I doubt very much those poorly-written 32-bit drivers work in 64-bit Windows. Try again.
How is that relevant ?
OK, the performance hit is a good reason, as long as it's a worse hit than running 32 bit apps in a 64-bit OS.
As far as I know, 32-bit apps typically run faster in a 64-bit OS.
This may have been true in the era of sub-3.5GB machines, but most new machines today would benefit from it, either immediately or as soon as the user upgraded the RAM.
Which would be something of an argument if 64-bit versions of Windows hadn't been available for 5+ years.
So from all outward appearances it boils down to: Microsoft didn't want to bother with having to support giving its users two ways past the 4GB barrier and they wanted to dump other legacy code, so they took the choice away from the customer and forced anyone who needs > 4GB on a non-server OS to "move up" whether they wanted to or not.
More accurately, Microsoft knew the vast majority of support issues would stem from third-party code beyond their control, and the benefits of PAE apply to only a vanishingly small percentage of end users (users with 4GB+ RAM, who couldn't use a 64-bit OS and had applications modified to use PAE). Ergo, not wasting effort maintaining the PAE version is simple common sense.
PAE is a hack, nothing more. If you have 4GB+ of RAM, employ the proper solution and use a 64-bit OS. You're going to have less problems than you would a) finding drivers that don't crap themselves on systems using PAE and b) finding applications that have actually been written to take advantage of PAE.
What a piece of crap. We've been having 64bit in workstations for almost 20 years and in PCs for 7 years now, and Microsoft still can't get it halfway right?
They can. Developers can't. Pretty much all installer problems, for example, are because they're still using a 16-bit installer - something that's been deprecated for about 15 freakin' years.
How come that Apple could transition to a new CPU architecture and a new operating system and make the move from 32 to 64 bit all in one step with a lot less problems?
Firstly, there's just as many problems on the Mac side of the fence, the difference is users are much more accustomed to being left behind by Apple's carefree attitude to legacy support and have lower expectations. It's only since 10.4 OS X has become stable enough API- and ABI-wise that you can be reasonably assured your software will even work between one version and the next (many applications come in 10.3 and 10.4+ releases for this reason, drivers are even worse), and the Classic environment doesn't run on any Intel Mac (so nothing sold in the last 5 years).
Secondly, because they still haven't actually transitioned (most Macs - even 64-bit capable ones - don't boot a 64-bit kernel by default, and OSX still isn't completely 64-bit).
I installed Windows 7 on my three year-old Thinkpad and it worked fine, until I had to install drivers for some microcontroller development boards that I'm playing with. The problem was that they used drivers that ran on top of libusb-win32 and as that is a free software project, it does not have signed drivers. With Windows XP through Vista, when the device manager complained that you were installing unsigned drivers, you could push the 'trust me, I'm an engineer' button. That button no longer works for Windows 7 64 bit.
30 seconds on Google will show you multiple methods for installing unsigned drivers in Vista and Windows 7.
You can no longer install whatever you want on your own hardware using a legit copy of the operating system.
Which architecture would that be? PS3 has a 64-bit PowerPC CPU, and so did Power Macs with the G5. Does this have something to do with the 32/64-bit transition in x86?
The PS3 was released at the end of 2006, with the first x86-64 CPUs hitting the market in mid 2003 and the first x86-64 version of Windows in mid-2005. Heck, the PS3 only just beat _Vista_ to the market. The first PowerMac G5s were released in mid 2003, though OS X still isn't completely 64-bit even today.
If you mean 64-bit architectures in general, don't forget the Alpha which was released in 1992.
The Alpha (and others like SPARC) are hardly mainstream hardware platforms.
Of course, despite the bitness upgrade, the closed Microsoft world remains stuck in the x86 world. Meanwhile, others are free to choose the best/nicest platform for the job.
There are very few jobs x86 can't do well, and basically zero where Windows would be a considered choice anyway.
The decision to limit 32-bit non-server OSes to 4GB was likely more of a marketing decision than a technical one. To be fair, implementing PAE on a consumer OS would increase the development and support costs, but I still think it's largely a marketing decision.
It's technical, as evidenced by it actually being enabled in the original XP release (and earlier versions of Windows NT).
