Lost Opportunity? Windows 10 Has the Same Minimum PC Requirements As Vista 554
MojoKid writes Buried in the details of Microsoft's technical preview for Windows 10 is a bit of a footnote concerning the operating system's requirements. Windows 10 will have exactly the same requirements as Windows 8.1, which had the same requirements as Windows 8, which stuck to Windows 7 specs, which was the same as Windows Vista. At this point, it's something we take for granted with future Windows release. As the years roll by, you can't help wondering what we're actually giving up in exchange for holding the minimum system spec at a single-core 1GHz, 32-bit chip with just 1GB of RAM. The average smartphone is more powerful than this these days. For decades, the standard argument has been that Microsoft had to continue supporting ancient operating systems and old configurations, ignoring the fact that the company did its most cutting-edge work when it was willing to kill off its previous products in fairly short order. what would Windows look like if Microsoft at least mandated a dual-core product? What if DX10 — a feature set that virtually every video card today supports, according to Valve's Steam Hardware Survey, became the minimum standard, at least on the x86 side of the equation? How much better might the final product be if Microsoft put less effort into validating ancient hardware and kicked those specs upwards, just a notch or two? If Microsoft did raise the specs a notch or two with each release, I think there'd be some justified complaints about failing to leave well enough alone, at least on the low end.
forgettiing (Score:5, Informative)
As the years roll by, you can't help wondering what we're actually giving up in exchange for holding the minimum system spec at a single-core 1GHz, 32-bit chip with just 1GB of RAM. The average smartphone is more powerful than this these days
They're forgetting that Vista ran like shite on those specs :) and NO smartphones are not more powerful, although they are close to atoms at similar speeds now.
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Businesses don't want to spend money on PCs (Score:4, Informative)
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FUD, pure and simple. Most modern Linux DEs look and act very similar to Windows because they're designed to do the same thing. Your typical office worker doesn't need to know more about using Linux than he does about using Windows, meaning that all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what. And, most of the office software for Linux isn't constantly changing the UI, so that on
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Why was there such an uproar over Metro?
Because it was different, you were presented with a simple grid of icons to launch your applications and then your applications worked exactly as they had before, very simple ... but different. The truth is the idea that "all they need to know is which icon to click on to do what", is nice in theory but doesn't fly in reality.
Re:Businesses don't want to spend money on PCs (Score:4, Insightful)
You're looking at this backwards. The re-training would be an ongoing expense, where Windows is a one time hit. You're investing in a one time Windows expense, that you then make back with interest over the coming months and years by eliminating necessary re-training to be able to use an uncommon and unfamiliar OS.
Re-training is already an ongoing expense with Microsoft products. Office ribbon, Windows 8 tile screen, any slightest change in Windows XYZ where the ABC isn't in the same pixels on the screen or is renamed something intelligible. The biggest drawback isn't the training expense, it's the fear of incompatibility with other companies' software.
Buy a Mac (Score:2, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Buy a Mac (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Buy a Mac (Score:5, Funny)
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Top 10 Most Secure Operating Systems [secpoint.com]
Mac OS X is number three. Windows 8 is number six.
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The adoption of Apple Computers in the corporate environment seems to have more to do with it's penetration into the consumer market (i.e. home and academic use) in the US and other first world countries than anything to do with security. I haven't seen any evidence that it is being adopted by enterprise users, especially those that handle classified information, due to security. Rather, it tends to be banned from such environments because it is harder for network security officers to lock down and manage.
Many of the Silicon Valley companies I previously worked at are adopting Apple computers because its a mainstream operating system with a underlying BSD kernel. For programmers and engineers with a Linux/Unix background, a Mac laptop is a lot easier to use than a jury-rigged Windows laptop. Security at the corporate level has nothing to do with security at federal level.
Re:Buy a Mac (Score:4, Interesting)
OS-X has penetrated into the market for highly sophisticated technical and scientific users forr easons which have nothing to do with security, but rather because such end users generally have their own choice of machines and often prefer OS-X for the reasons you listed.
