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Why Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Zen Will Only Be Optimized On Windows 10 (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: There was quite a stir caused recently when it was determined that Microsoft would only be fully supporting Intel's Kaby Lake and AMD's Zen next-generation processor microarchitectures with Windows 10. It's easy to dismiss the decision as pure marketing move, but there's more to consider and a distinction to be made between support and compatibility. The decision means future updates and optimizations that take advantage of the latest architectural enhancements in these new processors won't be made for older OS versions. Both of these microarchitectures have new features that require significant updates to Windows 10 to optimally function. Kaby Lake has updates to Intel's Speed Shift technology that make it possible to change power states more quickly than Skylake, for example. Then there's Intel's Turbo Boost 3.0, which is only baked natively into Windows 10 Redstone 1. For an operating system to optimally support AMD's Zen-based processors, major updates are likely necessary as well. Zen has fine-grained clock gating with multi-level regions throughout the chip, in addition to newer Simultaneous Multi-Threading technology for AMD chips. To properly leverage the tech in Zen, Microsoft will likely have to make updates to the Windows kernel and system scheduler, which is more involved than a driver update. Of course, older versions of Windows and alternative operating systems will still install and run on Kaby Lake and Zen. They are x86 processors, after all.
stll not upgradng to it , f U
I can think of two other operating systems, other than Windows 10, that will "Optimize" Kaby Lake processors, but I'll leave it as an exercise for the student to figure out which ones they are.
just a ghost in the machine.
Still a better love story than Twilight.
After all, while Win10 will have those performance improvements, they will most likely be negated by all the spyware bullshit installed by the integrated adware/data mining system.
Well Linux started supporting the new CPU features six months ago. Probably earlier inside Intel - when you're wanting to test your new CPU features before you release the CPU, you can either wait for Microsoft to use them in Windows, or do it yourself in Linux.
I know that was done with x64, AMD ported Linux's existing 64 bit support, then a few years later Microsoft released 64 bit Windows.
Can we phrase this the other way that doesn't make Microsoft look good? Just say Windows 8.1 and older will not get updates for Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Zen.
We expect most modern OSes to do these kinds of upgrades. Only calling out Windows 10 makes it seem like these are somehow special windows features, when they are nothing of the sort. Linux already has patches available for Intel's Turbo Boost 3.0, and that's just the first example I searched for.
The summary makes a good, logical-sounding statement as to the state of OS optimizations with these new chips. Anyone who's followed the release of new CPU feature sets could tell what was going to happen this time around (new features are only supported in newer OSes), and that's what we're seeing here.
The bigger question, IMO, is support. Specifically driver support. Will Intel and AMD release drivers for older OSes (mainly Windows 7/8)? I'm not looking to get support for any new features in these processors. I'm looking to make sure I'll be able to run these chips with the accelerated functionality I'm used to having (using AHCI instead of ATA compatibility mode, using the onboard/integrated graphics functionality instead of the VGA driver, etc.).
That is the question I'm looking for answers on.
This thing needs to be pulled apart and examined from a slightly higher level.
First of all, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that these chips do not support Windows 7 or 8 outright. Intel and AMD, despite their apparent lobotomy, will only shoot themselves in the foot if they start making x86 architecture backwards-incompatible. Indeed, the fact of the matter is that this is the one thing they bring to market that ensures their dominance. Additionally the processor itself is unlikely to be able to specifically lock on to Windows 7 or 8 and refuse to run because of that.
Furthermore, Windows 7 or 8 out of the box CANNOT recognize these new chipsets and CANNOT refuse to install because of them. If someone sucks down all the updates Microsoft throws at them, there may well be a Win 7 update that deliberately bricks it somewhere down the line. But if you keep updates off Windows 7 will not commit suicide on behalf of Microsoft, at least not in this manner.
What is more likely is that things like the chipset drivers are not going to be backported. Does this mean inherent incompatibility? The answer for that is unclear. It is likely, IMO, that it will run, but with degraded performance, e.g. a lot of the onboard goodies may not work. I doubt that it is so obsessed with specific drivers that everything will be disabled. For instance, I imagine USB 2.0 will work but 3.1 might not. It is also possible that there may be attempts by users to backport the drivers, which may or may not be successful. In terms of the need for a next-generation kernel, if the chipsets are so incompatible that they REQUIRE new drivers to operate, and there is no way around that, even by using legacy protocols and drivers, then yes, only a next-generation kernel will run on it. However, that strikes me as unlikely (although it's possible, at least in theory).
