't even work in 64-bit.
Windows 9x may not have liked it, but at least it could use 16-bit drivers.
As the owner of a first gen intel mac, I don't understand what I'm supposed to be upset about. The next version of Windows probably won't be out until 2010 at the earliest, probably more like 2012. By that point, I will have a new machine. So I don't understand what the fuss is all about. In five years, even regular consumers will be ready for their next machine, except of course for the few hold outs and poor people, but they wouldn't upgrade their OS anyways. I think someone made an issue of something that is not there.
I do not believe that Microsoft is dropping support for 32-bit applications from future operating systems; that would be foolish. The whole reason AMD64 took off as opposed to IA-64 is that it's backward compatible and supports running 32-bit applications within a 64-bit OS with no speed penalty. Compared to other things an OS does, supporting 32-bit apps within a 64-bit OS is easy.
What they mean is that the OS itself will only run on a 64-bit capable processor. You will have to have a processor with the x86-64 extensions. That's all. Not a big deal, either, since it won't be long until all non-embedded processors sold by AMD and Intel are 64-bit capable. By the time the successor to Vista comes out certainly.
Not related to your post, but the summary mentions how AMD should be "delighted". No, not really. AMD would have been ecstatic if a fully functional non-beta 64-bit Windows had been out 3-4 years ago when they had x86-64 and Intel did not. Instead they relied on Linux to help them sell based on 64-bit. Now, when both are selling 64-bit mainstream processors, it doesn't matter much. AMD/Intel processors will still have to support 32-bit operating systems into eternity, so they don't get anything out of MS dropping support.
The enemies of Democracy are
MS couldn't deliver most of what they originally intended for Vista, like a new FS, even by adding years to the development cycle and millions of dollars and over a year of effort to such critical items as the shutdown sound wav file.
Now wouldn't we see a few things before they jettison 32 bit such as all these intended enhancements. To say nothing of the DRM uber alles that always lurks in the background. Oh and Zune 2, and buying another online service, and fixing patch management, and fixing security bugs, and trying to kill Google, Mac and Linux.
Seems like chucking everything just to make money for Intel is awfully ambitious of them. They just added 3 more years to the development cycle for the next turn of the crank for an OS. With current cycles running 6 years, adding 3 more, even if they started today would give them a release date of Christmas 2015.
But it's clear that Intel won't stand still for 9 more years so of course MS will release 64 bit 'enhanced enterprise' support in service packs. Which won't work right, won't install right, won't support many applications, will mess with security even more, and the millions of other unintended consequences that will happen.
Clearly the reason that Redmond said that Vista will represent the 'last of its kind' vis a vis operating systems is that they are coming to terms with the fact that they can't get this work done anymore and the resulting product is such a massive clunky abortion that it's ungovernable. But it puts them in a tough place because Redmond doesn't have a good track record of starting from scratch.
the next version of Windows could be five years away. I'm pretty sure people will have time to adjust. Still good news for everyone that MS is moving forward. Can't wait to see what they need to change.
BTW - I am doing a little informal research on SD. I will now get myself modded down as Troll. Observe:
MS SUCKS!
(I don't really think MS sucks, but this IS science.)
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
"Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run."
Vista is going to be around until at least 2010 as the flagship OS for MSFT. Likely later. It will still be usable for at least 2 years or after that. So I bought a new Intel based Mac in January 2007. This means that it will be at least three years before MSFT releases a new OS, and another two before I'm compelled to install it. 5 years is long enough for me to comfortably say 'this hardware is too old to support this new fangled OS.'
Now, if they were dropping 32-bit support for Vista, that would be a concern.
For Vista++, meh. I don't really care.
I am the proud owner of a MacBook, and I could care less if my computer can't run the next Windows after Vista... when's that going to be released anyways, 2012? If I'm really worried at that point, I'll buy a new computer! The average consumer buys a new computer every 3 to 4 years anyways, so what's the point of the hype?
this isn't that big of a deal.
it's like when everyone moved from 286's to 386's or vaccume tubes to intigrated circuits.
the 32bit processor will have nitch uses(lower power requirements and apps that just don't require the horsepower), but it's days are numbered.
some day you all will tell your kids you remember 32bit processors and they will ask to go to the science museum to see them.
"You'll be able to address every bit in the known universe with the memory map on *that* one." ...nobody will ever need to address more than every bit in the known universe.
Yes, I know that Vista took a lot longer to get here than it was supposed to. But really: if you bought your PC when XP came out in 2001, it would probably have had a Pentium 3 in it.
Are you planning on upgrading that machine to run Vista?
I thought not.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
By 2013, which will be how long it take Microsoft to make a new operating system, we will all have 64-bit processors anyway. Not that I really care anyway, since I use Linux ...
As has been mentioned before on /. Microsoft will require signed drivers on their 64 bit OS
i t/kmsigning.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/64b
Implications of this are:
1. Chilling effect to new devices.
2. Sets the stage for tighter DRM handcuffs.
From Microsoft's perspective these aren't bad things as they directly benefit Microsoft shareholders though, so I guess it's a wash.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
At the rate MS puts out "new" OSes, there's not going to be any 32-bit processors outside the embedded device realm. Hell, there may not be many 64-bit ones left, either.
Vista is such a bloated pig it barely fits on a 32-bit system (it only performs acceptably with 2G of memory), and we know by now that every new OS release from Microsoft is even more of a bloated pig than the one before.
Consequently, anyone should be able to see that the next OS they release won't fit on a 32-bit system, much less have room for applications to run. This just makes good sense.