Of course, in my own experience, getting open-source UNIX scientific software to work correctly on OS-X is often just as difficult as getting it to work under Windows with a UNIX emulator and SSHing into or virtualizing a Linux machine is my preferred solution, at least for a desktop computer.
More obscure programs not in standard Linux repositories tend to be equally painful to get set up on Cygwin, Linux, and OS-X, although at least commercial software like Matlab and Mathematica are much more easily set up on Windows or OS-X than Linux.
tell my 2008 Mac . latest for $35 (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody forgot to tell my Mac that, because more than six years after purchase it's still running the latest OS. I just ran an update this morning, in fact. I think we spent $35 on an upgrade once.
2008 Mac Pro (cheese grater), 2X quad 2.8 Ghz 16GB (Score:3)
It's a 2008 Mac Pro. My employer offered to replace it with a new machine a few months ago, in fact they almost insisted on an "upgrade".
This 2008 model has two quad core Xeons running at 2.8 Ghz and 16 GB of RAM, and the latest OS (10.9.4), so there's not really much to upgrade. Since they needed to use the money as budgeted, for new computers, I accepted a laptop, a MacBook Pro Retina with 2.7 Ghz Core i7 and 16 GB RAM - the same amount of memory as the 2008 model, but plenty.
Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the reason the specs aren't increasing much is because the pace of hardware improvements isn't moving as fast as it used to. Nowadays, you pick up an i7 and 16Gb of RAM, your favorite video card, toss an SSD in there and you've basically hit the limit.
All we're getting these days is more cores as the whole gigahertz wars ended 10 years ago.
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Well, we are seeing some 4~5 GHz desktop systems now, but overall, you are pretty much spot on. There are some differences though. Now a GHz doesn't mean nearly as much because the newer and more complex instruction sets are actually able to accomplish more per tic.
Re:Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you can't compare hz between differnt families of chips just like you can't compare RPM between a motorcycle and dump truck to definitely talk about power output.... but it definitely means a lot.
If they could crank CPUs up to 100 Ghz or 1 teraherz, they would because it's easy gains. In F1 race cars they use plastic pistons just to be able to rev it over 18,000 rpm (more than a standard motorcycle).
That's why overclocking still exists. Hz won't mean anything if they ever manage to pull of clockless chips. Considering how much circuitry/transistors are dedicated to timing in a modern CPU, that would be a huge gain. But AFAIK, it's still a pipedream.
Re:Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason MS is holding on to old hardware is many businesses still have older hardware. They dread, perhaps unreasonably, any loss to linux or other competitors on this older hardware. We've seen in the past that Micorsoft will do anything to keep Linux from getting a foothold.
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It's not that they "can't" most of the time, it's more they don't want to if what they have is working for their purposes. Why spend money when they feel they don't have to.
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Because Microsoft shareholders need money?
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Or more relavantly, you're not utilizing any more performance out of your computer to improve your productivity (or enjoyment factor) and you are right now. Much of this is the shifting of complexity into online services. If you take away the internet, your computer becomes significantly worse than it was. Google Maps pretty much killed every desktop mapping software. Desktop mapping software could have been wasting those countless cycles running them, but instead Google does the heavy lifting for the benef
Re:Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Minimum requirements are perceived by many as a measure of efficiency. If Microsoft were to increase the minimum specs, everyone would be whining about how bloated Windows is. The operating system should NOT be a major consumer of a system's resources. A system's resources should be maximally available to conserve battery power (on mobile platforms) and for running software in general. For the Linux crowd, being able to run on ancient crap is a badge of honor.
Normally I'm not in the habit of praising Microsoft. However, the fact that they have been able to expand the capabilities of their OS as much as they have from where Vista was and still hold the line of system requirements is commendable. It certainly doesn't help drive new PC sales, but it's an impressive credit to their development teams.
Re:Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally I'm not in the habit of praising Microsoft. However, the fact that they have been able to expand the capabilities of their OS as much as they have from where Vista was and still hold the line of system requirements is commendable. It certainly doesn't help drive new PC sales, but it's an impressive credit to their development teams.