Now, is any of this absolutely for certain? No, not really; the only way to test that out is to actually attempt to install it.
In terms of virtualization, unless Intel has put in some kind of anti-virtualization sabotage to shoot down Windows 7 (which again would be difficult for the processor to detect), it is unlikely that it will work.
In terms of Secure Boot, that IS a problem, but it is an entirely separate problem that, in theory, applies to all recent UEFI machines. It may very well cause serious problems for Linux installations. I've heard some references to a signed version of GRUB, but I think that there is a serious danger of Microsoft cooking up ridiculous reasons for refusing to sign binaries for anything they dislike. Additionally I recall hearing on at least one occasion about needing everything in the boot loader's chain to be signed (e.g. drivers). I do not know how they would manage that once the kernel is running, but if that is the case then that is a significant problem, and any machine which Secure Boot cannot be disabled on is as such essentially Microsoft-owned hardware.
Ultimately what this boils down to is part sabotage and part FUD with Intel and AMD being willing co-conspirators with Microsoft, and essentially participating in collusion. I'm not sure why Intel and AMD are so loyal to Microsoft, though; Microsoft has demonstrated it has no loyalty to x86, and has done so repeatedly over the years (see: Windows Phone, Windows NT for Alpha, etc.). Microsoft is the filthy whore you really don't want to get in bed with. You'd think after contracting leaking dick so many times before they would have figured this out by now.
"Why Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Zen Will Only Be Optimized On Windows 10 "
that is misleadingly worded.
correctly speaking m$ will only optimize windows 10 for these processors. they can optimize their older os to these, if they want to, but will not due to costs, etc.
similarly any other os can optimize for these processors, if they want to. there is no prohibition for doing that.
why editors at /. want to word this only from m$ pov leading to misleading readings(in at least 2 summaries dealing with this issue) is puzzling.
When I hear or see the word "turbo", my first thought is of this Far Side cartoon.
#DeleteChrome
Windows 10 can go to hell. I'd rather switch to MacOSX or Linux, either way, both -SIGNIFICANTLY- less shit than Windows 10. Fuck that noise
This is just plain wrong. You could very easily make an OS that uses a whitelist of CPUID responses and PCI probe responses and refuses to install/boot on anything else. CPUs provide features for detecting/identifying generations, it would be easy enough to abuse this to make an OS refuse to install/boot on a chip that was released after it.
I'm not saying any mainstream OS does this, just that it's by no means impossible, and pretending that it's impossible just makes you look uninformed/ignorant.
The story is that despite the announcement that the new generation of processors will be fully supported only by Win10, you'll still be able to use Win7 with them.
I couldn't think of a good reason for me to stay on Win 7 (if you're into hard core Strategy games there's lots that don't run on Win 10, when I say hard core I mean the grand scale hex based ones with menus that look like they were drawn with old Win32 libraries :) ) but other than that it's solid and the few Directx 12 games I have (the Gamecube/Wii emulator Dolphin & Killer Instinct) run great even on my 5 year old A10-5800k (which wasn't that great in 2011 when it launched). About the only thing I really don't like is being able to go file->new->new folder. They changed the short cut and it drives me nuts.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It is newsworthy. Windows 7 is supposed to be supported until 2020. But MS doesn't want new CPUs to be fully optimized on 7 because "work is hard."
You should learn about the difference between mainstream support and extended support before you try and share an opinion...
Microsoft will have another Windows version out before this actually gets to market.
Sad thing is if I guessed "WIndows 10 Anniversary Edtion" and "Windows 10 sold by some pirate on the street in China" either would outsell your guesses by orders of magnitude...
Are you willing to pay for it? Can you convince another million users to do so? if not, why should they add new features to an 8 year old OS? What were you doing 8 years ago and are you willing to stop what you are doing now and spend the next year supporting it for no gain?
