Windows XP Starter Edition Snubs P4, Athlon 705
Apu writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft's Windows XP Starter Edition operating system specifically checks the result of the CPUID instruction on bootup and fails to continue if a Pentium 4 or Athlon processor is detected."
What am I supposed to run this on? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course when the machine is in such a mess that it decides to blue-screen you're probably not going to trust it to write a file.
After all it might have crashed because it encountered a strange filesystem error - and writing to it could trash your whole disk.
There have been similar suggestions for the Linux Kernel; write information somewhere when the kernel panics, but they are usually shot down for the same reason.
When a machine is in the 'panic' state writing to the local disks, or sending stuff across the network isn't usually feasible. (True some people have done it but its a hard problem - because you can't actually rely upon the kernel to do anything correctly when it's mid-panic).
Economics People! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:5, Informative)
-ben
Re:Not arbitrary. Calculated. (Score:2, Informative)
No it doesn't. Considering the Pentium 4 is a.. 5 years old processor?
Coupled with the fact that the XP starter's edition is meant to curb piracy in countries where it is rampant, and there you go. A total foobar.
I can buy a Pentium 4 Processor for AU$150, or a rather high end A64 CPU for about AU$200. I do not need to pay A$300 for Windows XP "Normal" edition.
Re:Arbitrary marketing decision (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes but it *can* safely write to swap space. On the next boot (I think!) it'll pull the crash dump out of swap and saves it in your windows folder for analysis. System Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, Write debugging information. On XP and 2003 it'll then look at the crash and either point you to a web page with help on the STOP error or, if it doesn't recognise the crash, it'll ask permission to upload the memory dump to Microsoft.
This does mean you need at least as much swap space on the system drive as you have memory for a full dump - which can be a problem if you've deliberately taken a small system partition, as our co-lo host used to do by default.
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:News flash .. MS Windows is expensive. (Score:3, Informative)
And a Rs. 25,000 PC in India is an 8th of the annual income of a person earning Rs 200,000. Most people who buy PCs earn even less. So you get an idea how how expensive it is
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, yes it does: http://people.redhat.com/anderson/crash_whitepaper /
[redhat.com]
Re:Perhaps a strange suggestion, but... (Score:1, Informative)
I think it could only do noninteractive stuff.