Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue JMICRON drive now available at newegg for MEGA $$$

[taltamir]

XP isn't offered to OEMs anymore, it's is in extended support right now and then that ends in 2012. So yes, I sure would call it virtually unsupported and in 2 years it'll be officially unsupported.

To clarify, extended support means security fixes only.

 

[Voo]

I agree that it's retarded and MS does make some pretty shitty technical decisions, but that doesn't give Apple an excuse to do the same. And Apple doesn't have any answer to the lack of TRIM other than "So?". At least MS ships a 64-bit version that doesn't have those limitations, with Apple you're just screwed.

And anyone running 32-bit Win7 has a reason, either hardware that won't work with the 64-bit build and as such also probably don't have >4G of memory or a >2TB boot drive.

Yeah the only reason why MS still offers a 32bit version is for compatibility reasons and someone who cares that much about backwards compatibility that he's using a 32bit OS in 2010 really doesn't care about that, ever feature they add kicks of another one, since even MS is constrained by time and money. And not worrying that much about a dying version really isn't a "shitty technical decision" but rather a imho reasonable weighting. I don't think that that constraint is a problem for more than a handful of users (imho if you'd want to point to some problems, not really supporting PAE back when 64bit OSes were no real alternative was a bigger problem - though also more on the server side of things and it's not as if having the possibility to have more processes with 2gb would've helped much for consumers)


And telling anyone that MS should add suppport for new stuff to a almost ten year old OS.. what is the last version of Mac Os that's currently supported? Leopard or did they got rid of that too? I mean Apple doesn't even support 2 year old OSes and MS should develop new features for 10year old versions? Sounds hypocritical...

 

[taltamir]

Yeah the only reason why MS still offers a 32bit version is for compatibility reasons and someone who cares that much about backwards compatibility that he's using a 32bit OS in 2010 really doesn't care about that

This is definitely not the case.
they are offering 32bit because they want to sell windows 7 32bit to people who have a 32bit only processor.
Those are people who still use P4 or AthlonXP, or people who own an atom netbook.

Windows 8 will supposedly be 64bit only.

 

[Mark R]

And how does the GC know which pages are truly free?

The way it could be done, is for the drive to be internally overprovisioned. There will therefore always be a pool of flash memory on the drive which is unmapped to an externally visible LBA - and therefore the data in these flash pages is no longer valid.

These pages can be erased (which is what TRIM does) as a background task in the drive controller.

No OS support is necessary. The disadvantages are that the total pool of pre-erased pages is smaller than could be obtained with an empty drive and an OS with TRIM support, and that the overprovisioning is expensive.

 

[poofyhairguy]

This is definitely not the case.
they are offering 32bit because they want to sell windows 7 32bit to people who have a 32bit only processor.
Those are people who still use P4 or AthlonXP, or people who own an atom netbook.

All I was saying is that if MS would have put their brain to it they could have designed an OS (like OSX is) that doesn't have 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

OSX loads a 32 bit kernel if it is a 32 bit box, and a 64 bit kernel for a 64 bit box. There is no need to confuse consumers and offer two versions of an OS where the only difference can be explained in a technical manor that only us geeks understand.

You can pretend that it is not a big deal because "people have a choice for a 64 bit version," but the honest truth is that millions of consumers get the 32 bit version (on new 64 bit hardware mind you) because that is what came with their box and they don't know any better.

MS could have shortchanged that by doing the engineering necessary to pull off the feat Apple achieved with OSX by unifying the versions, or (lacking that talent, which might be the case) they could have been draconian with OEMs and forced any OEM that sold a 64bit capable machine to also sell a 64 bit Windows with it. They did neither, and we all suffer from MS incompetence on this issue.

Those people buying 32 bit Windows 7 today for their 64 bit capable boxes will be dragging down the market (especially the storage market) for years to come.

 

[Voo]

This is definitely not the case.
they are offering 32bit because they want to sell windows 7 32bit to people who have a 32bit only processor.
Those are people who still use P4 or AthlonXP, or people who own an atom netbook.

Windows 8 will supposedly be 64bit only.

Well ok that could be a reason, though I'm hard pressed to believe that many people with a ancient CPU would update their OS, sounds more like those people use their OS until they get a new pc. But I obviously ignored those people with notebooks that have less than 4gb RAM, who'd just throw good memory away.

But yeah it's probably the netbook market with those 2xx atoms - forgot that those didn't support 64bit.