Not the first time - Microsoft only fully supported the Pentium Pro, Pentium II and descendants on their server line of software.
Windows XP was stuck on 4GB even when the hardware could support more in MS Server 2003, linux and all the rest.
Annoying as fuck, a step backwards and one reason a Win2k machine in my workplace (two sockets and 6GB) was kept on Win2k for well over a decade.
For those without a clue who want to challenge this, at least look up PAE so you don't look so stupid when you do so.
You need to know how Microsoft operates to understand this. Once a release of Windows is "done", its support is handed over to Sustained Engineering organization. This org is where you go if you can't make it at Microsoft proper. They simply have neither the capability nor the desire to add new features to operating system versions you can't even buy anymore.
Consider also that the vast majority of "normal" people only update the OS to a new release when they buy a new computer. So support for newer hardware by older OSs is not as huge an issue in the real world as it is here on Slashdot.
Windows 10 ? No.
Linux.
aaaaaaa
Other than the gamer community which seems to be Windows-focused - and I'm not one of you - who gives a bubbly-fart? Anything beyond W7 is utter nonsense and I use Linux for everything other than a very specific DAW app for which I use a W7 dual-boot arrangement. Fuck everything W8+!!!!
Intel had some "fairly good" DRM in their chips for years now. The problem is that no one really bothers, at least in mass market - DRM that only works on some machines is much more bothersome then just using one of software level ones (eg PlayReady) that will be accepted by majors. After all to be reasonable you need to support whole os as asking users "what type of processor do you have" is likely to give you pretty bad results.
Theoretically Intel could get sort of exclusive from majors for 4k (as in "you need this drm for 4k"), but I doubt it. Intel only has dominance in pc market and I expect skipping other platforms (eg smart tv) would not be very popular idea.
It is as simple as this: These new CPUs have integrated GPUs. I do believe these GPUs are fully DirectX 12 compatible. DX 12 only works on Windows 10, while Windows 7 supports DX 11. This is most likely the majority of the "support" and "optimizations" in Windows 10 for these new CPUs. The GPUs will still operate win DX 11 mode, just with a few new features disabled.
You could very easily make an OS that uses a whitelist of CPUID responses and PCI probe responses and refuses to install/boot on anything else.... I'm not saying any mainstream OS does this...
Actually OSX does do this I believe. That's why you never see Hackintoshes running better CPUs than you can find in actual shipping Apple Macintosh hardware -- even when they are available.
You could do that for a future OS, but can you patch an old OS to reject current (new) processors? If you did patch it to do that, would anyone install those patches?
Learn to love Alaska
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That you object to the english words for a technical term doesn't mean the technical term doesn't have some meaning.
Learn to love Alaska
never heard of osx and linux ?
Last time I checked chipset drivers for Intel are maintained by Intel them self. Only relevant M$ driver I can think of that would be affected is the ACPI. So pretty much all the work and cost supporting Windows 7 would be done by Intel.
No disrespect intended to MojoKid, but this story about Microsoft being unable to optimize pre-Windows 10 Operating Systems for older processors is outright nonsense.
I've been working with the "Windows NT" family of operating systems [i.e. the codebase that Microsoft developed after they grabbed all the VMS OS Programmers from Digital] since NT3.51. Since that OS release, as this Microsoft Knowledgebase article shows https://support.microsoft.com/... Microsoft's 32-bit [and now 64-bit] Windows offerings included a proper Hardware Abstraction Layer. In other words, it is possible for Microsoft to replace the HAL for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 with one that is entirely compatible with these latest Intel and AMD chips. In fact, this story is almost laughable, given that the HAL was designed and conceived specifically to allow for seamless transition between successive generations of processor platform.
For example, Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 actually introduced support for the PowerPC processor [the Motorola/IBM design that evolved into the CUBE processors that are found inside PS/3s]. In order for Microsoft to be able to support NT3.51 on two hugely different processor architectures, they needed a way of maintaining a very complex codebase easily. The HAL was the answer. By abstracting away the details of the low-level hardware and having the basics of the OS "Windows Services" call an internal API, Microsoft made it possible to maintain a single block of source code [above this watermark] that was then compiled down onto each architecture. This is the whole point of abstraction layers.
