Microsoft to Require 64-bit Processors

Nom du Keyboard writes "According to News.com Microsoft has said they will require 64-bit instruction set processors (AMD64/EMT64) for all future processor releases. These include Exchange 12, Longhorn Server R2 and Small-Business Edition Longhorn Server among others. I guess we have to bite this bullet sometime."

not completely accurate.

[CDPatten]

They have also said a 32-bit version of the Longhorn server would be available.

http://www.redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?Editori alsID=7046 [redmondmag.com]

Typo?

[TeleKawaru]

I think they meant "future product releases." You can't say that processors include "Exchange 12, Longhorn Server R2 and Small-Business Edition Longhorn Server"

Re:Something's not right

[Craster]

Just because the OS requires a 64-bit processor, doesn't mean that 32-bit apps won't run in a virtual machine environment, much the way that 16-bit apps run in the wowexec VM on Microsoft's current 32-bit OSs.

Re:Something's not right

[meringuoid]

Microsoft is breaking backward compatability?

That's not how I read it. Microsoft is going to require 64 bit processors for its new software. That's about equivalent to them requiring a 32-bit processor for Windows 95, and thereby excluding everyone on a 286. No reason why these systems shouldn't run legacy 32-bit apps - and maybe even 16-bit apps - but they're going to need a 64-bit processor.

Re:Something's not right

[CDPatten]

"Microsoft is breaking backward compatability? "

I'm assuming you are talking about 32bit? If you are then... Longhorn Server R2 doesn't come out until 2009, the 2007 version will come out with a 32bit counterpart Their 64 bit platform run 32 bit code without degrading performance.

The only thing that has to be re-written is 32-bit drivers. They are only breaking "driver" compatibility for legacy hardware. However hardware makers have started (last summer) to write the 64 bit drivers for their hardware, so I wouldn't worry to much about that.

Is that enough info to debunk?

Wrong article summary?

[Jugalator]

According to News.com Microsoft has said they will require 64-bit instruction set processors (AMD64/EMT64) for all future processor releases.

I think "all" should be "some" and "processor releases" should be "software releases"... Here's CNET's take on it:

Microsoft said some upcoming products, including its Exchange 12 e-mail server, will run only on 64-bit processors.

It seems to be mostly a focus on 64-bit server products from now on to me, and far from a total switch to 64-bit.

Re:Let me know when 16-bit code is dead, let alone

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP 64bit has all the 16 bit subsystems removed, and can't run any 16bit software.

Re:Something's not right

[ggeens]

That's about equivalent to them requiring a 32-bit processor for Windows 95 and thereby excluding everyone on a 286.

Actually, 80286 support was dropped in Windows 3.1 (AKA Windows For Workgroups). WFW could only run 16 bit code [1], but it needed the virtual memory features of a 80386.

[1] Except if you installed "win32s", a subset of the Win32 API.

Re:duh

[should_be_linear]

Except that going 64-bit with less then 4GB of RAM makes little sense. Microsoft is binary-compatibility based company so they are trying to make sure that all users and OEMs will jump to new instruction set together. Originally, .NET should make CPU platform irrelevant, but somehow this didn't work really so all major Apps are still C++. Interesting thing that AMD64 instruction set, once underdog, will likely have no compatition in PC market for next couple of years. Even Apple standardized on it.

Re:Is this bad or good?

[iamhassi]

"But when MS goes to pure 64-bit, there may well still be a lot of legacy Pentium IVs around running just fine. "

well, in the original article [com.com] that the article links to it says:
"Separately, Microsoft also announced that the Compute Cluster Server and several other upcoming server software releases will work only with 64-bit processors."

They're talking specifically about server software, not really desktop.

In the article the post links to it says:
"company executives detailed its plans to add support 64-bit microprocessors in its server applications and operating systems."

so they're supporting 64 bit in their OS, but not requiring it... least none of the stories said they're requiring it.

I agree, I think it's a mistake to require 64 bit support in desktop OS's in the near future, I mean there's 5 year old processors that run the latest XP just fine so to say 5 yrs from now that most processors made today wont run Windows 2010 (twenty-ten ;) seems to be a pretty serious statement.

