MS, Intel "Goofed Up" Win 7 XP Virtualization 315
clang_jangle writes "Ars Technica has a short article up describing how Microsoft and Intel have 'goofed up' Windows 7's XP Mode by ensuring many PCs will not be able to use it. (And it won't be easy to figure out in advance if your PC is one of them.) Meanwhile, over at Infoworld, Redmond is criticized for having the 'right idea, wrong technology' with their latest compatibility scheme, and PC World says 'great idea, on paper.' With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a 'goof' at all?"
Re:Hardware Virtualization needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hardware Virtualization needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple did this, not once but twice. Why is Redmond so afraid of trading out the basic underpinnings? I guess they married the concept of permenant backwards compatibility when they used that very stick to beat OS/2 into the ground.
Is Rosetta Stone a good technology? No, but it got users over the hump. (It was, however, a great hack...)
How about Fat Binaries? Good lord, Win binaries are fat enough already!
There's no good solution, so Redmond has to go with "good enough" to get users over to "the other side". Hey Bill! Maybe they don't want to go...
Oh, it's a goof all right (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a very critical problem for Microsoft. I have heard people who would never have even looked at a non-MS solution two years ago whispering about Macs and Ubuntu. If migrating is going to involve a vast amount of unscheduled pain, reinstallation, down time, and retraining, do you migrate to the next level of the company which is screwing you or look for an alternative?
Seven has to solve the problem of legacy apps that don't run. If it doesn't, the Mexican standoff will continue with Seven in Vista's place, and one or two Fortune 100 shops throwing their hands in the air and switching FOSS could start a stampede. The unlikeliness of that, while high, decreases just a bit for every day the current situation persists.
Re:Hardware Virtualization needed. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is actually very similar to what Apple did...They kept OS 9 support on all systems that had the old power PC processors. Once you bought intel, however, no more OS 9, no matter what version of OS X you were using.
Like anything else, users will have to decide for themselves if there is anything that is good enough to make them upgrade.
Re:what about the common denominator? (Score:3, Interesting)
They will have to either replace legacy software (which is difficult for some clients) or buy a high-end computer just to get a decent upgrade for Vista/XP.
Or just stick with XP.
Re:Hardware Virtualization needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be happy if Vista included virtualization technology for DOS6.2 on a 386. That would allow much smoother operation of very old programs that some of us still use, or want to use at least.
From the... (Score:2, Interesting)
(For those of you who actually read all three linked articles... or is that, all two?)
Re:2010? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, most people don't say the "three year rule". Where have you been?
Microsoft's suffering revenue shortfalls because Vista was a bad idea. You'll see the tip in September, real McCoy in October. That's not 'late fall'.
Re:Difficult? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Difficult? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait, you mean this isn't going to be offered on all/most versions of Win 7?
You mean exactly like Microsoft's been saying since they first announced it? Yes.
It'll go on Windows 7 Business/Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate (which has everything.) No home versions will get it.
Re:Hardware Virtualization needed. (Score:3, Interesting)
I see this as something like poetic justice. I have never forgiven Intel for their bright idea of making processors that identified themselves to the world at large. Anonymity has it's place in this world, and that chip was a monumental boner. More, I see most of Intel's business decisions as based on greed. AMD is greedy, to be sure, but their decisions seem designed to move computer science forward, while capitalizing on that move. Intel? Money first and foremost, with computer science a side benefit.
How about an automobile analogy? Detroit is folding today, because they've been focused on the almighty dollar, rather than producing better transportation.
Lesson learned? Money is important, but it should never be "the goal". Improving the world should be the goal.
I have a dream... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well Microsoft, that is what you get when you don't build your own hardware like Apple does.
Microsoft should get out of the software business and start designing their own computers together with their own software. Want Windows? Buy that WinBox from Microsoft!
That way you know what kind of hardware is needed and you can drop support for all kinds of crap.
Let Dell, HP, etc try selling computers without an usable OS.
Re:I've tried it (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not running legacy code written by a contracting team who disbanded 4 years ago. You're not running the latest crufty hack on a codebase that was originally ported from CP/M by a group of five coders with 2 GEDs among them ll. You're not running billing software written in COBOL on a custom interpreter that was first launched on an 80286 with 512KB of RAM and a greenscreen. XP Mode is not for you. XP Mode is for companies that can't afford to rewrite all of their business software in six months. Rest assured, (almost) all of your games and shareware crap will still work natively in windows 7.
Re:I hate to ask the obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting fact, yes -- although Windows 7's compatibility with Vista isn't the issue, it's its compatibility with XP. Try suggesting that Vista and XP are compatible.
Interesting though it may be, I don't see the point. The solution Microsoft is adding to Windows 7 for XP compatibility is, in fact, the same solution Apple used for OS 9 -> X.
Original commenter wanted to know why Microsoft isn't using the same approach Apple used, instead of this "hack solution". The answer is that Microsoft is.