If you think about it, it's actually the inevitable consequence of trying (successfully) to shoehorn Windows onto ARM tablets and phones. Now that both the kernel and the huge chunk of userspace are identical on all three, this means it had to be optimized a lot for both perf and size. But while those optimizations were a necessity for tablets and especially phones, the desktop also benefits, and the "freeze" of the minimum specs is the user-visible consequence.
(in practice, Win7 actually ran better than Vista on those minimal specs, and Win8.1 runs better still - again, a direct consequence of moving further towards the "one OS" goal)
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I think the reason the specs aren't increasing much is because the pace of hardware improvements isn't moving as fast as it used to. Nowadays, you pick up an i7 and 16Gb of RAM, your favorite video card, toss an SSD in there and you've basically hit the limit.
All we're getting these days is more cores as the whole gigahertz wars ended 10 years ago.
Actually, the performance difference between an i3 and an i7 is negligible.
http://www.tomshardware.com/re... [tomshardware.com]
You get 80% of the performance of a $570 i7 if you buy a $125 i3. For $250 you could get a dual processor i3 that was faster than an i7
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That's why only high-end Xeons support multi-processor setups.
Re:Hardware isn't Progressing (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think we are giving anything up. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree. I think with any system, Windows, Mac, or Linux, the OS should be out the way to let me use 16 Gb for my raster/vector art, word processing, and/or movie editing software. If it looks pretty, even better. Although Windows 8.x and 10 look too damn flat for me. You need all that to run Firefox anyway.
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Why should they close their video editing and raster/vector art software to run the word processor? Photoshop and a video editor will gladly eat up 16GB of RAM for cache.
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You've got to be kidding me. Virtual desktops require not much more than splitting the data structure that holds the list of windows into N pieces (for N desktops), an integer to keep track of which one you're on, and a couple of event handlers to switch between them. If th
Lost opportunity? I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is having a light-weight OS a bad thing? Haven't people been harping on MS enough for having bloated OSes?
Sure, make allowances for multiple-core and multiple CPUs on the not-so-low end, but making the minimum requirement a single CPU was definitely smart on their end.
Re:Lost opportunity? I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious what kind of cutting edge file management, load balancing, and slide-show-presenting needs are such a challenge that the OS needs to be above 1 GB. It doesn't take that much effort to support people who just want to scroll through thumbnails of their vacation photos. If you have an interesting program -- a 3D video game, a compiler, a simulator -- it will have its own minimum system requirements. And like those programs that have lower requirements, the OS generally scales up (to a point) in capability with better specs.
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Since when is having a light-weight OS a bad thing? Haven't people been harping on MS enough for having bloated OSes?
Sure, make allowances for multiple-core and multiple CPUs on the not-so-low end, but making the minimum requirement a single CPU was definitely smart on their end.
Having a light weight OS isn't a bad thing, but just as bloat is bad, so is keeping it small for the sake of keeping it small. If we're sacrificing a feature rich OS for no other reason than to support hardware from 10+ years ago, then something needs to change. Computers are dirt cheap these days, so there's very little excuse to not upgrade if it's so much of an issue for you that you're demanding MS design it's OS around your 10 year old computer.
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Re:Lost opportunity? I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lost opportunity? I doubt it (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that Windows uses free RAM for filesystem cache since Vista, right (just like Linux has been doing for many years before)? The amount of RAM "used", as reported in Task Manager, is basically meaningless.
Re:Lost opportunity? I doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1GB (Score:3)
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I spent several years running Windows 7 on a machine with 1GB of ram, it ran ok. I was definitely happy when I got a bump to 4GB when we decided to do that to extend our laptop refresh cycle from 3 to 5 years, but it did drive me insane to run with 1GB. Honestly from a day to day perspective the SSD in the replacement made a much bigger difference than the ram bump did, if I had to make a choice between bumping ram or changing out a HDD for an SSD with a given budget I'd go with less ram.