Ubuntu and Dell released a joint statement announcing that their Linux based operating system will continue to be available in 32-bit form. A Dell executive said, "We expect to save a tremendous amount of money by using older processors in our consumer models, which will come dual booted with Ubuntu Zippy Zebra and Windows XP!"
if Xp is still strong after almost 7 years, and vista more WindowME in terms of popularity, we should see another O.S. around 2010 or a revamped version of vista with more configurability or compatibility with software, so we are left with 3 years with 32 bit.
I think even with 32 bit dead in the water, we'll have those computers around for a while, CPU speed aint increasing as fast as it was, maybe when they get a new technology we'll see 4 ghz up to 6 ghz sprouting for the comomn machine.
"Dont kill me for the lack of insight, i'm no god of information and no i did not take a week of my life to support my comment by reading other stuff"
Does anyone out there really expect a current/recent low end machine, made by anyone (not just Apple) to be able to run Windows Peppermint, or whatever they call it, when it comes out in 2014?
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
I think I can scrape up enough money for a new 64 bit PC in the 5 to 8 years it will take to see a successor to Vista. Oh wait...I run linux at home.
However by 2014 (when the next MS OS gets out ;) I probably stopped caring about my beloved 16-Bit apps anyhow.
.net consume 10 Megabytes of memory and take more than a split second to start up. Hurray for progress.
But it still feels like progress for the sake of progress. I use several older applications because they have the feature I need, start up fast, and use memory in the single digit megabytes.
Take PSP 4.12, for instance. The install directory take 6 MB total, and while running I can keep several images open without bothering my other memory hungry apps. PSP 9 running clean eats up more memory then PSP 4.12 consume in harddrive and memory totaled with several images opened.
Hell, a simple text editor written in
by the time the successor to Vista comes out. I doubt very much anyone will care about it not running on ~20 billion-year-old hardware. Not even Mac users :-)
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Thanks for the heads-up, but I broke down already and installed automatix when I couldn't get 32-bit Firefox to work with the flash plugin. Thanks for the help, though.
The summary is right, all the people who own first-gen Intel Macs, and want to run Windows on them, are thoroughly heartbroken.
All three of them.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
So you won't be running 16-bit in Microsoft Panorama... Don't bet your last buck.
I'm going to dump Windows after XP SP2 is no longer available!
The only reason I use Windows is to play all the games that are only available to the Win32 platform. Why would I buy some new version of Windows that doesn't support the games I already have, and still love to play?
(BF2, Wolfenstein, Starcraft, Warcraft, Company of Heroes, Counter Strike)
Will there be 64-bit drivers?
Let's hope that when 128-bit machines come out, gcc makes its ints have the same width as the pointer.
The number of programs that break on compiling for 64-bit because of the retro 32-bit ints is just plain ridiculous. Sure, I agree, that's because they weren't written very well in the first place, but you can't expect to fix everyone's old programs when recompiling code to larger architectures. That doesn't scale.
That was a *very* poor decision by gcc designers, and unnecessary. The "natural" size of an integer register on any given architecture (which is 64-bit on both Intel and AMD 64-bit architectures) should also be the size chosen for gcc's int.
Does this mean that MS are going to inflict another operating system on us in the near future?
They think they are about to own a GNU operating system. Vista's a flop and shows how out of steam WinDOS really is.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs...
That was a wierd decision on Apple's part, since they had a 64-bit PowerPC system when they forced their user base to go back to 32 bits.
64-bits ought to be enough for everybody.
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Tip your wait staff.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Majority of people upgrade their PCs every 5 to 7 years. Knowing Microsoft a bit, I just don't see them saying to their customers "you're SOL, your system is too old". For Server, maybe this will happen (most people use 64 bit already there), but there's no way in heck this will happen for Client.
Microsoft To Dump 32-Bit After Vista
Ok, Vista's to have several major SP, the first of which is in the works. We're looking at 5-6 years just for Vista to get adopted at acceptable levels.
The next major Windows realistically will come at least 7-8 years from now, take around 5-6 years again to get adopted.
So we're talking around 2020.
And never mind what Microsoft support, the majority of software is expected to support previous OS for a few more years, as is customary.
So we're talking around 2025.
Raise you hand everyone who uses 18 year old laptop. Anyone? Well, Mac users got nothing to worry about then.
that we'll see 32 bit computing for another 20 years?
32, 16 and 8 where it's useful. In the free world, it's just a compile option. Even M$ can't be so stupid as to disregard embedded and low power platforms.
This is just M$ psycho-hype along the lines of "DOS is dead" they used to move Win3.1, 95, 98, W2K and XP as they slowly and painfully compiled their little system to 32 bits. That took them 20 years, not because it was hard but because they wanted to charge you for every "upgrade". Such stuff makes less sense in a world full of free alternatives that already offer the same things.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
After Vista? When is it due? Around 2020?
While I take note of your Microsoft pun seemingly seen in a Mac commercial, which is all too typical and was completely expected when I saw "Microsoft" in the article title; I was under the impression that the next Windows would be released much quicker than Vista, in fact I was under the impression that "Vienna" is what pushed Vista out of the door with the lack of some of the earlier features promised. 2009 isn't very far away.
Maybe they just got the hint, and with pride, they cant back out without an excuse... watch them take linux and shape it into something else// just like they took dos and messed it upp
Like there is even going to be a next for Microsoft.
Most informative post in this discussion so far.
And I would also add that when developers indiscriminately build their applications in 64-bit mode, it usually results in a performance drop. Storing all pointers as 64-bit values results in a bigger data structures, bigger stacks, and therefore less L1/L2 cache coherence, and worse overall performance. This won't change for a while.
For today's applications, 32-bit is the sweet spot. 64-bit addressing has its place, but that place is pretty limited right now.