This is an old Microsoft trick, previously used to great effect with the "DirectX" scam, in which Microsoft would wait for a new generation of GPUs, then introduce a new edition of DirectX to take account of the enhanced functionality of the GPU silicon, only to not back-port that DirectX release to older OS versions [thereby forcing gamers to upgrade]. Over the last few years the gaming market has shifted away from PCs and on to either consoles or portable devices [tablets and phones], so there is less demand for gaming on PCs: consequently, Microsoft needed a new incentive to force OS upgrades - and this is it.
Microsoft would love for you to forget about the HAL. The problem is that the world has moved on. 10, 15 years ago, the Wintel hegemony relied upon new Windows features to drive the latest generation of hardware sales. All that is now upside down. People don't care about the OS; they are using portable or cloud applications anyway, so now the "wow factor" is driven by the latest generation of hardware - see what effect new Apple product has. Microsoft have learned from this, so now they are using new processors as pull-through to forcibly migrate users on to Windows 10, to try and discourage them from porting their retail license copies of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 onto latest-generation hardware.
It's perfectly OK for Microsoft to do this. It's their code. They can do what they want. I'm not going to rail against them for making a decision that they have a perfect right to make.
What I most definitely DO object to is the deployment of specious half-truths as justification.
Jeeze, the pair of you. Number 1, from TFS:
Of course, older versions of Windows and alternative operating systems will still install and run on Kaby Lake and Zen. They are x86 processors, after all.
And number 2, yes of course an OS could have a whitelist, but as the GP points out, Win7 gold doesn't.
I know, the header is needlessly gloomy, but haven't we, some time ago, reached the point where advances in HW are no longer all that interesting? There were major excitements when we went from 8 to 16 bit, 32 bits 64 bits; and with the introduction of protected memory (which made pre-emptive multitasking workable) and virtualisation. It's been long since I thought a new CPU feature would be worth upgrading for - it would be great to have more cores and RAM, but it can wait. And while quantum computing, graphene and carbon nanotubes are promising technologies that may boost the speed to incredible heights, I probably wouldn't even notice the difference between a response time of a millisecond and a nanosecond. Yeah, some things would be snappier, but as a consumer, it won't matter enough for me to really care.
The same goes for SW - I haven't seen anything for almost a decade, that I thought I must have. I have all the tools I need and more: editors, compilers, databases engines galore, office packages, several classes of graphics editors (bitmap, vector, ray tracing, ..), I can design fonts that stretch all the way to the far end of Unicode and so on. Of course, because I use Linux, I have all of these things on any HW I am ever likely to encounter (and where they are relevant; I don't at the moment foresee a need for running Oracle or Glassfish on a mobile).
I guess the big question here is - from a consumer's point of view, have we reached the point where a computer is just a computer; an appliance, like a toaster, where they may look different and you may choose one look over another, but actually they just do the same basic thing?
Why would OSX need to support new Intel processors?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Yes, but there'll be no drivers............
You could very easily make an OS that uses a whitelist of CPUID responses and PCI probe responses and refuses to install/boot on anything else.... I'm not saying any mainstream OS does this...
Actually OSX does do this I believe. That's why you never see Hackintoshes running better CPUs than you can find in actual shipping Apple Macintosh hardware -- even when they are available.
That is untrue. Hackintosh machines are routinely way way more powerful.
No he's right. Windows 7 cannot because it's not programmed with a white list. If it was we would have found out about it a long time ago. Just because a programmer is capable of doing something doesn't mean the GPs content is right on the mark. Windows 7 cannot do this.
And I can say with some faith that any "fell-off-the-truck" version of Win7 and Win8.1 that actually registers ok with MS would outsell either of those by some magnitudes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The ancients here will remember the IBM of the 1980s. And maaaaybe the early 1990s. A juggernaut that pretty much dictated how you would use computers if you dared to think you would, if you were a halfway decently sized company. Sure, there were petty little startups like that fruity company that created their "home computer" in 1978, but that was stuff a serious business company like IBM couldn't even snicker over. There was no sidestepping them, and they knew it. Anything central processing? Mainframe? It was IBM or the highway.
