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Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs 365

Posted by timothy from the grand-innovations dept.
thatrez writes: "Microsoft 's Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition, is now available for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. The Itanium chip supports greater amounts of system memory and offers stronger floating-point, or mathematical, capabilities than current 32-bit desktop processors. The extra memory support and the floating-point capabilities increase the performance of Web hosting, data warehousing and other applications." Now available in this case means that certain OEMs will soon be selling systems loaded with 64-bit Advanced Server, and later other manufacturers will join in. 64-bit versions of XP are expected sometime next year as well.
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Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs More

Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

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  • I'll run it on my nonexistant IA64 machine!
    • I'll run it on my nonexistant IA64 machine!

      Wow...you didn't even need to read the article to figure this one out - it was in the title, of all places:

      Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

      OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. That leads me to believe that they'll be shipping 64-bit Windows on 64-bit machines. But then, you can't flame someone for doing that...

  • windows is finally catching up to linux... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mz001b ( 122709 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @01:43PM (#2235788)
    just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

    • Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... (Score:4, Offtopic)

      by Whyte Wolf ( 149388 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @01:49PM (#2235808) Homepage
      Not to support MS here, but...

      IIRC, didn't SGI used to have IRIX running on 64 bit systems? Didn't SGI make a move to Linux? Didn't SGI assist with some 64 bit code?

      If I do remember that right, then Linux had a leg up thanks to SGI--a company that use to have a little pocket change itself :)

      • Didn't Windows used to run on Alpha? Wasn't Alpha a 64bit chip?

        If i do remember that right then MS has had a reasonable amount of experience with 64bit too.

        Although note that IRIX was running on MIPS. MIPS and Alpha were both 64bit RISC chips. Whereas Itanium is VLIW. No one has had that much experience porting anything sizeable to a VLIW architecture, with linux it is fairly easy, a few Kernel and compiler mods, and your sorted for a fully working system...windows on the other hand...euuughhhh...I feel dirty ;-)

      • Wasn't that the company that decided that in this virtual age there was no more need for reality [sgi.com]?

        btw, it seems they are reconsidering their decision to close it down...

      • IIRC, didn't SGI used to have IRIX running on 64 bit systems? Didn't SGI make a move to Linux? Didn't SGI assist with some 64 bit code?

        If I do remember that right, then Linux had a leg up thanks to SGI


        Ermmm... no. Linux has been 64 bit for ages thanks to it Alpha and Sparc64 ports. Waaaay before Linux was a blip on SGI's radar. Hell, Linux was even fully 64-bit on Sparc64 before Solaris was. Yes, SGI has helped with the IA64 port (along with many other companies and individuals), but the fact that the codebase was already 64-bit clean has made the task considerably easier than you're implying. SGI helped port Linux to a new architecture, not to get it to 64-bits.

    • Microsoft was waiting on the Itanium. They *JUST* became available in quantity. Until they are available in quantity no vendor ships servers with them. Microsoft has been holding back on their release until then.

    • Bollocks. People have been able to get 64-bit Windows since last year, the difference being that it was in beta and not fully supported. Just because RedHat et al. slapped together a 64-bit Linux distribution before doing any real QA/QC checking on it doesn't mean that they're ahead of anybody. If you think that RedHat's release was anything above beta quality itself, you're kidding yourself.

    • just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

      What's more impressive is that it'll run most existing Windows software *without needing a recompile*.

    • just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

      Not exactly. Remember that MS had the Alpha port of WinNT4 going, and lot of 2k/XP is based on NT (most..).
      And I really don't think that they started the port only after Intel "Announced" ia64 being available. I bet that MS has been on this port for 2-3 years minimum. Compare that to Linux then, It makes a nicer graph =)

      What I really don't understand is why MS fucked Alpha down. In my experience Alpha is STILL pretty nice player in server level (my uni runs mostly on alphas/ x86+linux)
      With alpha support it'd be much easier to support amd athlon+x86-64 (it's ev6 style bus, right?)