I am here. I was (am) here for the keynotes and the technical sessions. In each case this comment has been made, the speaker has very specifically said the last 64-bit *server* OS will be Windows Server 2008. Unless this came from a separate interview than the keynote or one of the technical sessions I have been in, the article may be inaccurate.
As a programmer I've been waiting for this. I was actually disappointed that Vista would support 32-bit CPUs
Yeah, it's really cool when compiler switches go away. I love it when that happens.
Having one architecture to support will make things much easier, as well as get people to actually update their legacy code.
I know M$ thinks of developers as "Pawns" but does anyone really think that being forced to recompile code is a good thing? What happened to the famous "backward binary compatibilty" M$ is supposed to be good for?
Now if MS could get them to actually fix all the problems due to generally crappy code
Now you almost make sense. Wouldn't it be nicer if you could just compile it yourself to whatever platform fit your needs? So that YOU could make hardware choices and do all of the above when it was in YOUR best interest?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
as an owner of a core2duo machine ... (macbook) ... I can barely run Vista.
... but the cutting edge hardware-wise can run a brand new MS OS anyways? Think about the PC you owned when XP was released. Can it run Vista? Doubt it. Not without a new Video card, at least.
I'm not worried about running the NEXT operating system. I mean, who
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
Where Microsoft willfully creates a vacuum, Linux, Freebsd, Netbsd, Openbsd, and others can fill in. In the end, that "abandoned" 32 bit machine may LOOK like a general purpose computer but it could be a router, a home control system, a robot, a cheap node in a render farm, a pbx/voicemail system, a mail server appliance, a dedicated web server, a file server, a game server, an arcade machine simulator, or nearly anything the mind can imagine...
It will get really interesting when all that "obsoleted" hardware starts making rounds in secondary/used markets. Do you think someone in India or Africa (or Europe for that matter) is really going to care whether the machine now more easily within their grasp is 32 or 64 bits? If it doesn't run Windows products at all (or is confined to old Windows products) do you think they will find utility for it? I think so.
Ok, more accurately stated... I HOPE SO...
There is a lot of installed 32 bit technology out there that need not "miss" the love and attention of Microsoft. A 32 bit Athlon 2100 is far from an orphan like a Commodore Amiga (No offense to Amiga enthusiasts). Being able to directly use much of the same hardware as its more powerful 64 bit big brother and with the help of open source projects, 32 bit machines will also continue to enjoy some level of interoperability with 64 bit platforms as well.
Thanks Microsoft-- for abandoning 32 bit machines, once their prices drop in response to the flawed perception that you make productivity possible perhaps the greater access to cheaper hardware will lead more people to discover the real productivity that always seemed to frighten you when you couldn't squelch or appropriate it.
This is great news!
Yes. Eventually.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They just announced the name of Vista's successor... Microsoft Vaporware. Vista was the end folks...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
I don't remember being able to buy any DEC Alpha or a 64 bit Sparc chip on the consumer level... that's what AMD brought us. And being a nitpicker is not good for your pressure :P
no one I know runs vista. no one I know PLANS to run vista. no BUSINESS I know plans to adopt vista.
;(
(heck, I have a free shrink-wrap legit copy of vista ultimate. it will be sold or given away but never installed by me).
xp runs 'mostly fine'. there is zero reason to 'upgrade'. xp will be around for another 5 yrs, at least.
by that time, the free unix world (and mac, too) has some time to FINALLY displace MS from the desktop. it CAN be done. it HAS to be done - the alternative (vista, drm, uber-control, uncontrolled 'patching' and feature reduction from remote updates, etc) is just too much backwardness to think about
vista exists MOSTLY (it sure seems) to inflict DRM on the user. its interesting that nvidia, for example, has video HTPC style accelerated drivers for their new 8-series cards - but ONLY for vista. xp will come 'much later'. linux - maybe never. the intention is clear: for high def movies, the industry wants you to be forced into vista. vista is total (remote) control. lack of user control, in other words. and the way they get you to do that is to encourage you to go to vista by holding the high-def carrot in front of you.
but guess what - with tools like 'anydvd' (for HD and BD) - you really do NOT need vista to watch HDTV. give it more time and there really will be no valid reason for vista anymore.
let vista die. its well on its way, now.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Of course the real reason for it is that it will require more than 4 Gigs of RAM.
[Not funny]
Beginning with Solaris 10, 32-bit Hardware is no longer supported on SPARC.
The operating system still ships with support to run 32-bit applications.
Microsoft will certainly never be a serious contender in the tiers of
professional computing filled by Sun and IBM and I know you can argue that
with me for arguments sake but after everything is said and done it is
still IBM Mainframe/AIX muscle and Sun Solaris tendon that make the world
go around. And as far as rotating the globe goes, Microsoft excels of course at
marketing spin so while the major players all abandoned 32-bit more or less
quietly one wonders how Microsoft will flaunt and celebrate the fact in
front of a impressionable lay public.
It's been twenty years+ of pretty fuckin' good compatibility. I still have an XP machine running Corel DRAW! 3.0, which was released in 1992. I know companies that stil run VB3 apps on Windows 2000 and XP. As more and more legacy software is replaced, the need to support it becomes less important, so Microsoft can move on. This is actually good for everyone, including hardware makers. Costs are also reduced dramatically.
In any case, Microsoft (or "M$") supports whatever they make for decades as well. RHEL gets EOLed after what, three years? And even now Mozilla is thinking of dropping Firefox support for older Linux versions.
Wouldn't it be nicer if you could just compile it yourself to whatever platform fit your needs? So that YOU could make hardware choices and do all of the above when it was in YOUR best interest?
Nice straw man, especially from the wipe-and-reload-the-distro-of-the-day types. Most people don't care about compiling their own code to target different architectures or word sizes or endianess. You're making the argument that it's somehow important to be able to support the 8088 for commodity consumer software until the mountains crumble into the sea. Other than a few isolated niche cases - who the hell cares.