What have they held up? (Score:5, Interesting)
Before we go any further, I think it'd be good to provide an example of what feature you believe Microsoft has failed to implement in order to keep the requirements low. I can't think of what that would be. Because failing the need to meet some specific requirement, I don't know why system requirements should need to keep going up, especially when you consider that we use our desktop/laptop computers for the same things as we did 10 years ago. Web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets. For games, you can support weaker/older systems and just scale the graphics down.
So unless there's a specific feature that would suck up resources, I'd actually kind of expect that an OS system requirements might go down. As code continues to be optimized, you'd get better performance on the same hardware. Of course, there's a limit to that. But why complain that the OS isn't an ever-bloating resource hog?
Minimum Specs != A Good Time (Score:3)
It's fast enough for office use (Score:5, Insightful)
I am working for a company with 6000+ desktops. I do not understand why our client engineering is rolling out faster hardware every year. 95% of all office workers need MS office, a browser and email. Most of the home users just need a browser these days. Those core i7 are just idling around heating office space.
I have now started rolling out 200 dollar desktop hardware (zotac). Which could really become a problem for microsoft. The windows licence price tag looks really expensive with these hardware prices.
Office problems are solved, we do not need faster hardware. And microsoft is manly making money from, *drumbeat*, office workers.
Best
-S
Windows XP (Score:2)
You didn't mention Windows XP.
A reason why so many computers are still running Windows XP is that they can't be upgraded. Microsoft added the requirement that the CPU must support NX which many of the old CPUs running Windows XP do not support.
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Microsoft added the requirement that the CPU must support NX which many of the old CPUs running Windows XP do not support.
Which processors? AFAIK every Intel processor since Prescott (launched 2004, 10 years ago!) has had XD/NX, even the first generation Atom had NX.
It's the operating system being efficient. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not really "giving up" anything. You don't turn on the computer to play Operating System. You do it to run applications. So Windows requires a low overhead? Well that's great, an operating system SHOULD have a low overhead because it's supposed to get out of the way, not use resources. Your computer is a zero-sum game, memory and CPU that is taken by the OS is usually unavailable to your apps, the things that are actually important (barring, of course, apps that don't multi-thread and can only use part of the CPU, etc).
I suppose we have this fantasy of rotating windows, whiz-bang effects, SFX on the window borders on the desktop.. what do you really get from that? Anything beyond saying "oh that's cool" when you see a demo on the store shelf or a flashy yet impractical interface on a TV show? I know what I got from that -- an annoyance with Gnome 3, GPU memory reserved by the f*%^ing interface, and a lot of time spent figuring out how to turn that nonsense off (thank God Gnome's extensions make that easier to do that now than it was a few years ago!).
Maybe a simpler interface is better. Maybe an interface that doesn't try to do too much visually results in a more USABLE experience. More bells and whistles are not better.
Apple has no problem leaving old hardware behind (Score:2)
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It was the first Apple computer I bought. It will be the last Apple computer I ever buy.
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It was the first Apple computer I bought. It will be the last Apple computer I ever buy.
That's a stupid attitude. I have first-generation Black MacBook (2006) with a 32-bit CPU that the Apple Store repaired in 2012 for a broken CPU fan. Most PCs are obsolete the day after the warrantry expires, and no manufactuer would repair an out-of-warrantry PC. The fan went out again on my MacBook this summer. Since the CPU is 32-bit, and Google is no longer supporting the 32-bit version of Chrome, it's time for me to get a newer Mac.
Re:Apple has no problem leaving old hardware behin (Score:5, Insightful)
My Mac is no longer supported (hasn't been for a couple of releases) by OS-X because the CPU doesn't do 64-bits. It's not even 10 years old yet, and it isn't supported by OS-X.
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It was the first Apple computer I bought. It will be the last Apple computer I ever buy.
Apple is a hardware seller. They make money on leaving old hardware behind in their software. Microsoft does not make money on making hardware obsolete, on the contrary, as long as it doesn't take them too long to support something, they make MORE money on supporting old hardware.