      • What I really don't understand is why MS fucked Alpha down. In my experience Alpha is STILL pretty nice player in server level (my uni runs mostly on alphas/ x86+linux)

        Ah, that's because DEC did all the porting. Yes, you heard it right: DEC did Microsoft's job for them in order to get NT on their own hardware. (Similarly, SGI ported NT to MIPS). A year or two after DEC was bought out by Compaq, they told Microsoft they are not going to do porting for them any more. Microsoft decided to kill Alpha port and made the spin that it was all Compaq's fault. There was a story on The Register about it maybe a year ago.

        • (Similarly, SGI ported NT to MIPS).


          No, the NT kernel was originally written as a RISC kernel, and the development team hated the Intel RISC chip of the late eighties (i860?) so they wrote it for the R4000. Then they ported it to the i386 architecture, but they said it sucked. I think Microsoft did all the porting work themselves, including PowerPC and Alpha, but they never ported the apps.

      • NT on Alpha does not use 64bit features. It drives the Alpha in 32bit mode only.

        MS wasn't happy when Compaq pulled the plug on Alpha/NT, but with this level of support from MS, it's easy to see why Compaq made the move.

  • this means new books (Score:3, Funny)

    by swagr ( 244747 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @01:43PM (#2235790) Homepage
    "Advanced Server for Advanced Dummies"
    I can't wait.
  • what about XP? whos gonna run it? I have the gold release version (work for a university) and its horribly kludgy....gotta have to go with one of the *nixs for the new 64 bit intel chips...
    • My concern is for Sun and IBM. Many pro MS or standards concious IT managers only have sun boxen around because intel based servers can't handle huge loads and i/o like sun hardware can.

      With IA64 many IT managers would love to switch their programming departments from c++/solaris systems to VB.net/W2k systems in the name of standards of course. Bussiness users are extremely conservative and they are the ones who are keeping intel processors in the majority of pc's sold. The Athlon is totally foreign in any corporate environment. They will continue to want to use intel based products and the IA64 will give them oppurtunity to do this. Now which OS will come default with any IA64 server purcahse? You guessed it, Windows 2k! Now if they can have an intel based server with a microsoft based operating system running their microsoft based VB.net or c#.net apps that can handle a solaris load, then they will have it made. %100 conformity.

      Windows is getting alot more stable and with clustering and switches, downtime problems are going away. This will create more headaches for unix since corporations like to buy computer equipment from the same company. Which will include servers with Windows pre-installed of course.
  • Will this work with AMD's upcoming SledgeHammer??

    What kind of functionality limitations will be placed on these machines (its ms... there's always limitations...)??
  • I hope that that it isn't, well maybe I do ;) (Just to see it crash and burn) that is like Windows 95, that is to say, just 32bit code hacked to run on a 64bit processor. Anyone remember Windows 95, just 16bit dos with a 32bit menu?
  • I'm sure the pr0n sites will find a way to use more floaating-point capabilities and less size constraints. They're so inventive.

    Next thing you know, they'll take the money out of your bank account for you, without you even having to ask, and then personally deliver the porn to your door.

  • Just like microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Overphiend ( 227888 )
    Yea it'll work on the 64 bit chips, by reducing their functionality to that of a 32-bit chip. Much like how it now utilizes a 32-bit chip at the level of a 16-bit chip.
  • Here's a another helpful link [microsoft.com] related to this release
  • "Limited Edition"? Is this self-imposed regulation?
  • Some readers may recall that when Microsoft announced Windows 95, Apple ran ads congratulating them on finally releasing something resembling a usable desktop, yet at the same time mocking the deceit which claimed that Windows 95 was not based on clunky old DOS:

    C:\ONGRTLNS.W95

    Similarly, perhaps a coalition of vendors -- Sun, IBM, Compaq, Apple and the gurus of the 64-bit Linux kernel ports -- should run a congratulatory ad for this momentous event: Microsoft finally goes 64-bit.

  • greater fp perf == better web serving? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StandardDeviant ( 122674 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @01:52PM (#2235824) Homepage Journal
    Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here but how does increased floating point performance equate to significantly better web serving? (either of static content or dynamic) I'm very skeptical but I'm also curious to see if there is an aspect to this I've previously missed. The increased memory addressability otoh makes perfect sense, apache sure can be a hungry beast when you lard those chillen' (yeah, I'm from the southern US ;) ) up with mod_perl et al...