Although not from the "M$ WINBLOZE LOLOLRZ" crowd, this is the same bull we all got when moving from 16 to 32-bit. "OMG, the end of the world, nothing will work, someone kill me". Same thing every time.
I assure you that by the time Vista's successor is actually coded and released, 64-bit architectures will seem very quaint.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
With Vista sucking up ram just to boot and everyone recommending you start out with 2GB of ram this is a lot of indications that ram is going to be a big problem for windows users in the near future. You can only buy so much ram with 32bit systems and some laptops limited you to 2GB. Windows applications like to use ram and Windows LOVES to use ram. So to cram in a few more features that they think we want 64bit is the way to go.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
When they stopped offering an OS for an Alpha.
Fact is, still have a ~400 alpha that flies with
OpenBSD. Who cares about what MS anyway except
Wall Street.
So, given other recent Slashdot Microsoft news, we should expect that the successors to Vista and Server 2008 will only run on 64-bit or better mobile phones that split their screens to support multiple users on the same phone?
Umm,... by time the next version of Windows after Vista comes out, it'll be probably four versions of OS X later and two new comptuers for me. I fully expect that my Mac in 6 years time will be more than able to run whatever MS throws out there... should I wish to install it on my computer to play games.
Would it be WordPerfect Random House dictionary? I still use that today as it's all of 10MB installed, is blazingly fast, super compressed (today's processors make it instantaneous), and has every cuss word and jargon (that was in use in 1994)...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
The article that gave rise to this post is a canard. Actually, Core 2 Duo processors are 64-bit. The platforms they're built into might not be, but that's because in the real world today, few need, let alone can use, due to lack of drivers and apps, 64-bit computing. This is more an issue for the PC OEMs and MoBo vendors than the processor folks, either AMD or Intel.
When there's actual demand (and drivers and apps), there will be plenty of 64-bit computers. The processors are there already.
"AMD, which introduced 64-bit CPUs early -- much to the derision of Intel, which said there was no use for them at the time -- must be delighted with Microsoft's decision."
Sentence does not parse. There's no matching comma for the first. Moral: if you're going to get fancy with sentences, do it right.
why would this be a problem? most people who still don't have vista propably don't even have all the hardware to run it anyway.. I'm running XP x64 and must admit that it runs much better than my XP 32bit version, so I wouldn't miss it. and let's not forget, current XP and vista will run good enough for the next 5 a 10 years, so why even bother with arguing...
It's pretty obvious, the real reason Windows Next will require 64-bit processors is because it will take up 4GB of RAM while running, meaning you'll need more than that to actually be able to do anything.
Just like most of Microsoft's plans for future OS's, I doubt this one will actually come to fruition. The typical mom and pop computer user isn't going to run out and replace their good ol' 32bit system anytime soon.
Nice straw man, especially from the wipe-and-reload-the-distro-of-the-day types. Most people don't care about compiling their own code to target different architectures or word sizes or endianess. You're making the argument that it's somehow important to be able to support the 8088 for commodity consumer software until the mountains crumble into the sea. Other than a few isolated niche cases - who the hell cares.
Indeed, that is a nice straw man, Bungi. The argument that I'm making is that hardware choice is nice. You know, there is a world of computing outside of x86. Alpha, PowerPC, Cell, ARM and others all come to mind. That there are distros to run all of these which can, yes, be wiped and reloaded without loss of user data, is a good proof of that demand. But it's more than that, Debian runs on a dozen or so platformsso you don't have to do everything yourself. That's the power of free software - when one person has solved a problem, everyone has the solution.
M$ has managed how many platforms again? How much do SDK's cost per platform? And you like it that way? Dude, the lack of choice is a serious failure of the non free software model. Even judged within the selfish limits of non free software's world view, being forced to move from one platform to another is a PITA that's going to cost you time and money. Bend over Bungi, Bill Gates has got a few software deals for you.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Way to wake up Microsoft. 32bit has hit the wall with ram usage.
Not exactly.
:
HP collaborated with the design of the Itanium. Thus pulling out of the market before the Itanium arrived was a logical decision from the point of view that they were going to replace the Alpha with their newer baby jointly-developed with Intel.
MIPS continued for some time after the Itanium and was progressively dropped when its sales went to low, both from workstation and embed markets.
(PARISC : I don't know. I suspect it to be somewhat similar situation).
What kills processors is two fold
The main reasons is a big ball and chain called "binary legacy".
- Business are used to run Windows on their workstation. Microsoft has never supported additional platforms for long time (Alpha has only had 1 NT version made for it. Itanium had only 1 XP version made for it) because supporting multiple platform is hard for them (the only reason they'll keep support for 64bit x86_64, is that they'll kill 32bits instead and thus they'll still have only 1 main architecture to support). Thus there was a lack of interest from the largest consumers because of this absence (of course there are a lot of shops running Unices. But they aren't profitable on the same level as Dell's consumers).
- And even if you had the corresponding OS for your platform, you still need to have software to run on it. And the problem at any time that something new arrives, is that there a huge decade of legacy to run of it. Yes every time a new designs arrive, it may be largely superior. But corporation's PHB don't give a damn about deisng quality. They only want to know if their applications will run. Alpha wasn't compatible at all with x86 application. Neither 68k back in its days. Nor MIPS. Nor PARISC. Itanium had lousy compatibility because it was mostly done in software and thus was running much slower than the rest. Transmeta only survived because it has decent speed in running x86 code and has very low power requirements. The main reason that Itanium flunked and AMD64 prevailed is that the later was an extension to x86. Yes, this extension is a hack. But a hack that has full backward compatibility, and that can be plugged into a PC and run today's OS with today's applications. Backward compatibility has been both the x86's main advantage and main problem.