Or the more apt reason (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no reason why an OS needs to be any larger than it is. Let the market add value to a cornerstone product. There's no reason that the Linux kernel should ever take up a gig of ram because, hey lets throw more boiler plate into it.
Microsoft has one job with Windows, and that's to make the best application shell possible for almost every possible desktop need. I think they've done a pretty good job at it, though they've fucked their UI core so badly time and time again, it feels like they're just re-arranging chairs to justify the upgrade cost.
Uh? (Score:3)
Have you not seen the HP Steam 7 or the Lumia 620? Both run Windows 8 and both have specs at or below the minimum for the desktop OS. There are also plenty of businesses that have pushed their PC refresh cycle out to 5-7 years so if you want them to upgrade you have to keep the minimum at what a typical business would have bought 5+ years ago.
Vista requirements are already stupid high. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it is sad we live in a world where people still aren't shocked by the Vista requirements and want them to be higher. WTF is wrong with the lot of you?
Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this minimum spec idea misses the point. We're talking about an operating system, not an application. The OS should provide a platform (and, to a certain extent, services) upon which users will run the applications that actually get things done. The OS shouldn't have huge minimum specs because it's supposed to be relatively unobtrusive. When we start trying to load the OS down with all kinds of things that ought to be done with apps, we end up with a bloated mess, a one-size-fits-none concept that inconveniences everyone equally. I'd much rather they kept the specs low and pared some of the fluff from the OS instead.
The Revolution went mobile and cloud (Score:2)
What we have gained is smaller and smaller computing devices with more and more energy efficiency which allows us to go mobile and to also reduce costs on cloud infrastructure. Maybe it forced a step backwards in terms of application software compared to high powered desktops... but being able to put what would have been a fully spec'd computer less than a decade ago in your pocket and have it run for a day on batteries is something to find amazing and should not be lamented.
I'd say if we are looking at
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Are you even listening to yourself? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to run the OS requires 1GB of ram? ...and I'm meant to be impressed with how "small" this is?
Only problem is the 32 bit part (Score:3)
Keeping software requirements low is a good thing, and there isn't really any justification for making a basic desktop OS require good hardware if all people want to do is the same stuff they were doing ten years ago. If they wanted to weed out underpowered PCs, they should mandate an improved version of the Windows Experience Index be advertised alongside PCs with simple numbers for office and gaming performance, and maybe energy efficiency.
On the other hand, it's long past time to put 32 bit out to pasture, at least on the desktop. Remember, this OS will probably still be supported in the mid-2020s. I'm not going to want to maintain a 32 bit legacy codebase when PCs are coming with 256GB of ram standard.
Same OS on desktop and laptop (Score:3)
On the other hand, it's long past time to put 32 bit out to pasture, at least on the desktop.
After the RT debacle, Microsoft wants to ship the same operating system on the desktop and the laptop. And there are still plenty of laptops that come with less than 4 GB of RAM, such as the ASUS Transformer Book.
I'm not going to want to maintain a 32 bit legacy codebase when PCs are coming with 256GB of ram standard.
Just be glad Microsoft isn't Nintendo, which still has to maintain a runtime environment for its 8-bit codebase on its current consoles.
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Eh, one of the biggest reasons they're keeping 32bit around is there are business customers that need the SysWOW-16 subsystem for stupid WISE installers that use 16bit code (ugh), also for low end tablets the remaining flash memory for 32bit is a bit more palatable.
Laughable submission (Score:4, Informative)
The reason the specs have not changed is because CPUs and systems in general have been capable of doing most common tasks for at least 10 years. Are the use cases for extreme power? Yes. The submitter, however, makes it sound like it's a bad thing to be able to run on a wide range of hardware, including older slower machines. Are the minimum spec machines going to be able to run Crysis? Nope. Will they run Outlook, Work, and a browser? Yep. This is a non-story.
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I completely agree most people haven't needed a faster CPU in years, unless they're in the hard-core gamer category or doing serious computational work.