  • Wonder what they mean by "Limited Edition"?

    M$ is only going to sell a limited number of copies, or it's 'limited' in features?


  • Microsoft 's Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition


    Nomen est omen

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak AT yahoo DOT com> on Thursday August 30, 2001 @01:56PM (#2235853) Homepage Journal
    William Gates III was quoted as saying that nobody would ever need more than 64 bits of memory.


    ObLinuxComment: Let's make Linux 128-bit clean, just for the hell of it, so it's ready for when someone makes a 128-bit processor to run it on. :)

  • Now CodeRed can scan IP's addys for unpatched IIS machines to infect in half the time.

  • Limited use (Score:2, Informative)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    Unless you need to run some honking database or memory hungry app there is little reason to use 64-bit Windows.


    All you would get for your trouble is a crippling licence fee (courtesy of MS), a dearth of 64-bit applications & drivers, slower 32-bit execution and double the memory and disk requirements. These are hardly compelling reasons to "upgrade".

    • Re:Limited use (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @02:28PM (#2236035) Homepage Journal

      I was going to say the same thing, that, as far as current customers are concerned, this product seems to fill an incredible Non-Niche.


      It's exclusively for IA-64, which can't compete head to head with established RISC hardware yet. Also, given that the OS's for the competitive RISC hardware have been around longer, had more bugs shaken out, had more apps (eg, Oracle) developed for them, Advanced Server won't provide any kind of revenue for MS. It's all written off for the sake of future revenue.


      Like anything, they're willing to let it slog slowly up through the ranks for a few years until it gains credibility (eg, the first 2 versions of Windows and of NT). Eventually, though, all this beta testing will pay off so that in 2005 they can argue convincingly that they can provide an alternative to the big iron from IBM, Sun, HP, SGI and Compaq (DEC).


      The other benefit of this move for MS is to provide a testing ground for their code base so that if IA-64 ever does develop into something so desirable that it begins to appear in desktops, they'll have some experience for it. With the recent boost that Intel gets from killing off the Alpha competitor and from using the Alpha's carcass to improve the sickly Itanium, the IA-64 will eventually become something to be reckoned with, even if through the sheer brute force of the dollars behind it.


      For current customers, though, this OS release is a yawning opportunity to be part of MS beta test program. As with the Linux IA-64 release, it is mildly interesting, with genuine interest deferred until the point that the hardware is competitive with the established RISC vendors.


      Anyone care to compare and contrast their 64 bit foray to their first foray into the 32 bit world?

  • Limited Edition! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @02:15PM (#2235947)
    Wow, I have to get it quick - will it come with an extra disc with commentary and "making of" features?

    Does anyone know if it comes in a metal lunchbox [red5interactive.com], or tin case [amazon.com]?
    • dunno... but doesn't it seem pretty wrong to call this version of windows the "limited edition?"

      i've used lots of different versions of windows, and i thought they were all pretty limited.

  • 64 bit Windows (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alsta ( 9424 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @02:15PM (#2235951)
    I wonder if Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition is about as much 64 bit as Windows 95 is 32 bit.

    Undoubtedly parts of this version of Windows 2000 has to remain 32 bit for compatibility. Or is Microsoft going to port Microsoft Office to 64 bit Windows as well? Unless Microsoft has implemented some type of FX!32 (DECs 32 -> 64 bit layer which "learns" and accellerates), this release of Windows may potentially be quite useless. One of the reasons people use Windows is the availability of applications.

    I can't for the life of me think that this is anything different from a marketing release where Microsoft can say "We're in the future, we're 64 bit". But it's nevertheless interesting that Microsoft has gotten something out the door that is 64 bit. Let's see how well Microsoft entrenches itself in the datacenters. My guess is that the 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will become far cheaper than the Sun counterparts and thus taking over a lot, but not everything. But will Windows be the preferred platform or is Linux going to hit Microsoft where it hurts? Or perhaps Microsoft will make this .NET thing so popular that Windows will make it all the way to world domination?

    In either case, from a technical standpoint I will observe how Windows 64 bit is going. Very interesting indeed.