And they had the attitude for it. They would assess what computer system you "need" (read: what they deem you worthy of), and you could buy this one, and only this one. Provided you had an IBM certified administrator (which was pretty much impossible for anything smaller than, say, IBM to have, so they "lent" you one. Essentially, you paid an additional worker who did essentially nothing but call IBM whenever that crate bugged out. And yes, those calls costed extra). And then you were allowed to run a very specific set of approved software on those machines. Which of course costed extra, what did you expect?
And so on. If you think MS is bad, this was actually worse. By some magnitude of attitude and hubris that is virtually unimaginable today anymore.
Everyone wanted to get rid of them. Literally everyone who had an IBM mainframe was trying anything they could to get out of that adhesion contracts. So when MS came along, it was by orders worse. Actually, what MS delivers today still is. And STILL it was embraced with open arms, mostly because it was "not IBM".
Well, you know IBM today. Makers of pretty good blades and server solutions. And you will still find people today in the higher tech administration levels that will refuse vehemently and "irrationally" to buy anything bearing those three letters. They most likely were around in the 1980s and had to suffer from it.
And hate can sit very, very deeply.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They do add new features to an 8-year-old OS, they just bundle them with a bunch of new UI tweaks and sell it as a new product. The problem is that they don't have a revenue model for selling what most business customers want: the same OS for 10+ years, with support for new hardware and up to date security patches. This is why old UNIX vendors stayed around and why RHEL still does well: for a lot of companies, the new shiny doesn't matter at all, they just want to be able to guarantee that things that worked last year will work next year, even if they need to replace broken hardware. Microsoft has managed to persuade a lot of companies to pay for Office as a subscription service, but not Windows. If companies were paying $50/year/seat for Windows 7, I suspect that MS would support it well into the 2020s.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This absolutely seems to be a Microsoft-Intel marketing position making, after people were annoyed at their monopolistic move announced a few days ago. Mic cannot sell their new OS's if gamers don't have to so they need to make them or others need to. We really don't care unless Intel and AMD takes Microsoft position and don't let other OS's access the new features. And since there is even more money on the other side (Apple>>Microsoft), I dont believe it can happen even if they originally intend to.
Why Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Zen Will Only Be Optimized On Windows 10
Do you mean "only Windows 10 and not any other Windows version" or do you mean "only on Windows 10 and no other OS"?
In any case, the wording is a bit weird. One doesn't optimise a processor. Better would be:
Only Windows 10 will be optimized for Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Zen
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I know you're being funny because Apple's current product lineup looks like something unearthed from an ancient Sumerian ziggurat at this point, but I have a feeling they aren't quite done with Mac yet, and their A-series SoCs can't get anywhere close to the performance of even the lowest wattage CPU in Intel's x64 products.
Apple might be one of the first large OEMs to ship kaby lake - maybe that's why they took a pass on the current chips?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"The problem is that they don't have a revenue model for selling what most business customers want: the same OS for 10+ years, with support for new hardware and up to date security patches."
Er, isn't the revenue model offering the same OS for 10+ years with support for new hardware? The money comes from the customers who pay for the software. Simple really. The cost of the software development scales with the number of customers, so the cost is amortized. What you do is price the OS based on the previous years sales figures, so what happens over time is if the number of users shrinks then the cost goes up, the company still makes bank on the ongoing development work, *and* useful feedback is provided to the users: over, say, a five year period everyone can see the price going up and start to plan accordingly.
Simply yanking the product from the market and forcing the customer to move on is actually a lose-lose proposition. But ultimately it must make Microsoft more money than being a sane and rational actor...
You have it backwards - it's the Apple hardware that will refuse to boot on an OS released before the hardware shipped, with rare exception. The hardware has a minimum system version in the firmware, and if the OS chosen to boot doesn't meet that, you get a nice grey circle with a slash through it.
By the way, this isn't new behavior - you can go all the way back to System 7.1 on it - some old school 68K Macs couldn't boot unless the System Folder had the proper System Enablers in it, which only shipped with some versions of the OS.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
More than that, good luck patching the Windows 7 Ultimate DVD in my closet combined with a DNS blackhole for the Windows Update server.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Is that like getting your airport experience optimized by the TSA?