Memory, on the other hand, is something you've steadily needed more of over time.
Me, I'm betting with 1GB of RAM on a modern Windows version, and you'll already be using swap space before it's even done booting.
And then it's going to just be slow from there.
With "Outlook, Work, and a browser", it's going to be thrashing like mad.
Really, "able to run on a wid
The old hardware isn't the problem. Software is. (Score:2)
The complaints have always been that MS caters too much to old software and that it continually requires more powerful hardware just to run the OS.
They are starting to buck this hardware trend at the 1 GiB barrier (for the OS!). They finally dropped support for some old, buggy 16-bit DOS and Windows programs that third party developers wrote by bypassing any documented API, too. Most of the software ever written for Windows still runs on Windows, though.
If you want to see what you're asking for, take a look
Windows should go 64-bit exclusively (Score:2)
My first 64 bit chip was the Athlon64 back in 2003 -- over a decade ago. If you're a developer in a compiled language, you presently either must (a) make a 32 bit version and ship it for both or (b) make separate versions and make yourself a support/testing nightmare. No surprise -- most developers opt for (a).
...but in a way, that makes using x64 Windows moot. Since there's no software for it (other than the OS itself a web browser or two), why switch? From extra registers, to more available m
Here is why (Score:2)
Until recently Linux kernel supported 80386 (Score:2)
It was less than 2 years ago that the Linux kernel dropped official support for the 80386 chip in the "current" kernel. It's successor, the 80486, has been around since 1989.
Several versions of the Linux kernel that still support the 386 are still officially supported. See http://www.kernel.org/ [kernel.org] for details.
Minimum is not the same as Acceptable (Score:2)
Has the OP ever tried to run Windows on a minimum-spec'd system? Even XP on a system with those specs frequently goes into pauses long enough to make the operator (me) ask, "did it crash, or what?"
To paraphrase what others have posted, the operating system is the means, not the end. It should be small and lightweight. And it should bloody well not require beefier hardware than necessary. I've found that even generously spec'd systems still bog down under Windows as unknown processes kick off to do who k
Et tu, Linux? (Score:3)
Slackware Linux doesn't require an extremely powerful system to run (though having one is quite nice :). It will run on systems as far back as the 486. Below is a list of minimum system requirements needed to install and run Slackware.
486 processor
64MB RAM (1GB+ suggested)
About 5GB+ of hard disk space for a full install
CD or DVD drive (if not bootable, then a bootable USB flash stick or PXE server/network card)
Debian:
A Pentium 4, 1GHz system is the minimum recommended for a desktop system.
Table 3.2. Recommended Minimum System Requirements
Install Type RAM (minimal) RAM (recommended) Hard Drive
No desktop 64 megabytes 256 megabytes 1 gigabyte
With Desktop 128 megabytes 512 megabytes 5 gigabytes
Ubuntu Desktop Edition
700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
512 MiB RAM (system memory)
5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
VGA capable of 1024x768 screen resolution
Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Internet access is helpful
Linux Mint 16
System requirements:
x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint 32-bit works on both 32-bit and 64-bit processors).
512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
5 GB of disk space
Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
CD/DVD drive or USB port
Because they want to run Windows ON smartphones... (Score:2)
Considering Microsoft's goal is to unite all their operating systems and have the same system running on all platforms this means they WANT to run windows on smartphones. So keeping the systems requirements less than the average smartphone would be their intent if they
Because add on vendors need to eat (Score:2)
It's like the homebuilt PC market (which still sort of exists), such as Cube where the 'basic' model is little more than a motherboard into which you have buy all the extras that make it work, like RAM or non volitile SSD. It's like the new batch of $99 tablets purported to do 'everything' except of course for anything. It's like ordering a new Levovo Yoga and you discover that getting enough SSD to make it practical doubles the price.
The funny thing is that apps are so bloated and so awful that even gettin
Lost ur mind (Score:2)
I don't know you tell me what difference would mandating two cores or DX10 make? What is there to be gained?