PAE support was removed due largely to numerous problems with poorly written third party drivers. Apps needing to be modified to really take advantage of it and the performance hit were also factors, along with it being really beneficial to only a miniscule proportion of users (especially since XP64 and Vista/7 x86-64).
Modified? You mean setting the 'allow me to see more than 2GB of RAM' bit on the executable? Which they should be doing in any case so that it works better on 64-bit Windows? That sounds like lots of work.
PAE is invisible to applications, has a small performance impact in the worst case and a significant performance benefit in the best case. Microsoft just chose not to support it because they didn't want the support calls when poorly-written drivers fell over.
Which is quite reasonable, given the drivers falling over is not their fault, or problem.
PAE is a hack. The real solution is to go to x64, and the proportion of users who can't switch to x64 but would derive real benefit from PAE on Windows XP, is vanishingly small.
I have to say, M$ decides to not support and leave all the sp2 users open to vulnerability because they choose to, not because they have to, as the patch works as well for sp2 as it does for sp3, so the fact they are cutting off the sp2 users is only because they want to make more money, and the people that have sp2 and have decided to not keep shelling out money for a product they purchased, means that now they are vulnerable and because they do not want to keep shelling money out, have to be content with a faulty product....
Presumably the fact that SP3 is free will be a stunning revelation to you ?
I just don't understand...if M$ really wanted to keep linux out for the count, they would just have to allow users to get security patches for free, and allow the internet to be a whole lot safer overall....just my 2cents
Why'd they freak out? If it doesn't keep falling over (and it shouldn't), it's not as if it'll suddenly fall over tomorrow just because Microsoft stops supporting it.
Risk assessment is a case of probability * consequences. While the probability of failure hasn't changed, the consequences (additional support costs) has, presumably to an unacceptable level.
Odd that I can get support for my 2002 automobile, and if there's a flaw found they'll issue a recall, but an OS from the same year gets no support.
Yes it does. The support is called SP3.
I could get parts for a classic car easily, but try getting a PC game from 1995 to run well.
It's trivial - all you need to do is get an OS and hardware from that period, or replicas thereof - just like classic car parts.
This is especially stupid since software has no moving parts to wear out, and is one reason I hate Windows and love Linux. When support stops for a Windows distro you're out of luck, but Linux support is always there.
"Linux support" for a ca. 2002 - or 1995, for that matter - distro is no better than Windows, and in most cases significantly worse.
Is there a good technical reason for 32-bit Windows 7 not supporting more than 4 GB of RAM, period?
Yes. Firstly it requires applications to be modified to really see much benefit, secondly it hurts performance, and thirdly it breaks a myriad of poorly written third-party drivers and other low-level applications.
64 bit isn't too far off. As a developer you'd be better off getting a copy soon and work on merging your projects over to work on 64 bit now, rather than wait for crunch time.
Pro-active developers ? You've got to be kidding. It took the "annoyance" of Vista's UAC before developers finally started changing their Windows applications not to needlessly require admin privileges. They're not going to be implementing 64-bit support one second before "crunch time" arrived.
The particular filesystem used by the NAS Controller is but a small (and easily-changed by the manufactuer) part of the overall SYSTEM.
Actually, nearly all of the interesting stuff a NetApp filer (as opposed to some other NAS) does hinges on WAFL. They most certainly couldn't just swap it out and have an equally functional and performant "SYSTEM".
I don't know if this is sound logic. If I were to believe your reasoning, I would assume that we would see a lower average of obesity in a city like New York City where walking is a large part of transportation but it turns out to be similar to other places:
Fitness would be a much better metric than obesity, though obviously one much harder to measure. I ride ~8.5 miles in a bit over half an hour to work and back every day, and another 25 at a similar pace every weekend, yet I'm still "obese" (BMI of 33). And while I'm a pretty large frame, and thus one of those people BMI is not necessarily a good measure for, I could certainly lose a good 50ish pounds before I wasn't "fat".
This solution is pretty much standard everywhere (at least everywhere I've been, which is mostly europe and some africa/asia), I'm really surprised you guys in the US don't do it this way...
It wouldn't work, in my opinion for the same reason that lane discipline is so poor on US highways - no-one wants to be the "slow" person.