Intel and AMD can greatly improve their sales numbers when they offer support on older Windows. And even if not, "not optimized" does not mean Win7/8 do not run on these processors.
I'm fine with being left behind. Aside from mildly better security there is no compelling reason for Win 10. 80% of the tasks I need to do work as well on Win7 as they do on Win10, the other 20% only work on Win7 because Win10 has dismal hardware support and outright refuses to run some software. The real roadblock is the dysfunctional UI in Win 10. It is so complicated and confusing for no reason. UI was the least problem that Windows had, yet that gets changed for the worse while we still endure the underperforming NTFS from Jurassic Park. Also no change in networking speed. When I think back how snappy network shares were connected under W2k...Win networking got worse with every new release. Instead we get useless stuff like Cortana...that is neat for those who have an office with a door.
Are you willing to pay for it? Can you convince another million users to do so? if not, why should they add new features to an 8 year old OS? What were you doing 8 years ago and are you willing to stop what you are doing now and spend the next year supporting it for no gain?
To be honest, what I really want isn't really Win7, I'd like a "Win10 Nano" home edition that ships with everything off, defaults to security patches only like the Enterprise LTSB and only serves as an application execution environment. I doubt it would cost Microsoft much to offer such an alternative, because the bits and pieces already exist they just choose not to offer that kind of combination. Yes, that means more than one edition to support but they already do that and I don't think enterprise applications will play by the home edition any time soon, so it's really just to let power/paranoid users tap into that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
OS/2 and CP/M?
Back in '03, it was quite a rough time for the site. There had been a lot of navel-gazing after the "Great Summer War": what are we here for? what is the site all about? Microsoft astro-turfing became the focal point because we needed a banner to rally around. Something to make people feel good inside. Nobody can say that they don't feel superior after reading that shit - and you have to remember that a lot of the people who come here don't have a lot else going on in their lives. They need that lift.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Sounds like support for the new features requires changes to the kernel, and only MS can make those changes. From the article, it looks like the Intel Turbo features can be worked in with a driver and some management software, but AMD's changes are much deeper.
Which is why the TSA is asking people to show up 3 hours before the flight instead of 2 hours...
Because there is always a bunch of dumbasses that shows up with a freaking van-load of luggage that insists on having it all as carry-on, which takes the TSA drones forever to check. There is also a bunch of dumbasses that wear boots or shoes that takes 30 minutes to take off so that they can be put on the X-ray conveyor belt.
Dumbass folks don't do any research on how to get thru the TSA lines quickly. Wear slip-on shoes that you can quickly take off and on! Wear pants that don't require a BELT! Put all of your baggage as checked baggage and quit trying to cram into the overhead bins!
Totally off topic, but I feel a lot better now that I have gotten that off my chest.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
the same shit was said with skylake and the linux support was quickly added.
Please just shut the fuck up.......squawk squawk !! Windows 10!! squawk squawk !! NSA in a black van outside your door!! squawk squawk !! The OS spies on my pr0n surfing!! squawk squawk !!
pssst - hey buddy? He's as crazy as a shithouse rat, and you managed to sound even crazier! Coffee withdrawal? Stopped smoking? I dunno, but time to relax.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Back in '03, it was quite a rough time for the site. There had been a lot of navel-gazing after the "Great Summer War": what are we here for? what is the site all about? Microsoft astro-turfing became the focal point because we needed a banner to rally around. Something to make people feel good inside. Nobody can say that they don't feel superior after reading that shit - and you have to remember that a lot of the people who come here don't have a lot else going on in their lives. They need that lift.
Prior to '03 we were preoccupied with performing a land grab on the low user ids.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
This is just plain wrong. You could very easily make an OS that uses a whitelist of CPUID responses and PCI probe responses and refuses to install/boot on anything else. CPUs provide features for detecting/identifying generations, it would be easy enough to abuse this to make an OS refuse to install/boot on a chip that was released after it.
I'm not saying any mainstream OS does this, just that it's by no means impossible, and pretending that it's impossible just makes you look uninformed/ignorant.