Minimal config != usable config (Score:2)
Honestly, the minimal required configuration is more to appease the marketing department and industrial partners than any sort of practically useful information.
Anyone who has attempted to use Windows Vista/7/8.x on anything with less than 4GB of RAM knows that it is completely unusable. It might run in 1GB, but there is nothing left for any applications. Even 4GB is barely enough for some basic work. For any serious use one needs at least 8GB or more and a modern CPU - likely an i3 or i5 at least.
The other
Two problems (Score:3)
I see two problems with upping the system requirements for a new version of the OS.
1) (and probably most important) The "low end" may operate on slim margins, but it does sell licenses and increase penetration. I don't think Microsoft can afford to ignore this market.
2) The OS is not an application! It runs applications. For the OS to be light weight with respect to system resources is a GOOD thing, as it allows more resources to be available for applications. I'd much rather have my apps run faster than see the desktop do flashy stuff or the OS run a bunch of heavy weight services just in case I might need them someday.
Let me get this straight (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone on Slashdot is actually complaining that Windows runs well on older hardware? We're through the looking glass here, people.
hardware has hit a wall so leave it as is (Score:3)
And because of that there are still a bunch of low-end PCs being sold and people simply not upgrading because really there's no point. Microsoft upping the requirements would just cut down their market. There are too many options for them to bully people like they used to do.
Why should minimum specs be raised? (Score:3)
I'm not sure exactly what we're giving up by maintaining minimum specs. Is there some rule by which raising the minimum specs improves performance on more powerful machines? Or that lower minimum specs means the OS won't run as well on the latest hardware?
I can run Ubuntu on an old 486. Does that mean it can't scale up to my i7, or that it's somehow less powerful than if they set a higher minimum?
Or is this a reaction to the fact that on the rare occasions that Mac OS has major update they always raise the minimum specs? Maybe the fact that Microsoft doesn't sell the system AND the OS together means they don't have an incentive to get us to dump our hardware when it gets to be four years old.
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Re:Why still 32bit builds? (Score:4, Informative)
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The end user wouldn't know the difference
Other than that pointer-intensive 64-bit programs run more slowly than pointer-intensive 32-bit programs because of all the cache misses.
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Re:Citation needed (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall, 64 bit has a 20% [or better] performance increase for most workloads. There are other factors other than just size of pointers.
Size of pointers is not the major factor in cache flush since most of the cache is taken up by data items and not pointers. These data items are more or less invariant across compilation mode.
64 bit compilers only use 64 bit fetch for non-pointers if you actually request them (e.g. long long). MS is the odd ball and defines a "long" to be 32 bits even in 64 bit mode [contrary to the compilation models used by everyone else]. "int" suffices for most data. Where it doesn't, one will [have to] code "long long" and that is invariant across 32/64, except that the 32 bit code will be slower [generating 2-3 instructions for each 64 bit one].
With x86_64, the first 6 arguments to a function are passed in registers and not on the stack (i.e. no wasteful push/pops for argument passing on entry/exit).
For a function that has a lot of automatic [stack] variables, in 32 bit, any non-trivial loop could spend a lot of time dumping a register to its stack frame solely for the purpose of making room for another variable that needs the register. This is register pressure and is considerably higher in 32 bit mode.
Once an address has been loaded in a register, access relative to that base register is identical speedwise between 64 and 32 bit.
64 bit has RIP-relative addressing which allows data to be addressed as small offset from the RIP [instruction pointer/program counter] register. Since it's relative to the RIP, two consecutive instructions that address the same data location will have slightly different offsets within each instruction.
You want a study? Try a google search on "performance 32 bit vs 64 bit".
Or, the easy reader version:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p... [phoronix.com]
Microsoft's business model is legacy support (Score:5, Informative)
Many 16 bit applications from the 1980's will run fine on Windows 10 32 bit edition.
Microsoft, more than any other company, has spent money ensuring that old software runs smoothly on newer operating systems. It is not perfect, and it has a lot of downsides, but it is also whey the corporate world and government has embraced MS as the desktop operating system of choice.