It depends. How much farther are they going to push punishments for copyright violation? If you are facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit for copyright violation are you willing to risk a few years in jail?
You don't spend "a few years in jail" for premeditated murder. You spend a few decades in jail.
Proper enterprise grade SQL you're talking SAS drives, multiple RAID setups (different for different parts of the data - e.g. logs are mostly writes, so RAID5 is out).
Logs are pretty much completely sequential writes, so RAID5 is actually a reasonably good fit (though you need to choose your stripe size carefully).
Someone made a point that I think made sense......if we're going to have copyright, we ought to not make it based on the life of the creator.....otherwise it will be motivation to kill artists.
This argument pops up all the time and it's so ridiculous that it's hard to see anyone taking it seriously.
Are you really arguing someone would prefer to commit first degree murder - not to mention pushing the copyrighted work in question into the public domain, thus making it freely available for everyone - over copyright violation ?
But another big draw in the FOSS world (for me, at least) is the freedom to write code that isn't locked down to particular technology or other setup.
Please give some realistic examples of how you would get "locked down to a particular technology or other setup" more with closed source than open source.
Ok, let's see, on my iPod, firstly the music is stored in a hidden folder "iPod_Control".
You're Doing It Wrong.
Your point of contact should be the music stored on your PC, not the iPod. The iPod is an appliance for playing the music while you're away from the PC. Adding, removing, backing up, etc should all be performed on the PC where the music is stored, not the playback appliance.
Relying on a device that can be easily broken, stolen, confiscated, etc, etc as the authoritative store for your music is just dumb.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt very much those poorly-written 32-bit drivers work in 64-bit Windows. Try again.
How is that relevant ?
OK, the performance hit is a good reason, as long as it's a worse hit than running 32 bit apps in a 64-bit OS.
As far as I know, 32-bit apps typically run faster in a 64-bit OS.
This may have been true in the era of sub-3.5GB machines, but most new machines today would benefit from it, either immediately or as soon as the user upgraded the RAM.
Which would be something of an argument if 64-bit versions of Windows hadn't been available for 5+ years.
So from all outward appearances it boils down to: Microsoft didn't want to bother with having to support giving its users two ways past the 4GB barrier and they wanted to dump other legacy code, so they took the choice away from the customer and forced anyone who needs > 4GB on a non-server OS to "move up" whether they wanted to or not.
More accurately, Microsoft knew the vast majority of support issues would stem from third-party code beyond their control, and the benefits of PAE apply to only a vanishingly small percentage of end users (users with 4GB+ RAM, who couldn't use a 64-bit OS and had applications modified to use PAE). Ergo, not wasting effort maintaining the PAE version is simple common sense.
PAE is a hack, nothing more. If you have 4GB+ of RAM, employ the proper solution and use a 64-bit OS. You're going to have less problems than you would a) finding drivers that don't crap themselves on systems using PAE and b) finding applications that have actually been written to take advantage of PAE.
What a piece of crap. We've been having 64bit in workstations for almost 20 years and in PCs for 7 years now, and Microsoft still can't get it halfway right?
They can. Developers can't. Pretty much all installer problems, for example, are because they're still using a 16-bit installer - something that's been deprecated for about 15 freakin' years.
How come that Apple could transition to a new CPU architecture and a new operating system and make the move from 32 to 64 bit all in one step with a lot less problems?
Firstly, there's just as many problems on the Mac side of the fence, the difference is users are much more accustomed to being left behind by Apple's carefree attitude to legacy support and have lower expectations. It's only since 10.4 OS X has become stable enough API- and ABI-wise that you can be reasonably assured your software will even work between one version and the next (many applications come in 10.3 and 10.4+ releases for this reason, drivers are even worse), and the Classic environment doesn't run on any Intel Mac (so nothing sold in the last 5 years).
Secondly, because they still haven't actually transitioned (most Macs - even 64-bit capable ones - don't boot a 64-bit kernel by default, and OSX still isn't completely 64-bit).