 

[Nothinman]

All I was saying is that if MS would have put their brain to it they could have designed an OS (like OSX is) that doesn't have 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

OSX loads a 32 bit kernel if it is a 32 bit box, and a 64 bit kernel for a 64 bit box. There is no need to confuse consumers and offer two versions of an OS where the only difference can be explained in a technical manor that only us geeks understand.

An on the other end of it the way Apple did it was more confusing for technical people because it was so hard to find out what was 64-bit and what wasn't. At one point their docs seemed to state that even though the kernel was 32-bit the system was still capable of running 64-bit binaries, which if true means they had to jump through some major hoops to hack that together.

You can pretend that it is not a big deal because "people have a choice for a 64 bit version," but the honest truth is that millions of consumers get the 32 bit version (on new 64 bit hardware mind you) because that is what came with their box and they don't know any better.

MS could have shortchanged that by doing the engineering necessary to pull off the feat Apple achieved with OSX by unifying the versions, or (lacking that talent, which might be the case) they could have been draconian with OEMs and forced any OEM that sold a 64bit capable machine to also sell a 64 bit Windows with it. They did neither, and we all suffer from MS incompetence on this issue.

Those people buying 32 bit Windows 7 today for their 64 bit capable boxes will be dragging down the market (especially the storage market) for years to come.

Maybe. However they keys they have will work fine with a 64-bit build as well so all they need to do is pay the shipping for the media if they did get screwed by an OEM that gave them 32-bit Windows.

Well ok that could be a reason, though I'm hard pressed to believe that many people with a ancient CPU would update their OS, sounds more like those people use their OS until they get a new pc. But I obviously ignored those people with notebooks that have less than 4gb RAM, who'd just throw good memory away.

And I am one of those people. When Win7 went RTM I blew away the XP installation on my work notebook and put Win7 on it. I didn't even realize the CPU in it didn't support long-mode until I tried it.

 

[poofyhairguy]

An on the other end of it the way Apple did it was more confusing for technical people because it was so hard to find out what was 64-bit and what wasn't. At one point their docs seemed to state that even though the kernel was 32-bit the system was still capable of running 64-bit binaries, which if true means they had to jump through some major hoops to hack that together.

You are right, it is more confusion for developers in OSXland, but that makes it easier for users.

By the way, you are right about its 64bit features- OSX can have a 32 bit kernel and run 64 bit binaries:




I don't know how they did it, but it makes for a smooth transition to 64 bit.

 

[Nothinman]

You are right, it is more confusion for developers in OSXland, but that makes it easier for users.

Not just developers, they make most things more difficult for any user that's above casual mark.

By the way, you are right about its 64bit features- OSX can have a 32 bit kernel and run 64 bit binaries:




I don't know how they did it, but it makes for a smooth transition to 64 bit.

Yea, I'm guessing they do something like put the CPU into long-mode in 32-bit kernels as well. Since the CPU can run 32-bit code natively as well it runs the kernel and can also run 64-bit binaries. I have no idea how the interaction between those processes and the kernel works, although I'd guess that lots of duct tape, crossed fingers and begging god for help are involved.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have no idea how the interaction between those processes and the kernel works, although I'd guess that lots of duct tape, crossed fingers and begging god for help are involved.

/me remembers "thunking" in Win9x, and shudders.

 

[taltamir]

You can pretend that it is not a big deal because "people have a choice for a 64 bit version," but the honest truth is that millions of consumers get the 32 bit version (on new 64 bit hardware mind you) because that is what came with their box and they don't know any better.

Well ok that could be a reason, though I'm hard pressed to believe that many people with a ancient CPU would update their OS, sounds more like those people use their OS until they get a new pc. But I obviously ignored those people with notebooks that have less than 4gb RAM, who'd just throw good memory away.

But yeah it's probably the netbook market with those 2xx atoms - forgot that those didn't support 64bit.

Oh I think it is a stupid reason 😛
MS isn't going to sell a lot of vista copies to people running pentium 4... but they wanted to.
They should have made vista 64bit only, that would have been the best solution all around. Drivers HAD to be rewritten for vista anyways due to its modified path.
Vista should also have required a GUID instead of MBR boot drive, and used EFI.

I am just saying it wasn't due to "compatibility with older programs", for those they have WOW32 (windows on windows), and in win7 even "XP Mode" (virtual machine with windows XP).