- Also there's the problem of drivers. Even if the newer arch. uses standard bus such as PCI where you can plug all your existing hardware, you still have to get drivers for it. And few manufacturer are going through the hassle of supporting another additional binary format. Linux is already too much for them, exotic CPU are beyond them. Early adopter of Windows XP 64bits (both Itanium and AMD64) will remember.
- Compare this to the Linux world where, becuase the source is freely available, and there project such as Debian that take care to have only very stable code. : switching to a newer architecture is mostly a matter of recompiling the code for the new platform. That's why Linux was almost available overnight for AMD64, running on Transmeta simulators before the actual hardware was available. It mostly had only to be recompiled and could be done easily because it leveraged work done to port the code to other 64bits platforms (Sparc64, or the other 64bits arch you mention).
In a perfect world were everyone is using opensource, those arch. you mention could have survived, no mater what marketing is heard from Intel and every one could benefit from the latest great processor with clean and perfect architecture. But in a world were Microsoft has a huge monopoly on desktop machines and everyone runs binary apps and drivers, only hacks of the pre-existing arch can have significant impact. That's why you haven't seen anything revolutionary for the past 35 years (software compatible since the 8bit 8008 in 1972, binary compatible since the
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You're right! The 601 is the first gen PPC, the 604 and low end version (603) was the second generation. My G3 and G4 systems definitely don't qualify. What I was thinking is that they are the oldest new-world Apples, but they aren't even in that group, that would be an original iMac... Sigh. Last time I try to change my subject.
This decision by Microsoft to drop 32bit support *may* boost Linux (and other OS) adoption.
Currently I know some friends who uses old machines and a lot of machines in the university (specially in labs). All those are still based on P2/P3 or other CPUs of that era. 10 years old processors.
"A next Windows" has no chance of happening before 2013, considering their current release speed of 6 years between XP and Vista. Worse if we take into account that Microsoft has promised to build an entirely new capability-based microkernel OS. Which is very unlikely, given their tendency of scraping newer non-eyecandy idea out of Vista because of time constraints.
By the time Microsoft finally releases their next piece of shit, there will be a lot of 10 years old, 2003-era processors everywhere (Intel Pentium-IV, 32-bits only Intel Core, AMD Athlon XP, early 32bits AMD Semprons) :
This mean that when Windows-the-next (tm) comes out, either there will be a massive switch toward other OS (very likely in university labs) or the new OS will see an even slower reception than Windows Vista is currently experiencing (very likely on Joe 6-pack's older 32bits home machine).
The last similar switch of technology requirement was Windows 95 : the first consumer oriented widely diffused Microsoft OS that could only run on 32bits protected mode CPUs.
In 1995 (okay, 1996) when it came out, Intel 80386 where 10 years old and had finished displacing the 16bit only older 80286.
99% of home computer where equipped with 32bits Windows 95-"mostly"-capable CPU ranging from 386 to Pentium.
That's why it went went "somewhat more smoothly".
Throwing out the 32bit arch is TOO MUCH early. Microsoft should wait until it is completely phased out of the market, in most segment (if possible, including the small embed/ITX market of people making low-power boxes. Current VIA chips are 32bits only). The problem is, maintaining compatibility for more than 1 architecture has always been too much work for Microsoft (Alpha and MIPS got only a couple of NT releases. Itanium hasn't got a much high number of OSes), in contrary of the OpenSource community.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Irrelevant my dear flocktard. Microsoft writes commercial software that runs on commodity mass-produced hardware. That's what they've always done, and that's what they'll always do. You can have the 28 niche platforms and architectures. Unless you were interested in the m68k, which etch dropped. Oops.
How much do SDK's cost per platform?
About $0.00, last I looked.
lack of choice is a serious failure of the non free software model
It's not a "failure" if you never intended to support all those platforms. You might count it as an advantage of Linux or whatever and I'll agree, but that does not translate into it being a "failure" on Microsoft's part. Why is that so hard to understand? "Microsoft doesn't do X - HAHA! THEY FAIL!!" C'mon.
being forced to move from one platform to another
As usual you exaggerate in the name of zealotry. Whatever your perceived damage done by doing x-or-y because of Microsoft happens rarely enough and goes smoothly enough that it doesn't really matter. Plus, you get support for decades if you decide not to. That's the little detail you keep forgetting, I suppose on purpose.
Bend over Bungi, Bill Gates has got a few software deals for you.
Ah, always a fan of scat humor and sexual references. If I didn't know better I'd say you were twelve.
Pre-installed that is. Must be because all the adware junk that OEM's try to dump on their customers won't work in 64-bit Vista.
Microsoft thinks they have the driver issue fixed by forcing all drivers that are WHQL'd to be 32 and 64 bit, but WHQL certification is beginning to lose it's relevance. Now that any driver can go into the "unclassified" category, all the stability guarantees WHQL provided will go away, and will simply become a rubber stamping body.
If you believe Microsoft's published release schedules I have a lovely bridge to sell you. Low use, well maintained and just had a new paint job.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
and Linux took over Microsoft in OS usage.
It will be at least 10 years before software vendors stop supporting Vista maybe 15 since it will probably will take MS 10 years to get the next OS out. I just bought a copy of XP to run under Parallels. Could have bought Vista for the same price but its more of a memory hog and all I really need is the ability to run occasional Windows only app. I couldn't care less about the features in Vista or whatever comes after it.
I'm surprised everyone missed Microsoft's real reason for doing this. Vista 64-bit requires signed drivers. Yes you can disable driver signing on Vista but it something only about 5% of Windows users would feel comfortable doing. The next Windows will probably make disabling driver signing more difficult or maybe even impossible. Microsoft will have effectively locked down what you can run on your own hardware for Windows users.