I installed Windows 7 on my three year-old Thinkpad and it worked fine, until I had to install drivers for some microcontroller development boards that I'm playing with. The problem was that they used drivers that ran on top of libusb-win32 and as that is a free software project, it does not have signed drivers. With Windows XP through Vista, when the device manager complained that you were installing unsigned drivers, you could push the 'trust me, I'm an engineer' button. That button no longer works for Windows 7 64 bit.
30 seconds on Google will show you multiple methods for installing unsigned drivers in Vista and Windows 7.
You can no longer install whatever you want on your own hardware using a legit copy of the operating system.
Of course you can. Stop spreading FUD.
Which architecture would that be? PS3 has a 64-bit PowerPC CPU, and so did Power Macs with the G5. Does this have something to do with the 32/64-bit transition in x86?
The PS3 was released at the end of 2006, with the first x86-64 CPUs hitting the market in mid 2003 and the first x86-64 version of Windows in mid-2005. Heck, the PS3 only just beat _Vista_ to the market. The first PowerMac G5s were released in mid 2003, though OS X still isn't completely 64-bit even today.
If you mean 64-bit architectures in general, don't forget the Alpha which was released in 1992.
The Alpha (and others like SPARC) are hardly mainstream hardware platforms.
Of course, despite the bitness upgrade, the closed Microsoft world remains stuck in the x86 world. Meanwhile, others are free to choose the best/nicest platform for the job.
There are very few jobs x86 can't do well, and basically zero where Windows would be a considered choice anyway.
I think it's pretty ingenious marketing. What better way to get your customers to shell out more money?
What do they need to pay more money for ?
The real issue is market segmentation. The driver issues would not exist if the windows driver space made any damn sense.
What ?
The decision to limit 32-bit non-server OSes to 4GB was likely more of a marketing decision than a technical one. To be fair, implementing PAE on a consumer OS would increase the development and support costs, but I still think it's largely a marketing decision.
It's technical, as evidenced by it actually being enabled in the original XP release (and earlier versions of Windows NT).
PAE support was removed due largely to numerous problems with poorly written third party drivers. Apps needing to be modified to really take advantage of it and the performance hit were also factors, along with it being really beneficial to only a miniscule proportion of users (especially since XP64 and Vista/7 x86-64).
Modified? You mean setting the 'allow me to see more than 2GB of RAM' bit on the executable? Which they should be doing in any case so that it works better on 64-bit Windows? That sounds like lots of work.
Applications need to use the "Address Windowing Extension" API to get any real benefit from PAE.
PAE is invisible to applications, has a small performance impact in the worst case and a significant performance benefit in the best case. Microsoft just chose not to support it because they didn't want the support calls when poorly-written drivers fell over.
Which is quite reasonable, given the drivers falling over is not their fault, or problem.
PAE is a hack. The real solution is to go to x64, and the proportion of users who can't switch to x64 but would derive real benefit from PAE on Windows XP, is vanishingly small.
You can buy a whole PC capable of playing a generation-ago's games at medium quality for that, shipped!
From where ?
So? Its never stopped them before.
Stopped who doing what ?
I have to say, M$ decides to not support and leave all the sp2 users open to vulnerability because they choose to, not because they have to, as the patch works as well for sp2 as it does for sp3, so the fact they are cutting off the sp2 users is only because they want to make more money, and the people that have sp2 and have decided to not keep shelling out money for a product they purchased, means that now they are vulnerable and because they do not want to keep shelling money out, have to be content with a faulty product....
Presumably the fact that SP3 is free will be a stunning revelation to you ?
I just don't understand...if M$ really wanted to keep linux out for the count, they would just have to allow users to get security patches for free, and allow the internet to be a whole lot safer overall....just my 2cents
Er, they do.
Why'd they freak out? If it doesn't keep falling over (and it shouldn't), it's not as if it'll suddenly fall over tomorrow just because Microsoft stops supporting it.
Risk assessment is a case of probability * consequences. While the probability of failure hasn't changed, the consequences (additional support costs) has, presumably to an unacceptable level.
Odd that I can get support for my 2002 automobile, and if there's a flaw found they'll issue a recall, but an OS from the same year gets no support.
Yes it does. The support is called SP3.
I could get parts for a classic car easily, but try getting a PC game from 1995 to run well.
