The pending launch of Windows Server 2003 will be a milestone not only for Microsoft, but for the other half of Wintel, too. It’s been eight years since Intel got into the server market and two years since it shipped a 64-bit processor, the Itanium. On April 24, a 64-bit version of Windows that takes advantage of Intel’s 64-bit design will become generally available.
64-Bit Win Server Takes On Unix Head To Head
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I have a question about the title of this article. Do you mean that Windows can finally run on 64-bit processors, something that Unix has been able to to for a long time, or that in its 64-bit incarnation Windows is finally powerful enough to compete with Unix?
The article suggests the former, while the title suggests the latter.
on 64-bit Windows for x86-64. As much as most of us agree that x86 is old and contains too much cruft, how many of us would deny that we don’t love what AMD has done and wouldn’t also love a 64-bit Windows incarnation? I mean I like MacOS X on my iBook and FreeBSD whenever I have the time to play with it, but just for the geek pleasure of something new to toy with, come on!
I would have to agree with the above post – the article and the title of this story do not fit.
Tell that to InternetWeek then.
Windows used to be able to run on 64 bit anyway. A version of win NT was ported by MS to the DEC alpha chip in the late 90’s. After all NT and its successors are just pirated VMS with a MS GUI.
It did work quite reliably – we still have a DEC alpha box at work – still quitely working away. But nowhere did it ever compete with Unix, even though that was the whole idea behind NT. Both from Gates and Cutler.
I don’t think Win 2003 Server (NT 5.x) on Itanic will be any more successful in defeating Unix in the 64 bit market. It also has competition now in the 64 bit market from Linux which will wipe the floor with windows.
As I always say no one in their right mind runs windows on a server nowadays.
“” I have a question about the title of this article. Do you mean that Windows can finally run on 64-bit processors, something that Unix has been able to to for a long time, or that in its 64-bit incarnation Windows is finally powerful enough to compete with Unix? “”
It does run on 64bit, has for a while. But for the most part there has been zero reason to release it for 64 bit cpu’s. The AMD 64bit solutions haven’t launched and Itaniums are so expensive I doubt they would even apply to you since no one outside of big servers is going to have one. Some Unix’s have been on 64 bit for a while, but they also had something to run on. Any of the earlier 64bit chips out there are something that just didn’t matter to MS. No sence in making their OS run on something there isn’t much of and doesn’t offer huge gains. Thats why their PPC and Alpha ports are long since dead, they were pointless to continue, the Itanium I port will probably go that way in time if it’s differant then the Itanium II. MS could sell you a copy of windows that would run on a Opteron, but it’s going to sit on your self till AMD starts selling the chip.
Perhaps a headline writer wrote the headline, but if the author wrote it then it should be regarded as a signal that the rest of it isn’t worth reading.
<< I don’t think Win 2003 Server (NT 5.x) on Itanic will be any more successful in defeating Unix in the 64 bit market. It also has competition now in the 64 bit market from Linux which will wipe the floor with windows.
As I always say no one in their right mind runs windows on a server nowadays. >>
I agree totaly whith you. Windows is a desktop OS an will always be. I remember how bad 95 and all his descendets where. MS got lucky whith NT, which on the other hand in the beggining also sucked. So they merged them into win2000 and later the XP. Now XP is stable on the desktop, but thinking that a server might “freeze” or some idiotic script-kiddie could use some exploit made in delphi on it…lol. I know there are those win – firewalls…but thn again… Linux is pretty much the future, and if you don’t agree whith me then we’ll see again in a few years…
“Tell that to InternetWeek then.”
But Eugenia, you chose to link to the article for that very reason. The choice in articles that you choose for this site exposes your bias.
>But Eugenia, you chose to link to the article for that very reason. The choice in articles that you choose for this site exposes your bias.
>
This is stupid. Less than a quarter of the articles she posts have to do with windows. If anything, she’s biased against windows, considering the sheer reach of windows in every computing market, even servers.
pnut
Sorry pal, but you are clueless without the single clue how we operate over here. I suggest you read the OSNews Goal in the contact-us page.
I admit I haven’t been visiting this site for very long, but from everything I’ve seen, it lives up to its goal. The choice of articles is broad and fair. If Eugenia agreed with everything that shows up here, she’d be schizophrenic. I take that as a very good sign of balance. The fact that many *articles* that show up are biased is a good thing — a news site should be all about providing as many points of view as possible.
Thanks for the balanced coverage. I’m quite anti-Windows, but I’m interested in all points of view. Keep showing ’em.
3 to 4 years from now, all the proprietary Unix HW is down the drain, because it’s too expensive for being just distant second in TPC benchmarks.
No more Mc Nealy bull shit or AIX.
That’s why Big Blue is investing in the Li*ux kernel.
But they must have stupid strategists since li*ux is based on an ancient concept and will loose like OS2.
maybe it didn’t come across clearly- Just wanted to point out that you don’t over-cover windows, as some allege
I actually enjoy your balanced coverage eugenia
pnut
Geez, its so obvious when OS news staff posts to its forums to help defuse the exposure of its agenda.
Anonymous (heh),
What in the name of God do you think their ‘agenda’ is? To secretly dominate the minds of Linux users and make them return to Windows? To make sure that Microsoft makes as much money as possible? Give me a break. What’s pathetic is the inability to understand that being exposed to a wide range of opinions, even ones we don’t agree with, is a good thing.
Since I’m looking out for 64 bit windows for compatibility reasons, I recently did some research on the Alpha port of WinNT.. some might want to correct me, but my research seems to indicate that it still used a 32 bit addressing model so technically it was only a 32 bit windows.
see…
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cs…
So do we need to correct statements about Windows NT for Digital Alpha being 64 bits? Perhaps someone with more intimate knowledge can tell us one way or the other.
If this is the case, the 64 bit Windows is more significant than anticipated as it is a quantum leap in the types of applications that it will be able to run.
P
Mixed opinions is one thing… Troling to fulfill your OS agenda is another.
Do some backreading before you write, would you? If you do a little poking around and read some of my posts in other topics, you’ll find that my OS agenda is something like the following:
I want to see a free software OS running on every desktop. I want to see everything licensed GPL. I want to see an end to non-free software because my politics and ethical views tell me that free software is a social, political, and moral advantage.
If you do a little more digging, for instance reading Eugenia’s homepage, you’ll find that she doesn’t care whether software is open or closed, a view which I think is myopic and irresponsible. She has problems with RMS’s politics, whereas I think that RMS is a modern prophet and we should all listen very carefully to anything he has to say.
So before you make any more embarassing acusations, why don’t you inform yourself? Which brings me back to my whole point, which is that without information we’re all just a bunch of morons. Information doesn’t mean ‘what we want to hear,’ it means ‘what’s actually out there.’ I strongly disagree with the personal views of the editors of this site. That doesn’t mean I think they’re doing a bad job.