I don't know why you were modded up, your comment was pretty redundant; if we consider that it will be 64-bit only, don't you think the upgrade cycle will have been shrunk? Considering you only have to make one standing core edition? Even if the product is pushed back it won't take as long as it once did, given this information. I'm sure Windows Vista is more part of a transition model than it is an actual key operating system.
its about time, i mean MS is already delaying UEFI because vista doesn't support it - although Linux is capable of running it, and does on server motherboards
I don't even know why vista has a 32 bit version, most people who upgrade have to upgrade their computer, and anything these days is 64bit anyway, so why have 2 versions of vista, of which vista 64bit is getting crappy driver support so its useless anyway
Also, by the time MS release their next OS 32bit wont support enough ram so they need 64bit anyway for the terabytes of ram the next OS will need
Ooops! I didn't see see GlobalEcho's reply before posting mine; s/he did the same thing before me.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Computers will be sooo much faster once we can let the 32 bit cousins go. 16 to 32 bit didn't take long at all.. But my favorite quote: "Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run." It's too bad that Vista will be the only windows OS for another 5-7 years. Anyone who can afford an apple will have a new one by then.
Exactly. Wish I had mod points.
Years ago, Microsoft claimed Vista was going to depricate win32, and that the
Nice work. If only my unused mod points hadn't expired this morning...
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Not in the way that was meaningful. Actually, the Win32 API should have been scrapped by XP. NT 3.1 is a security nightmare, as is every OS spawned using the Win32 API as its core functionality. NT 3.1 predates the Web-as-Disease-Vector concern, ergo, no real addressing of security. Once security became an issue Win32, was officially obsolete. One could argue that NT 4 should have been the OS dump. Win 2K was another opportunity. XP was the last gasp.
"For Microsoft, dumping backwards compatibility would be equivalent to giving market share to Linux etc. on a platter."
Interesting.
A free operating system is considered to be a competitor of one that costs money. Seems to me that this equation has only one possible end.
Given the amount of software that was incompatible with XP, it is clear that backwards compatibility isn't really all that important. It certainly hasn't been handing Linux market share since users seemed to be OK with sacrificing a bit of backwards compatibility for a reasonably stable OS. And as someone else in this thread correctly stated, OSX was a complete rewrite and it didn't seem to harm adoption.
To your statement, assuming truth to your surmise, if Windows cannot compete with other OSes because they've finally made the transition to dinosaur, then let Darwinian principles take over and naturally select it out, rather than artificially controlling the market to allow continued existence.
Risking market share with a rewrite is the ONLY way Windows can survive. Windows is a bloated OS whose base code is about 15 years out of date, and because they refuse to make the statement "your old programs WILL NOT WORK on this new OS", they will continue to tweak a system and con people into paying for a continuous upgrade path, and that's a strategy headed for the dungheap.
Linux is gaining strength because people have had it with the "upgrade and pay through the nose, or don't and be obsoleted" MS revenue strategy used on every single one of their product lines.
The only way proprietary software can compete with F/OSS is by making a better product with a singular focus. And for MS that means a clean break from the past, an assumption of inherent risk on a new product absorbing the lessons of the past, and a strategy of long-term technology investment, rather than short-term planned obsolescence. I just wonder if they have the talent for that kind of forward thinking. I'm doubting it.
Will it take the opportunity? Probably not. GM and Microsoft have a lot in common. All the effort is in figuring out new ways to prop up and extend the revenue stream, and very little is going to product development.
Maybe being forced to play as a newbie will bring their best efforts forward. Maybe it'll drown the whole company. Who knows? Who cares? People will adapt to the playing field they're presented.
None of this touches the twin problems which makes Microsoft's release schedules so awful: the religion of backwards compatibility and a overly-managed, near-chaotic corporate culture which emphasizes endless meetings and paper trails over innovation. Both of these items stem from something Microsoft can't control, which is the necesity of leaning on Windows/Word as their two dominant profit engines. Essentially, Microsoft has worked their way into a position in which true innovation (of the kind Apple was forced into with the failures of Copland and Pink and the adoption of OS X) is nearly impossible, because anything which threatens to cut off a sizeable portion of their user base directly threatens the company's bottom line.
In other words, the problem isn't Windows per se, or 32- versus 64-bit, or any other technical issue. The problem is Microsoft needs Windows simultaneously to be the same old operating system you've been using for years and the latest, greatest thing, and it can't be both. For a technology point of view, the best thing would be to really remake Windows from the ground up as Apple was forced to do with OS X and just tell people that if they bought their machine before 2001 they're out of luck. But they can't, and won't, do this, so their release schedule will continue to be contrained by the need to do two opposing things at the same time.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Cost.
The 4GB limit is becoming more and more of a problem. Especially since you don't ever really get 4GB ona 4GB system, since PCI devices grab memory addresses for their own use. 3.3 or so is usually what I see. While it is still somewhat "high end" to need that much memory, it has entered the consumer space. There are games now that want 2GB to themselves, if they can have it (Supreme Commander) and so on.
While it may not be a real problem right now, it will be in 4-5 years which is likely when we see the next version of Windows.
Also, the bitching about 16-bit apps is silly. If you have a legacy app, like a game, run it in an emulator. DOSBox does an excellent job. If the thing is newer, there's not really an excuse for using 16-bit code.
Basically what it comes down to is MS wants to maintain only a single codebase (which makes sense) and they project that by the time the next version of Windows comes out, 64-bit will be all that is being sold. They are probably right about that.