Come on man. No graphics, Intel RST, wifi, USB 3, type C, NVMe, etc. This is not a simple fix man.
Running a 7 year old OS on new hardware is weird to say the least and is like trying to Install Windows 3.11 on a pentium III. Sure you might get some of it to work but forget it being usable!
http://saveie6.com/
Yes and no. The title implies only Windows 10 will be optimized, the summary (and TFA) more clearly says that Microsoft will be optimizing only Windows 10 for Kaby Lake.
a few here were proudly boasting that their existing microsoft wares were future proof, they could always just run their older OS and MS Office products
nope. future hardware won't support them.
oh but virtualization you say. That assumes a LOT of things, including what virtualized devices are presented to your guest's OS, and whether Microsoft will allow activation/subscription on your virtualized platform
There are absolutely no issues with support for USB 3.1 or NVMe currently in windows 7. The only hassle which exists is the need for a Windows 7 installer with the USB support to allow you to load the NVMe drivers (if you do not slipstream them yourself). Intel has a tool freely available on their website which will update your install media for you.
Netflix still won't stream 4K to PC at all. So they are only supporting hardware DRM. Maybe they finally will on newer CPUs.
"Of course, older versions of Windows and alternative operating systems will still install and run on Kaby Lake and Zen. They are x86 processors, after all."
... ?
This is contraty to what I've read elsewhere, but I'd be interested to know once and for all, if I need new hardware (Kaby or lateR), will I be able to continue using Win7? If there are no kernel drivers (which is what the other articles stated), then
Maybe complicated isn't the right word, but it has taken a rather nasty beating with the ugly stick, everything is moved (for no obvious reason, other than to f.. with people), and it is still more optimized towards touch than anyone with a desktop would need or want.
> I have convinced a number of grandmas to switch to Linux Mint. Not many complaints.
I've found that for the roughly 80% of users who only use the computer to access the web (including Gmail or other web-based email), the only time they care about the OS is when an update breaks something. For these users, 99% of the time, all the OS is doing is hosting the web browser. A long term stable Linux works great for them, CentOS or Ubuntu LTS.
My wife loved her old laptop, it booted in seconds, the battery lasted all day, it was small and light. It didn't matter at all to her that it was a Chromebook, so the almost only program it could run was Chrome. That's all she wanted.
Faking the CPUID and patching the kernel binary either through the bootloader or manually has been done forever for unsupported CPUs for Hackintoshes. We've gotten many newer Intel CPUs working before Apple added official support. It was done with Haswell-E, Sandy Bridge, and many more. Unsupported Xeon models have been fully functional as well. Apple also releases the xnu kernel source code which is how AMD CPU support has always been added. So you're wrong here - Hackintoshes run better CPUs than Macs all the time and if there's an issue getting in the way with the vanilla kernel then there's no doubt a way to get around it.
Source: me - I helped support unsupported CPUs in the 10.6 kernels. http://wiki.osx86project.org/w...
Because there is always a bunch of dumbasses...
Indeed.
ReactOS and Haiku?
Back in '03, it was quite a rough time for the site. There had been a lot of navel-gazing after the "Great Summer War": what are we here for? what is the site all about? Microsoft astro-turfing became the focal point because we needed a banner to rally around. Something to make people feel good inside. Nobody can say that they don't feel superior after reading that shit - and you have to remember that a lot of the people who come here don't have a lot else going on in their lives. They need that lift.
Prior to '03 we were preoccupied with performing a land grab on the low user ids.
Ah, good old Operation Maybe-They-Have-Oil-Oh-Look-Its-A-WMD. I made the mistake of registrering my real name in the 115ks. Realised my mistake far too and bagged this johny come lately uid long after the war was over.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Ah bless. It's a good start, but your grade is 3/10 must troll harder.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
"and you have to remember that a lot of the people who come here don't have a lot else going on in their lives."
Spoken like the low-ID luser you are, waxing eloquent about the days when you didn't suck as much cock as you do these days.
Fun fact; there's a reason why Malda left his own blog for greener pastures, and it wasn't because Slashdot regulars like you made him want to stick around. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even the CREATOR OF SLASHDOT has better things to do with his time than waste it here.