Are they trying to kill Intel sales?

Re:Digg.com did it again

[0xdeadbeef]

Huh, digg. kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org] did it first, and fark.com [fark.com] does it funnier. When will you begin cross-promoting with myspace?

Re:Is this bad or good?

[ZiakII]

there may well still be a lot of legacy Pentium IVs around running just fine. Maybe we'll be able to get these guys to consider alternatives at that point?

Most Pentiums IVs can support 64 bit processes.

from Intel's website Scalability and performance with Intel® EM64T Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel® EM64T) can improve performance by allowing the system to address more than 4 GB of both virtual and physical memory. Intel EM64T also provides support for 64 bit computing to help handle the applications of tomorrow.
The link can be found here [intel.com]

Re:All future "processor releases"?

[masklinn]

Uh ya, right, GPU is an ATI design and CPU is a 3-core PowerPC by IBM.

Both were created in cooperation with Microsoft and are fully custom made (the Xenon CPU took 2 years), but they're still not "MS processors".

MS servers were 64bit back in 90's

[axonis]

Don't you guys remember the Digital Alpha ?, it had a port of Windows NT 4.0 back in the 90's

Re:You know what that means, don't you?

[harrkev]

Those 64 bits are not just used for addresses. You can actually process 64 bits of DATA at the same time.

This could be a big deal in applications like video processing and encryption. I believe that a 64-bit data path speeds up encryption operations big time, and this is the sort of thing that you tend to do with web servers.

Subject totally misrepresented in comments

[sonofagunn]

Most of you guys have no clue what Microsoft is actually doing. They are going to require some of their *server* products in the future to run on 64 bit processors - not home PCs. A lot of their server products today run on 32-bit and 64-bit processors already. I bet most of their new installs of these server products are already being done on 64 bit processors so they're just going to make things simpler. I doubt anyone will complain.

Re:Updates for this quote

[wed128]

Not to advocate the devil, but the NT line was never dos based, so that quote no longer applies and that update makes no sense.

Re:Seriously?

[earthpig]

well,
the first thing that comes to mind is this will require a new computer.
well that means bying a new computer with the new windows pre installed.

net effect, helping to reduce piracy.

its quite simple.

Re:Mailbox size?!?

[photon317]

Typically on a traditional 32-bit OS files within a filesystem were limited to 2GB in size. Some people have easily more than 2GB of mail, and if your mail system stores all of a user's mail within a single "mailbox" file, you see the problem.

OTOH, it's not really smart at all for a mail server to have one file per user (or even one file per "mail folder") - methods akin to the unix Maildir standard are far more efficient on modern filesystems that scale well as dentry lists grow.

And OTOOH, most 32-bit OS's on 32-bit processors support 64-bit filesystem extensions, allowing files much larger than 2GB anyways, although perhaps not as efficiently as they could in a native 64-bit environment (but we're not talking about a huge, or even normally noticeable, efficiency difference).

Re:Is this bad or good?

[David Greene]

As for performance...well, you won't see much difference with a 64-bit processor, but that's not because they aren't better - that's because people haven't been writing new code for them due to slow adoption rates.

Not true. 64-bit computing has almost nothing to do with performance. It's all about address space. That's why Microsoft is pushing this for server apps. We are quickly running out of bits to build large, fast, shared-memory machines with x86 hardware. Even with today's Opteron and EMT64 offerings we don't have enough to build really big machines because the actual pins on the chip don't support the full 64-bit space. I believe it's something like 40 bits today.

Re:Is this bad or good?

[Procyon101]

Definately. I've got machines slower than that here running on my gigabit lan with no problems. I suspect he either is using all hubs instead of switches and his network is huge, or is completely pwned by a worm and doesn't know it. Even "unreasonable broadcast traffic" from some protocol isn't going to tax a machine that's at least a pentium classic.

Re:Updates for this quote

[Procyon101]

Ah, but DOS had it's roots in CP/M, which did run on 4 and 8 bit systems such as the 8085 and 65xx series.