I worked at Apple at the time, and had figured out that a version of OS X for some new architecture was being readied for release about a year before the announcement was made. At the time, I had assumed that AMD-64 was the new architecture, but I turned out to be wrong about that. I think the reason they went with 32-bit x86 simply comes down to timing. The overall 64-bit support in the rest of the OS wasn't there yet, even for PPC. At the time, 64-bit PPC apps were limited to the BSD libraries - no Carbon, no Cocoa.
Once the decision was made to go with Intel as the processor supplier, the timing of the switch meant that 32-bit was the only model that could be supported out of the gate. Now, Apple has previously said that they're going to be improving 64-bit application support for future versions of OS X. I fully expect that Leopard, or whatever comes after, will have support for 64-bit applications using the full range of system services. A lot of hard work has gone into making the 32-bit to 64-bit transition as smooth as possible. Writing 64-bit console apps for PPC is basically a matter of changing a single compiler option, and viola - you can use dozens of gigabytes of memory just as easily as writing 32-bit code.
I expect that the support of x86-64 in OS X will be similar. For the developers that use it, it'll be a trivial change. The users won't even know which applications are 64-bit enabled.
Windows keeps the same model for virtual address space. It splits it right down the middle, lower part for user, upper part of kernel. So in 64-bit space that's 8 exabytes for each. Should the day ever come where we actually have systems with more than 8 exabytes of RAM then we'll have the same per process limitations we are seeing today.
Please remember that is all deals with virtual address space, not real RAM usage, however. The OS shuffles things around in actual RAM as it sees fit, however it presents the split down the middle virtual space to each program running in it, which limits the amount of memory the program can access.
"Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows they will be able to run."
That's funny. Being that Vista took 5 years to get out the door, I don't see what all the fuss is about. So... your new Mac won't run the newest version of Windows when it's released in five years. What's the big deal? It's a Macintosh anyway. Had you purchased an early Dell model, the problem would be the same.
In any case, Microsoft has made bold declarations like this before. Remember when they said all future Windows releases would use the NT kernel?... back in 95? Then there was Windows 98, ME, and all the interim abominations. I wouldn't be surprised if they offer Vista "ME."
seeing as Vista is just getting out the door, and given the increased production times trend (win95,win98, XP (2002 or so?), Vista:2007
so I don't think that we will see Windows "broken unbreakable glass" (what I'm calling their next version) until well into 2013 or so...
with that said and given the massive upgrades required to PROPERLY run windows Vista it isn't applicable to todays hardware because most of the x86_32 stuff can barely run it.
Personally I don't care much, I've seen Vista and I don't see any major motivation for an upgrade. So there won't be a new OS after Vista on 32, fine by me. XP is stable enough to run the windows junk that I need, If i absolutely had to I suppose years from now I could install a discount Vista...
But what's going to be improved about the new OS or even Vista that even motivates me to get it.
People like to run out and by the latest Windows simply because its the latest, thas all they care to know. I say why pay for something you don't need. What does Vista offer you that XP isn't doing well enough for you. What is winNext going to offer that makes it needed or worth upgrading to. I dont care what it runs on if I dont want or need it. Seriously for the bulk of people out there, for whom Email, word processing and internet browsing is the entirety of what they do, 64 bit processors are unneeded. Why focus on improving the current system when you can just deprecate it and release a new one like microsoft does.
This could open up the door even wider for Linux to become a mainstream OS for people who don't have any need to buy a 64bit processor in the future but for whatever unforeseen reason need to migrate to a supported OS.
Telling me what your next release is going to support for hardware without telling me what the next release even addresses is sorta pointless. I don't give a crap what your next thing does until I know if I even WOULD want it anyways. It seems rather backwards to me. The telling sign that microsoft doesn't know how to advertise, other than Aero I don't know why I would want to upgrade to Vista. Vista's features consist pretty much entirely of new versions of applications as opposed to OS enhancements, at least as advertised. Most of it seems like GUI catchup to KDE/GNOME/OSX (aqua).
I think what they really did is shoot themselves in the foot. Now anyone who was thinking about buying a new machine to get vista shuoldnt, they should wait because whatever they get will be made obsolete when x86_64 becomes the only supported thing.
It all really comes down to the fundamental problem of what are the OS updates and new versions actually accomplishing other than GUI updates and bundling applications or updating current ones.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Where can I go to sign up to have Vista be the last Windows I have to run?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
They don't require MS's signature on drivers, just a signature. You can self sign. Many drivers are signed that way. The Creative Labs audio drivers, for example. Those pieces of shit wouldn't pass WHQL validation, but they don't have to. Creative self signs them. Likewise the Truecrypt kernel module is self signed (though not because it sucks).
This doesn't stop free, open drivers, just requires the people releasing them to sign them. If the driver isn't MS signed, Vista pops up a little box saying "The driver is signed by Company X, do you want to trust them and install?" Click yes and it installs, and you aren't bothered again.
The idea isn't to stop third parties, it is to prevent people from compromising drivers. If you think you are installing Tryecrypt, but the digital signature is instead form "Joe's L33t Hax0r Shack", you should probably think about stopping the install and talking to the TC foundation since they have probably been hacked.
The public announcments will follow that the reason for this is because the popular ODF file format is so inefficient that supporting it natively in MS Word 2010 causes Word to exceed the addressing limits of 32-bits.
;-)
In more news, the new Microsoft Windows Infirmary will have a minimum memory requirement of 4GB.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I don't think they can do this, though, because of their religion of backwards compatibility. Too many corporations still run old software which requires Windows to be enormously backwards compatible. Walking away from these applications/companies, IMO, is something which Microsoft is absolutely unwilling to do, largely because their corporate culture is ossified and unimaginative. 95% of their effort seems to go towards keeping the status quo functioning rather than looking towards the future.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
http://blogs.msdn.com/iainmcdonald/archive/2007/05 /17/weird-how-people-get-stuff-wrong.aspx
Future versions of Windows Server after {the upcoming Longhorn / 2008} will be 64-bit only, but not the client OS.