They are not going to get rid of Windows 32 on the desktop until there are almost no desktops out there that will run it. 2014 was the first year that Intel fully embraced x64 bit architecture for all of its chips. Most computers more than 10 years old are x32. There are a ton of netbooks and netbook tablets manufactured up until 2013, many that shipped with the EOL OS XP that need to be upgraded to Windows 10.
WfW in VM (Score:3)
Re:WfW in VM (Score:5, Insightful)
16 bit applications were just an example. DOS is pretty much free as is Microsoft's visualization environment if you run 64-bit windows. There still are quite a few legacy 16 bit DOS applications out there, btw. You pay millions of dollars to code a solution back in the 1980's or 1990's and upgrading the software is not always the best option. Heck, there is still a lot of legacy code out there from before the introduction of the MS-DOS PC in the early 80's.
The point is, MS cares a lot about compatibility. A lot of times, "run in XP mode" is good enough to get most problems fixed and 64 bit windows supports compatibility modes going all the way back to the first 32 bit OS, which is Windows 95.
While a program written for Windows 10 probably won't run on Windows 95, a business program written for Windows 95 probably will run on Windows 10, and corporations care a lot about that compatibility.
Re:WfW in VM (Score:4, Interesting)
We have electrochemistry kit that is chugging along on a PC running Dos 6.2 and Win 3.11.
Getting your data off requires a floppy disk as an intermediate step. I have no idea what we'll do if that machine ever craps out - it would be a shame to have to retire the potentiostat because the computers that it was designed to talk to have effectively ascended to godhood in the meantime.
It's certainly not the only piece of analytical kit that is tied to legacy hardware. We have a couple of FTIR machines that look like props from Fallout: New Vegas but work just fine and I'm pretty sure the EPR computer is running Win95.
Re:WfW in VM (Score:4, Informative)
We have electrochemistry kit that is chugging along on a PC running Dos 6.2 and Win 3.11.
Getting your data off requires a floppy disk as an intermediate step. I have no idea what we'll do if that machine ever craps out - it would be a shame to have to retire the potentiostat because the computers that it was designed to talk to have effectively ascended to godhood in the meantime.
It's certainly not the only piece of analytical kit that is tied to legacy hardware. We have a couple of FTIR machines that look like props from Fallout: New Vegas but work just fine and I'm pretty sure the EPR computer is running Win95.
I shudder at the thought of using a floppy. I like the software FastLynx [sewelldirect.com] Kind of like Interlink, but it can easily drag and drop files from DOS to a Win95/98/ME/NT4/2K/XP/Vista/7/8 (32 or 64 bit) using Serial or parallel null modem cables. Cheap $2 USB-serial adapter can be had on eBay. To get faster Parallel transfers requires a real LPT port on your modern PC, not a USB adapter. You can get the bundle from them that includes the software, and cables.
If you have a PC with a broken floppy drive, it can even send the software using MODE and CTTY commands.
It also comes for licenses of Windows versions of Interlnk and Intersvr. The way I had it set up, I created an up to 2GB FAT16 Truecrypt image on my modern "Server" PC (you can use some other image software as well). This gets mapped to a drive on the legacy client machine so now you have a massive disk drive expansion. When the drive is mapped, FastLynx has exclusive use of it, and you can't access files on the host OS it until you disconnect from the legacy PC. Alternatively you can map the drives on the DOS PC onto your modern PC.
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Just because YOU think that there is "no reason" to support the hardware does not mean that there actually is "no reason".
I have an old laptop that came with XP. It is 32 bit with 2GB of RAM. It works fine on Windows 7 which I upgraded for free. If it were still on XP, I would probably upgrade to 10 if it were free or cheap now that XP is kaput.
There are a ton of computers that are perfectly serviceable for what they are used for that have 32 bit processors. A lot of them are still running XP. These co
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FTFY
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Does the two-floppy OS have Unicode? (Score:3)