    Alex

    • Re:64 bit Windows (Score:2, Informative)

      by DarkEdgeX ( 212110 )

      My understanding is that everything in the core OS has been recompiled as a 64-bit binary, this would include the kernel (obviously), shell (including support DLL's and EXPLORER.EXE, for example), and most likely server components such as IIS (this is my speculation here, if IIS is still a 32-bit binary, someone speak up, because that really WOULD make the entire release almost pointless).

      But I've read on MSDN and elsewhere that Explorer and other basic (ie: integrated) components of Windows 2000 were ported to IA-64 for this release.

    • Re:64 bit Windows (Score:2, Insightful)

      by I_redwolf ( 51890 )
      Just because it's cheaper doesn't mean it's better especially in this case (let us not compare things like linux vs windows etc). However Sun provides quality hardware and their engineering team is composed of top engineers across the world. They have been developing 64 bit platforms for quite sometime now and I don't see Windows being a 64bit platform taking over anytime soon. Simply because it hasn't been tested, windows software is usually buggy and people who actually use 64 bit platforms need reliability at all cost. They also need a stable enviroment which Sun also provides in Solaris. My guess is that 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will be widely unused in big datacenters or scientific labs. However you might see an increase in information/web hosting camps but not something in any drastic proportion that would indicate a large increase in share; not even a peak.
    • Unless Microsoft has implemented some type of FX!32 (DECs 32 -> 64 bit layer which "learns" and accellerates), this release of Windows may potentially be quite useless.

      Windows on it's own useless? You don't say? I'm not sure how useful any MS stuff has ever been, but don't worry YOUR SOFTWARE INVESTMENT WILL BE PROTECTED WITH THE USUAL MS CARE AND CONCERN. No one would inflict needless waste for the sake of their bottom line, would they? Why does this Word 6 document look like poop?

  • The new versions of 64-bit XP are getting useeful again. The first rev's of 64bit XP, were really alpha quality stuff. However, in typical MS Fashion, each revision just gets better and better. Still, I think the need for this product is overstated. Why is that?

    Itanium is aimed squarely at the hideously overpriced Sun e450 and up lines of hardware. If you are Intel, you're not going to get hardcore Solaris shops moving to Windows Adv Server, and Windows DataCenter. This brings us to....

    Linux. For the record, I found TurboLinux was the company to produce a usable OS for Itanium, followed by Suse, and then Redhat, this has resulted in:

    Resources. At this point. Redhat's Distro seems to be the best on Itanium, giving them a leg up on the Real Prize, McKinley. However, porting apps to the Itanium hasn't been as easy as just treating it as yet another 64bit CPU.

  • microsoft wanted to be sure everyone could see this:

    http://homepage.mac.com/jcarusone/iMovieTheater2.h tml [mac.com]

    _f

  • In my day... (Score:2, Funny)

    by pogofish ( 514289 )

    we could crash Windows with only 16 bits. None of this namby-pamby 64 bit stuff. No sir. We used to say, "look at me, I'm crashing with a segmented memory model!" And you know what? It was good enough for us and we liked it.


    This new generation doesn't know how to crash Windows. No sir. They say, "oh, I couldn't possibly crash Windows without 64 bits, oh no." Wimps. All of 'em. Think bus bits grow on trees or something.

  • Right now 64bit computing is simply for high end workstations and servers.

    Databases, for those of you who don't know are extreme memory hogs and 64 bit memory space is necessary for most large systems. NT or Linux this is a nice feature.

    Video editing/rendering - having this much memory is nice + floating point = fast!

    I know exxon will love them, geophysics isn't easy on 32 bit systems when utilizing holographic imagery and trying to produce maps of oil.

    Microsoft just has an easy interface for how things work. 64 bit in some form or fashion has been aroiund for a while in solaris, again mainly for a server os. Irix has had it, and again they're for the graphics/producing bit.

    SO NT will just fill it's niche.

    I have no idea what good linux on itanium is. can only get mysql to go so quick, pgsql doesn't support 64 bit as far as i know and not much for high end graphics. May be good for a rendering farm i guess?

    Atleast with SGI & NT/XP/2k you got lots of visualization, data manipulation, mapping and extrapolation type applications. Sun has its share.

    So i don't know why people dis it. You aren't going to run Office on the sucker and if you do who cares if its on par with a PIII, a PIII is still fast emulated or not.