What are you smoking? The two top-end game consoles (Xbox360 and PS3) have 512MB of main memory, which is shared between graphics AND everything else. Compared to that, a limitation of 2-3 GB on PC games is practically no limitation at all.
The people who are running out of memory are DBA and server farm operators. Maybe MMO server developers have problems with the 4GB limit.
In practice, everybody who struggles with the 4GB limit is buying their own hardware anyway, so they can buy PAE-capable boards and run PAE-capable software on them.
4GB is not a practical limitation for everyday consumers (yet), and I don't expect it will be for at least 10 more years, no matter HOW bloated Microsoft makes their software.
Remember?
"Four Gigabytes should be enough for anyone." -- Bill Gates
..after Vista, that is the real question :p
This will open up a new market for people who want simple applications that run, say, on an 8088 with 640K RAM. You'll be able to print documents instantaneously!
Then why would they make their next operating system 64-bit only? Seems contradictory to their "status quo", and still that doesn't have anything to do with the release date or anything I said in the previous post.
They'll just stay with Vista, or more likely XP.
No, Apple has enjoyed a very successful year thanks to the Intel switch alone. In fact they are expecting further growth thanks to A. Adobe products for the intel OS X and B. Paralllels' virtualization products.
It's not like you can't run 32-bit code on a 64-bit kernel. I'm sure that applications running in 32-bit mode on 64-bit "Vienna" will have some restrictions imposed on them (such as not being able to access DRMed content, and somesuch) but it would be downright foolish of them to just up and make everyone compile their programs for x86_64. Microsoft has already shown that they care about *software* backwards compatibility quite a bit more than *hardware* backwards compatibility. Anyways, I'm willing to go on record as betting that most well-written, API following, 32-bit binaries compiled for Windows XP will work just fine on 64-bit Vienna.
-Mr. Lizard
^I'm with stupid.^
I was amazed by the fact that it took 25 years to reach one billion PCs. That number will change to two billion by 2008 according to Gartner Dataquest.
You know what this is leading toward. Without a nation wide effort of recycling its a slow and steady progression of these PCs ending up in closests, storage facilities and land fills. This subject doesn't grab the media's attention like such subjects as Global warming or dirty bombs, but considering the toxic materials PC are made with it should at least raise some questions. The picture in my mind references a tv PSA of long ago. I see a decades worth of computers tossed back and marked as obsolete, while an Native american looks toward you and sheds a tear (ok so he wasn't really an Indian but its sentiment that I wanted you to remember),
But just to play the devil's advocate here, I've upgraded 3 mac minis to Merom CPUs, which have the 64 bit extension and virtualization features. I am not sure, but I believe the iMac CPUs are also socketed (they may not have even sold any iMacs without Core 2 - not sure). Seems like the only folks *really* left in the lurch would be 1st gen iBook owners.
But in any event, I believe that by the time Vista's successor arrives, macs (and perhaps even Linux desktop boxen) will have enough market presence that we won't really be bemoaning the software monoculture anymore. Already there are only two things for which I must use Windows and have no Mac alternative: Netflix Instant Viewing (and they will have that available for mac in the future at some point) and playing at pokerstars.com (which I don't do too much since Full Tilt Poker has a mac client).
> Owners of first-generation Intel Macs that used (32-bit only) Core Duo CPUs may not be so happy knowing that Vista will be the last Windows
> they will be able to run.
For recycling purposes, both Apple and Dell say 7 year life span. Time is up on 32-bit Macs in 2012. I haven't heard anyone seriously suggest that Windows Vista will be replaced with a new version of Windows by 2012. Inside Microsoft they may say so but on one hand who believes them and on the other, when they suggest to ship post-Vista Windows in 2010 people get angry at the idea that the next shake up will come so soon.
Microsoft is transitioning the server line to 64-bit exclusive. Not the client line. You'll note that TFA has been updated to clarify this.
--Ford Prefect
This means that Vista is a dead-end OS with a 2-3 year shelf-life at best. Somehow this shouldn't be any surprise to people.
UPDATE | Microsoft's Alex Heaton has clarified the comment of Bill Laing, on which this story is based. "Bill Laing, a General Manager in the Microsoft Windows Server Division, has been quoted as saying that Windows Server 2008 will be the last 32-bit operating system. Bill is a server guy and indeed Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit server operating system - all future operating systems for server hardware from Microsoft beyond Windows Server 2008 will be 64-bit," Heaton said.
"A few folks took Bill's comments on Windows Server and applied them to Windows Client deriving that Windows Vista would be the last 32-bit operating system. That is an incorrect extension. While Windows Vista includes both 32-bit and 64-bit and there is a growing community of drivers for 64-bit Windows Vista we have not decided when Windows Client will follow Windows Server and become 64-bit only."
- Why would Microsoft dump its largest market ?
- Why do consumers need 64 bit by the next version of windows if they don't need it today
- Why would Microsoft assume the ubiquity of 64 bit cpu's
... there doesn't seem to be demand for them today ... why in
This entire concept seems absurdThis comment was laboriously planned and extremely well thought out by Mike Donaghy @ http://mikedonaghy.org
You must be new here.
;-)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Linux will remain on 32 bit systems (as well as 64bitters) as it does now, for a long long time. Reason:== There are many many developers in less affluent countries who only have 32 bit machines. Vista is for the rich, thats all I have to say. It offers so little more than XP that I will continue with the latter. By the way, there is a clone of XP that is being tested. Wow. Will we have a clone of Vista, minus some look and feel?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada