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Microsoft Leak Reveals New Windows 10 Workstation Edition For Power Users (theverge.com)
Upon close inspection of the Windows 10 build that Microsoft accidentally pushed to insiders last week, several users are reporting discovering the reference of a new Windows 10 SKU. From a report: In a leaked slide, Microsoft describes the edition as "Windows 10 Pro for Workstation" with four main capabilities:
1. Workstation mode: Microsoft plans to optimize the OS by identifying "typical compute and graphics intensive workloads" to provide peak performance and reliability when Workstation mode is enabled.
2. Resilient file system: Microsoft's file system successor to NTFS, dubbed ReFS, is enabled in this new version, with support for fault-tolerance, optimized for large data volumes, and auto-correcting.
3. Faster file handling: As workstation machines are typically used for large data volumes across networks, Microsoft is including the SMBDirect protocol for file sharing and high throughput, low latency, and low CPU utilization when accessing network shares.
4. Expanded hardware support: Microsoft is also planning to allow Windows 10 Pro for Workstation on machines with up to 4 CPUs and a memory limit of 6TB. Windows 10 Pro currently only supports 2 CPUs.
1. Workstation mode: Microsoft plans to optimize the OS by identifying "typical compute and graphics intensive workloads" to provide peak performance and reliability when Workstation mode is enabled.
2. Resilient file system: Microsoft's file system successor to NTFS, dubbed ReFS, is enabled in this new version, with support for fault-tolerance, optimized for large data volumes, and auto-correcting.
3. Faster file handling: As workstation machines are typically used for large data volumes across networks, Microsoft is including the SMBDirect protocol for file sharing and high throughput, low latency, and low CPU utilization when accessing network shares.
4. Expanded hardware support: Microsoft is also planning to allow Windows 10 Pro for Workstation on machines with up to 4 CPUs and a memory limit of 6TB. Windows 10 Pro currently only supports 2 CPUs.
Good to hear they're making a version of Windows specifically for professional use. It should then come without all the crap bloatware, ads, and telemetry, right? Right?
will enterprise get the same stuff? will this be VLK only that targets medium to large businesses and not smaller ones that may need high end systems.
Frankly, I've lost count at this point.
Safari has native ad-block and can disable auto-play. Apple once again has re-invented the landscape of computing with it's consumer friendly products.
Choose a Vista 2.0 now with names that are just about the same.
Why not add windows 10 pro for gamers just to confuse people even more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Clippy-Pro!
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Only a true Power Bottom can buttfuck themselves with a Bikini Bottom pineapple. I tried it, once, and blew my load all over the coffee table.
who needs an 4 socket workstation board now days? with the high core counts some times even 1 cpu can do the job maybe 2 just to get a lot of pci-e lanes.
Or amd 128 pci-e lanes with 1 or 2 cpus.
At a minimum it would be called, "Windows 10, Professional Platinum Ultimate Enterprise Synergy Business Executive Edition".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
NT for workstations? Windows 2016 for workstations?
It would be nice if that version also allowed using the OS without all the nannying warnings. Are you sure you want to change the extension on this file? YES I AM BLOODY SURE - I JUST TYPED IT!
The SMB Direct feature sounds interesting. Apparently it was introduced in Windows Server 2012.
It requires a network adapter that supports Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA). Here's the part I found interesting:
After at least one RDMA network connection is created, the TCP/IP connection used for the original protocol negotiation is no longer used. However, the TCP/IP connection is retained in case the RDMA network connections fail.
But surely it's gonna have New NT Technology.
So we've got different behavior for drivers (or otherwise different handling of hardware) for Windows Update to routinely fuck up, a new, untested file system that was delayed so much because it was unreliable, and a new SMB thing to get hacked.
And all you're promising me is somewhat better resource/process management, slightly faster access to network files, an allegedly more robust file system, and the ability to use more CPUs and RAM?
No thanks.
Until you provide numbers, I won't care about your alleged improvements. In the old days, the extent of their tuning for the server OS vs the desktop OS was changing the "Processor scheduling" option from "Programs" to "Background Services" and presumable adjusting the scheduling algorithm to stop putting services on the short bus.
Network file access is fast enough on a wired link. Sure, I'd like for it to be faster, but where are the numbers? Do I need a new share that supports the new shit as well? Or are the improvements only on the client side? If they're client side, then why not just improve regular SMB handling for everyone?
I haven't had an issue with NTFS that wasn't related to hardware issues. NTFS isn't the greatest, but I have no issues with out. I've encountered the ol' scandisk errors on it when shit is shutdown forcefully due to power loss or thermal protection, but those were always recoverable events. I've only had unrecoverable events on failing hardware.
With AMD's Threadripper you can get 16 cores and 32 threads in a single socket. With Epyc, you can get 32/64. And Epyc supports multiple sockets. If you need more than that you wait for Intel's upcoming 18/36 CPU for $2000, or get a big, slow Xeon (or two). I wouldn't consider such beasts "workstations". They'd be servers, in a rack with proper cooling, power filtering/redundancy/backup, ECC memory, physical security, etc., and the workstation would be someone remoting in to it. I don't know what the limit on RAM is for existing Windows 10 SKUs, but I doubt it's a practical limit for anyone who shouldn't be running shit on an actual server.
Now, if they had removed the telemetry entirely and let me truly turn off shit like Cortana, the Windows Store, the forced updates, etc., AND respect that decision and (and not default it back to on after each update I do choose to install), then I'd care.
ReFS still has serious stability issues much like early NTFS. People have been reported to lose data with ReFS in common scenarios as late as just a couple of months ago. In short, ReFS is NOT ready for production use. For anything serious, I'd still avoid it like the plague. The modified OS supports up to 6TB RAM, so I'd switch it to NTFS and use a 6TB RAM drive if I had to use it.
Coming this winter... For over twenty five years you've experienced the security hell that is Windows. You watched when Microsoft started uploading your data to the cloud by default without your consent. You've seen the joys of "telemetry." You remember the NSA encryption key (_NSAKEY) in 1999. Now, experience Windows 10 Workstation Edition! *Cue epic trailer music* Now, all your data will be stored safely in OneDrive so you can access it anywhere, any time. Trust state of the art Microsoft security techniques such as administrator privilege escalation, coupled with our award winning intelligent ad suggestion service and forced obsolescence. *Red laughing skull with deep malevolent laugh* Never lose access to your files again with our patented back door cryptographic keys! And click on our new live.com dashboard for a record of all your keystrokes! Coming this winter... Only from... MICROSOFT.
I have been using an 8 core AMD chip set for nearly a year on Linux, and WINDOZE is finally going to allow me to use 4 CPU's BFD !!!!
Or put another way:
1. Runs as fast as possible.
2. Fast and fault-tolerant file system.
3. Handles files as fast as possible.
4. Supports the hardware you already have.
Isn't that what all operating systems should do out of the box? What's with this stupid tiered pricing thing for non-feature features? Keep your SLA pricing where it belongs.
Given the fact windows is a spying and advertising platform who would pay extra to use it for "work" only to be hosed by forced data exfiltration and forced updates /w shoddy QA regardless of it's other capabilities?
I mean.. when they can't even manage... to force the right version of windows out the door.. when they resort to outright lies and trickery to get their way.. when their operating systems come pre-installed with a remote access trojan and stated policy granting them the right to exfiltrate your data from your system without asking or you even knowing about it who is going to want to roll the dice?
I fail to see the point of a new file system that comes with an absurd number of limitations including lack of transactions, EFS or inability to actually boot and run the operating system that makes it worthless for any "workstation" purpose other than a generic file server.
What would in be useful for a "workstation" would be for MS to get off their asses and fix long standing deficiencies in block level software RAID implementation.... Little things like deprioritizing and rate limiting rebuilds, not concurrently regenerating multiple volumes across the same physical disks, multi-disk read and block level recovery that does not fail the whole disk, ability to add more disks to achieve arbitrary levels of redundancy or read only I/O acceleration.
I don't really want to see a new IFS at this point unless it brings something really significant to the table. At the very least it must work transparently with everything with complete feature parity, must be bootable and it must optionally be versioned.
From the title I was thinking this was a return to the two-tier system like the old Windows ME for consumers who don't know what they're doing and Windows 2000 for techies who don't want that godawful UI and useless bloat! \:D/
But nope it's still just them finding ways to make it worse...
Clearly I am still far too naive... :(
People who are doing simulations, big data analysis, CAD/CAM, fluid mechanics, FEA/FEM, large math problems, physics, etc. The same people who have been consuming high end workstations for decades. As each new computing advance comes along, the problems get harder, the assemblies more complex, the math more detailed. I'm excited about this because we used to have to install Windows Server to use this type of machine, now we won't need to. Linux happily installs on single, dual or quad core hosts so we only needed to maintain one install. Now we can keep things consistent on Windows.
This.. exactly this is the core of everything wrong with the Windows operating system today. Your computer OS should be ready and waiting at 'peak performance and reliability' a 100% percent of the time. Anything else should only be the direct result of user initiated actions.
Not cores. Sockets.
You can only polish a turd so much, in the end it's still shit.
linux does not need as many reboots and 5 min boot times on workstation boards can lead to windows systems that don't get updates as people don't to reboot them.
As an engineering physicist, i use and have used extensively mutliCPU calculations. But they were always running on some sort of UNIX like system. Commercial or not. And the needed tools already exist there. Without silly restictions over the number of NUMA nodes or unwanted telemetry or whatever...
Of course, i work in a field where windows is nearly inexistent. So i am very ignorant about this universe but who would be the customers for this version of windows ? My electromechanical engineer buddies use windows for example to do CATIA stuff. But as far as i know they do not use massive multiprocessor rigs to do so. Also, it is funny to see so many of them using outdated version of their OS. I have a friend working in the space industry that still has a workstation running winXP. Not connected to the internet.
When i was in university all the heavy duty work was done on 'Nix that is what the mainframes ran.
So i am willing to read an explanation if someone is kind enough to provide one. :)
I'm excited about this because we used to have to install Windows Server to use this type of machine, now we won't need to. Linux happily installs on single, dual or quad core hosts so we only needed to maintain one install. Now we can keep things consistent on Windows.
