MS will support Hammer 64

[az]

Don't know if this is news to you, but I just read that the next Server OS from MS will support Hammer's 64 bit, not just Itanium's.

I think this is great news.

AZ

[Topha]

Yep, as far as I know theyll release that windows one day before opteron launches.

But when they last delayed the athlon64, rumours said it was because MS hadnt released the win64 yet (but in the end it was due to manufacturing problems )

[DGhost]

Eh? Where did you hear that? Sure you read it right? Next server release is practically done and ready to ship, and last I checked is still lacking production x86-64 support.

Now, you could have heard that they will have full support for it with Longhorn, and you might have heard that they possibly could have changed their minds on Longhorn and made it a client/server product release instead of just client only... but...

Oh yeah, and Win64 has been out for a while. Itanium only baby. And trust me, there is no chance in hell that is being ported over to the Hammers.

[Topha]

maybe youre right, over at amdzone they have 2 news items, one saying that it will be released on april 21st, the other seems to state what you posted. so i guess we will just have to wait

[Nowhere]

DGhost, Alpha too baby

And much sooner than Itanium...

[DGhost]

Last I checked Windows NT 4.0's support of the Alpha processor was limited to "it will run on the damn thing." From what I recall of it they never did extend Windows to take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture.

In fact, most of the documents I have read make references to the Win64 API being designed for the 64-bit port of Windows for the Itanium, not for the much older Alpha arch.

[Paulr]

MS have still not fully commited to releasing a 64bit version of Windows that will be supported by AMD's 64bit CPU's.
There is no official release date for such an OS and no "we are definitely go to actually do it" from MS at all.

Maybe Intel have got it right with their opinion that the home users/workstations still don't need 64bit and will continue to push 32bit systems.

[Wombat]

I think IA-64 is the better architecture, but there is definitely a place for a 64-bit chip on the desktop. Maybe not for processing power, but at least for address space.

[DGhost]

Originally posted by Paulr
MS have still not fully commited to releasing a 64bit version of Windows that will be supported by AMD's 64bit CPU's.
There is no official release date for such an OS and no "we are definitely go to actually do it" from MS at all.

Maybe Intel have got it right with their opinion that the home users/workstations still don't need 64bit and will continue to push 32bit systems.

There have, however, been demonstrations of x86-64 native versions of Windows XP. And last I checked they have x86-64 driver development information up on MSDN. It is more of a matter that Microsoft has not announced how and when it will release a version of Windows supporting, not if.

As far as home users go, there really is no reason to have 64-bit processors as of yet... the benefits home users will get from the Hammer come from other core improvements, not the fact its 64-bits...

Workstation users on the other hand have been complaining about the memory limitations that a 32-bit architecture has. It is kinda a shame Intel has seen fit to ignore the sub-really-fricking-expensive computer market with their 64-bit architecture plans.

[az]

DGhost: This information is from Andreas Stiller, c't. He is the german processor god, and has VERY good personal sources (like his pal Pat Gelsinger, CTO at intel).

If he says that there'll be Windows for A64 with the certainty he did, there will be. He's no Mike Magee

AZ

[az]

Here's an AMD Press Release.

Here are some MS debugging Tools for MS AMD64 Windows Server 2003.

Andreas Stiller was Talking about Windows Server 2003, BTW. You can read the short paragraph on it (no more info than that MS will do an AMD64 version of Windows Server 2003) in the newest "Prozessorgeflüster" in c't 7/2003, available today.

AZ

[DGhost]

heh, that AMD press release is almost a year old...

anyways... what did I say above...

There have, however, been demonstrations of x86-64 native versions of Windows XP. And last I checked they have x86-64 driver development information up on MSDN. It is more of a matter that Microsoft has not announced how and when it will release a version of Windows supporting, not if.

They have shown working builds of Windows on these things for almost a year now. Both Windows XP and Windows Server.

Eh? Where did you hear that? Sure you read it right? Next server release is practically done and ready to ship, and last I checked is still lacking production x86-64 support.

Again, Windows Server is in the very final stages of being released. They are doing final testing on their internal builds and could go gold any day.

There was no Technical Beta for x86-64 platforms to my knowledge like there was for the Itanium builds. I don't know of any beta docs that reference x86-64. From everything that it looks like, if there is an x86-64 port of Windows Server 2003 it would be an entirely seperate product than the normal Windows Server 2003 products.

While they have had driver development tools for it posted for a long time, that doesn't mean that it will support x86-64 at the time of its release. They had DDK's available for Windows XP available for quite a while before its release, even for the Itanium platform.

Like I said, its not a matter of "if", its a matter of "when".

If Microsoft has plans on releasing an x86-64 version of Windows Server 2003 along side the rest of the Windows Server products, they are being very un-Microsoftish about it. Considering that Windows Server has been in development for something like 3 years now, I would be quite suprised if they could manage to get a full port working and stabilized in about 1/3rd that amount of time without a large amount of testing sites and without people knowing about it.

Oh well, it could happen.

[Kurt]

From what I understand, there's a x86-64bit version in the works that's supposed to be released after win2003 server but before the next iteration. MS is a lot "not too sure" about things these days so it seems there's a lot of contradictory info around...I doubt win2003 will support x86-64 in 64bits. it will probably run just fine in 32bit mode -so MS doesn't have to invest too much R&D for a product that has no market yet...

[Topha]

Inquirer has this to say.

My favorite part: "Microsoft called back and spilled at least some of the beans. In a somewhat telling turn of phrase, the company's spokeswoman said, "there will be a 32bit version of Windows Server 2003 available for Opteron at launch." "

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by DGhost
As far as home users go, there really is no reason to have 64-bit processors as of yet... the benefits home users will get from the Hammer come from other core improvements, not the fact its 64-bits...

See, but think about this...we'll eventually need 64 bits on the desktop. Especially for memory addressing, like Wombat pointed out. So if 64 bit is adopted early, and the chips can still run 32 bit apps...then it will give developers a chance to make 64 bit versions of all of their 32 bit apps...a transition phase if you will, and then the next generation of CPUs won't need the legacy
support. KWIM?