    Its just nice to know 64 bits is around the corner. With memory and CPU prices falling through the roof its only a matter of time before consumers (gamers / coders and tech heads) upgrade to 64 bit systems.

    Be it linux, solaris, irix or not.
  • It's a server. A big server. And hosting customers will DEMAND we move them from a large number of SMP boxes to one giant 64 bit server. Collapse a bunch of boxes down. OK so far so good. Reduce labor costs by reducing the number of servers though most of our metrics are based on the ratio of end users or accounts to boxes not the number of boxes. So lets say that Siebel rewrites their application for 64 bits and we run it. Let's say customer X now runs one giant instance of a DB on it or one GIANT authentication server/LDAP machine. All I've got to say is

    Holy single fucking point of failure Batman!

    An Intel box as big as a huge ass Sun or a RS/6k-S80 will cost at least as much to support and twice as much to harden for security.

    Not a critcism just a fact - we'll have to reshape all of our SLAs to reflect the unreliability inherent with consolidation.
    • Obviously you come from an X86 world where failure is normal.

      Unreliability isn't inherent with consolidation, its inherent with ineptness.

      If 100% uptime and reliability is what you need then having multiple servers doesn't server you anybetter. You would need duplicate datacenters, redundnat storage arrays, redundant power, redundant network connections, redundant routers, redundant switches and offsite support. When your talking about something like that, its cheaper to Buy an E10k maxes out that gets 99.99999 percent uptime and lease recovery center hardware & provisions from experts in the field like Sungard and such.
      • Actually I come from the mainframe world, the AS/400 where 6 minutes of unplanned downtime a year are the exception. Lots of hardware is highly reliable and better yet coming down the pike with improved self monitoring.

        It's the software that's a problem. A kernel panic on one of 12 NT servers is less of a problem than a kernel panic on 1 of 1 NT servers. A problematic security hole caused by yet another ubiquitous IIS or Active Server glitch is more of a problem from a change control perspective if all your users are on box. A big box that still uses NetBIOS over TCP and blasts a ton a crud thorough port 139 is probably easier to manage from a firewall perspective if what you want is to filter traffic from-to by address but attempting to mount a network IDS on the box will present correlation engine problems in the shear volume of false positives that an NT based solution will generate.

        And so on.

  • That's gonna ROCK when 64Bits hits mainstream (i.e. WindowsXP workstation 64bits maybe?) with dual/quad/octal slege/claw-hammer (or whatever that 64bits chip is names) ;)

    Future looks cool. As long as it's not too far :)

  • Bah (Score:2)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 )
    4 gigabytes should be enough for anybody.
  • This is definately newsworth to see a version of Windows ported to a 64 bit implementation. Nothing is as trivial as just porting the core/kernel. Just ask Sun how well Solaris 2.6 went.

    This leads to a couple of side question: How are the Linux and BSD IA-64 ports doing? I heard something about both of them awhile back. Both camps reported stuff is going well with kernels and compilers running but then the news just died away. Anything new an interesting to report? I would be interested in how much bloat going to a pure 64 bit kernel actually is.

    Didn't Intel claim that the Pentium is a 64 bit processor? Where are the 64 bit ports? *shock* Does this mean that Intel wasn't exactly truthful? :-)
    • How are the Linux and BSD IA-64 ports doing? I heard something about both of them awhile back. Both camps reported stuff is going well with kernels and compilers running but then the news just died away. Anything new an interesting to report? I would be interested in how much bloat going to a pure 64 bit kernel actually is

      as for linux, it's as far from vapor as it can be. buy an ia64, download any stable 2.4.x kernel and go on.

      See your local linux sources or
      http://bitmover.com:8888//home/ppc/linux_2_4/src /a rch/ia64?nav=index.html|src/.|src/arch
  • So, will we now have the two blue screens of death as they make room for dumping double the size variables?

    What happens when the two blue screens of death toggling mechanism breaks? Will we get the magenta screen of tormented afterlife?
  • so will there be:
    2*.dll
    2*reboot
    2*hot fix
    2*service packs
    2*the bloat
    2*the suck
    ?
  • KILL M$. Limit them to the x86. Amd then just wait.

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