So, outside of trolling why are you here?
So full of complete nonsense. Throwing out terms without knowing what they actually mean, let alone whether an operating system actually has to make any changes to support it.
Take speed-shift for example... all it does is remove the need for the OS to calculate a P-state for HLT/MWAIT. All ACPI has to do is present a smaller list of P states and *ANY* OS that supports HLT/MWAIT p-state setting (which basically worked meaningfully from Haswell onward) will instantly be using SpeedShift. There's nothing to 'support' unless the OS is coded to intentionally break it.
AMD's SMT improvements don't need any OS-specific coding. The original bulldozer architecture *DID* need OS-specific coding, because it was a piece of shit (and a lot of us just didn't bother to code the OS to try to characterized mixed integer/FP loads), but continuing to use that coding in the newer architecture doesn't really cost anything. And, again, the CPU topology is made available to the OS via ACPI, and any OS since before Sandybridge could use it. Linux and the BSDs have been using the topology info provided by ACPI for years, and Microsoft had better have been too, so no specific OS coding is required.
What a load of crap.
-Matt
Linux Mint
LOL. Oh, you mean you had to install a manufacturer driver for a device in Windows 7??? Heavens!!!! NVMe in Windows 7 is absolutely not a wrapper for USB 2.0. How in the world can you even possibly think or believe such a ludicrous thing? Besides that I literally have an office full of various models of brand new Optiplex, Precision, and Latitude. All Windows 7. All NVMe. All clean installs performed by me Do I need to show you my benchmarks of my Samsung NVMe disks and their "USB 2 wrapper". But please, tell me that I'm wrong as i'm typing on a windows 7 laptop with an NVMe disk with frankly smoking performance.
I said USB 3 is a wrapper for USB 2. Have fun with your BSOD with the intel drivers with NVMe are known to have under 7.
I will live in this decade thanks and enjoy better performance with something designed to be more module with battery life. Since Windows RT forced the kernel to be less dependent on PCI buses it makes it easier to make drivers for. It has a whole device API for thiings like NFC, 3d printers, or any device that is lacking under 7,
http://saveie6.com/
Wait, but I thought you were talking about USB 3 and NVMe and phantom crashes which don't exist, now we're talking about battery life and Windows RT? Well, it's pretty clear you have your finger on the button of Windows driver architecture and devices which don't have a PCI bus... hmmm let me look around my infrastructure base and see how many of those I have....hmmmm... nope, not a single one. Cheers!
It's funny because it's TRUE!
just a ghost in the machine.
> I would bet that 2.6.x still has a significant install base under the names RHEL5 & 6, centos 5 & 6, oracle linux 5 & 6.
If those people want the newest kernel, they can upgrade the kernel fairly easily. I just did. The config step is based on the existing config, so you don't need to make any changes to the config. You can either just make && make modules && make install, or the equivalent using a GUI.
MS does this to their own hardware, for crying out loud.
I had an MS Internet Keyboard Pro that refused to work with the Windows7 version of the driver, despite the fact that the entire rest of their keyboard range is supported. Turns out, the driver just blacklists that one particular model because it was originally an OEM device and MS dropped support for those devices in newer versions of the driver. I mean, despite the fact that it's their own product, sold under their own brand name, and with their own logo painted on the fascia.
It's easy to add support by editing the main INI file and adding the appropriate hardware ID number. Then the keyboard works fine with no lacking functionality.
What possible point that that comment serve in the context of optimizing for Kaby Lake? None, so who cares?
They do add new features to an 8-year-old OS, they just bundle them with a bunch of new UI tweaks and sell it as a new product
You could say that about every non 1.0 piece of software ever written, obviously. Doesn't mean shitloads of time was put into the new versions.
Many companies charge for EVERY new yearly release (Apple even did this for a while - for the fucking iPods, nonetheless - until they realized the ill will for a few bucks paled in comparison to the hundreds of billions they raked in on the hardware). FFS, I love Parallels, but every time EITHER MacOS or Windows is updated they seem to want to grab another $50+ for an "upgrade".
If they offered that, it would probably be 5x the cost to remove Home features - just because it sounds like something only an "Enterprise" use would want...