I think the point is that this seems to be an afterthought solution to an incredibly niche problem. Cores aren't the issue here, sockets are. How many 4-socket desktop boards are out there? They are probably within range of an actual-server or two. How many desktop applications that can use more than 4 cores effectively? Not many - sure, you can probably do a bit better in AutoCAD with 8 or maybe 16, but after that, management overhead starts becoming significant, while the performance increases don't generally justify the expenses. Moreover, a 32-core Windows Server 2016 license is about $1,500...about the same as each of the four processors you'd be putting into this quad-socket computer, or a year of the copy of AutoCAD that's running on it.
Exactly how big do you think the market is for computers with four CPU sockets that isn't just a PowerEdge or G8? Of that market, how many people are going to make-or-break their purchase based on the difference in cost between Workstation Windows and Windows Server?
There are 8,737 members of the recently-reborn Windows Media Center enthusiast forum thegreenbutton.tv. I have a solid suspicion that the market for Windows Media Center is multiple times larger than the market for a version of Windows that addresses the need for more than two sockets in a machine that isn't in a rack and already running Windows Server.
There is NO WAY these consistent, repeated, tid-bits of software & OS's are Microsoft Inc "leaks". It is more likely a rogue leaker. So at least say" inside staff member pre-releases OS". Don't say MS 'leaks' it because... hell no way. And if MS really IS? They're just testing reactions.
Windows for Power Users = Windows 7.
I'd venture that this makes it easier for management, as in you no longer have to remember that the server named XYZ is not part of a server infrastructure, but really in a workstation role. The clients we have that use these rigs are usually very large organizations doing complex engineering of big machinery or electronics.
Because the shit they shovel now is made for tweens.
So, if workshation-mode gives us peak performance and reliability, then what the hell are we receiving now?
Peak performance and reliability too... for the buyer to whom they are selling all the telemetry data.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I would say that dedicated four socket desktop boards don't exist. What I've seen are server boards put into a workstation enclosure. In some cases, the "workstation enclosure" is pretty much a 4U rack host put into something that has feet to allow it to be mounted on its side. We have customers who buy these servers/desktops for their analysis/modeling needs.
I'd venture that this makes it easier for management, as in you no longer have to remember that the server named XYZ is not part of a server infrastructure, but really in a workstation role. The clients we have that use these rigs are usually very large organizations doing complex engineering of big machinery or electronics.
I'm sure they exist, but it goes back to the original question - It sounds like the server naming problem can be solved by a better naming convention and a P-Touch, and either way those clients are already operating under the idea that these machines cost what they cost now - an $800 savings in Windows Server licensing fees isn't going to persuade or dissuade such a purchase, and there's nothing stopping Windows Server from running in the aforementioned side-mounted 4U chassis.
3d rendering and post production for starters..
Windows needs multi-CPU in order to run anything CPU intensive, like solitaire or minesweeper.
Otherwise I am exactly as interested as I was in Win10 up to now: Not at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes. But sockets are meaningless these days. Just like MS to use a historic metric here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Never the less, I think that the point remains valid.
Until you remove your snooping and spyware from Windows, not interested in anything you peddle Microsoft. Hey funny story: Our company has decided to drop Windows as our primary platform and go 100% web-based. Oh boy did I smile.
This was suppose to come out LONG ago. But will this be "subscription" garbage.
At the same time that MS announced Windows Workstation edition, VMWare announced Workstation Windows edition... More news at 11...
Windows 10 just doesn't exist for me given the telemetry and forced updates -- and I just don't think Microsoft will ever have the "courage" to dump those two horrible mechanisms. Nobody gives up such power unless they're almost utterly crushed by a market with favorable alternatives -- and Linux is not quite mainstream for office and home markets.
Fully agree on this one. I could understand it in the old days when guys like IBM charged by the number of CPUs. However now, in this age of Linux & BSD, where there are no limits on how many CPUs/cores/sockets/whatever it can run on, it seems ridiculous to restrict the capacity of the OS.
Same w/ the memory limits. This is a 64-bit OS, ain't it? In which case, it should allow logical memory & hard drive capacities up to 2^60 - allow for 16 variations of memory and I/O.
I work in finance, and I have big datasets to crunch. But for that I have multi-socket rack-mount servers running Linux. My desktop is a single-scoket Xeon running Windows, it doesn't do heavy lifting. Support for SMB over RDMA and a reliable filesystem look like nice things to have, but allowing four sockets isn't a big deal.
There are no Windows "power users."
If they were power users, they'd use a REAL OS on their computers, not a gaming POS OS like goddamned fucking piece of shit Windows.
Win 10, now with all-new POWER BS mode!
Workstation mode
First Game Mode, and now this? How about you just stop needlessly rebuilding search indexes and .NET assemblies for hours and hours every week!
Also, will it disable forced reboots while you're in the middle of your work? People using workstations tend to dislike that.
It would be great NOT to have personal data, usage details forcibly sent out. A lot of people who PAID for their copy would appreciate no forced information theft.
It's all very well and good to have a new 'for Workstations' update, but I've been waiting 25 years to update my Workgroups edition.