It's trivial - all you need to do is get an OS and hardware from that period, or replicas thereof - just like classic car parts.
This is especially stupid since software has no moving parts to wear out, and is one reason I hate Windows and love Linux. When support stops for a Windows distro you're out of luck, but Linux support is always there.
"Linux support" for a ca. 2002 - or 1995, for that matter - distro is no better than Windows, and in most cases significantly worse.
Is there a good technical reason for 32-bit Windows 7 not supporting more than 4 GB of RAM, period?
Yes. Firstly it requires applications to be modified to really see much benefit, secondly it hurts performance, and thirdly it breaks a myriad of poorly written third-party drivers and other low-level applications.
64 bit isn't too far off. As a developer you'd be better off getting a copy soon and work on merging your projects over to work on 64 bit now, rather than wait for crunch time.
Pro-active developers ? You've got to be kidding. It took the "annoyance" of Vista's UAC before developers finally started changing their Windows applications not to needlessly require admin privileges. They're not going to be implementing 64-bit support one second before "crunch time" arrived.
The particular filesystem used by the NAS Controller is but a small (and easily-changed by the manufactuer) part of the overall SYSTEM.
Actually, nearly all of the interesting stuff a NetApp filer (as opposed to some other NAS) does hinges on WAFL. They most certainly couldn't just swap it out and have an equally functional and performant "SYSTEM".
I don't know if this is sound logic. If I were to believe your reasoning, I would assume that we would see a lower average of obesity in a city like New York City where walking is a large part of transportation but it turns out to be similar to other places:
Fitness would be a much better metric than obesity, though obviously one much harder to measure. I ride ~8.5 miles in a bit over half an hour to work and back every day, and another 25 at a similar pace every weekend, yet I'm still "obese" (BMI of 33). And while I'm a pretty large frame, and thus one of those people BMI is not necessarily a good measure for, I could certainly lose a good 50ish pounds before I wasn't "fat".
This solution is pretty much standard everywhere (at least everywhere I've been, which is mostly europe and some africa/asia), I'm really surprised you guys in the US don't do it this way...
It wouldn't work, in my opinion for the same reason that lane discipline is so poor on US highways - no-one wants to be the "slow" person.
Australia is the same.
It depends. How much farther are they going to push punishments for copyright violation? If you are facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit for copyright violation are you willing to risk a few years in jail?
You don't spend "a few years in jail" for premeditated murder. You spend a few decades in jail.
Proper enterprise grade SQL you're talking SAS drives, multiple RAID setups (different for different parts of the data - e.g. logs are mostly writes, so RAID5 is out).
Logs are pretty much completely sequential writes, so RAID5 is actually a reasonably good fit (though you need to choose your stripe size carefully).
2)run the following command: /proc/diskstats`){split; printf "$_[2] = %d GB\n", $_[9]*512/1024**3; };'
perl -e 'foreach(`grep sd
For something a bit easier to remember, use 'iostat -m 1 1' and look at the MB_read and MB_wrtn columns.
You have a potential bill for millions that will go away if this artist dies....
No it won't. Whether or not you would be committing a crime today is not relevant to whether or not you committed a crime in the past.
Someone made a point that I think made sense......if we're going to have copyright, we ought to not make it based on the life of the creator.....otherwise it will be motivation to kill artists.
This argument pops up all the time and it's so ridiculous that it's hard to see anyone taking it seriously.
Are you really arguing someone would prefer to commit first degree murder - not to mention pushing the copyrighted work in question into the public domain, thus making it freely available for everyone - over copyright violation ?
But another big draw in the FOSS world (for me, at least) is the freedom to write code that isn't locked down to particular technology or other setup.
Please give some realistic examples of how you would get "locked down to a particular technology or other setup" more with closed source than open source.
Ok, let's see, on my iPod, firstly the music is stored in a hidden folder "iPod_Control".
You're Doing It Wrong.
Your point of contact should be the music stored on your PC, not the iPod. The iPod is an appliance for playing the music while you're away from the PC. Adding, removing, backing up, etc should all be performed on the PC where the music is stored, not the playback appliance.
Relying on a device that can be easily broken, stolen, confiscated, etc, etc as the authoritative store for your music is just dumb.