Windows 8 and 9 may support 128-bit architecture

[nekrosoft13]

With Windows 7 still not available for everyone, news has surfaced that Microsoft
is already researching and working on some of the architecture for Windows 8/9, which includes "128-bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel." This is surprising, seeing as we're at least 3-4 years away from the next release, and still on the brink of the release of the latest version of Windows.

Microsoft Kitchen reports that they found a listing on a Microsoft employee's Linked-In profile (which has since been taken down - but hastily screenshot thanks to Microsoft Kitchen) with a job description that explained the employee, Robert Morgan is:

"Working in [a] high security department for research and development involving strategic planning for medium and longterm projects. Research & Development projects including 128bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan. Forming relationships with major partners: Intel, AMD, HP and IBM."

Also, on the same LinkedIn profile page, Robert's status goes on to point out that: "Robert Morgan got called into the office, alarms in the morning are great. Someone didn't set the test for the new AMD 128bit properly."

Based on Microsoft's repetitive claims that Windows 7 is a "Major" release and that their release cycles alternate from being "Major" to "Minor", Windows 8 should be a minor release, even though it doesn't sound like it will be if it incorporates this feature. It also sounds like Microsoft is already getting involved with some of the big names in the hardware industry, namely Intel, AMD, HP and IBM already, which is impressive this early on. Interestingly enough, AMD is actually working on a 128-bit processor currently, codenamed "Bulldozer".

Another status update, according to Windows 8 News the following was posted by Robert earlier this year:

"Robert Morgan is working to get IA-128 working backwards with full binary compatibility on the existing IA-64 instructions in the hardware simulation to work for Windows 8 and definitely Windows 9."

The sightings of more than one of these updates seem to indicate that 128-bit might actually be in the next version of Windows, although it's still far too early to tell whether or not this will be the case, as Microsoft is quite well known for removing features from Windows in the recent years.



before they consider 128bit, maybe it is about time to drop the 32bit version of windows. keep 32bit compability, but get rid of the 32bit system

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/1...t-architecture

[mojoman0]

software usually follows hardware so.... no news in that depot

[ViN86]

This is probably a government funded program (not the OS, 128-bit architectures). I think it's a great idea cause it will offer a lot more in terms of security.

[Logical]

I don't think i will be changing my CPU till the 128-bit CPU's are released...I'm planning my next upgrade already.

Windows 8
Intel 128 bit CPU
1TB SSD

lol

[Bman212121]

Kind of interesting, but I'm not sure if it means anything. The Itanium is hardly used, so it won't have an impact for x86. I thought that Itanium was no longer in production, but apparently it is in very small quantities. For reference the IA-64 came out in 2001.

Doing a little more digging I came up with some numbers for an x86 timeline.

1971 - 4 bit 4004
1972 - 8 bit 8008
1978 - 16 bit 8086
1985 - 32 bit 80386
2003 - 64 bit Athlon 64

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...microprocessor

It seems like development of wider busses went fairly quick for the first 15 years then it took almost 2 decades to reach 64 bit processing. With it being 6 years and hardly anything using 64 bit processing to its potential I'm guessing it might still be another 10 years off before 128 bit makes it way to x86.

[K007]

The delay could be just due to the fact that we have OS still being released for 32bit.

I hope the next OS is just 64/128bit or just plain 128bit only.

i guess what i am trying to say is...i wish we still didn't hang onto old things when new things are out...

[Rakeesh]

Has either intel or AMD yet created any 128-bit instruction set? Even if so, I don't think using it anytime soon would be a good idea. As you go up in bit depth, sure you allow more to be done per clock cycle, but you dramatically increase data bus bandwidth requirements and can thus actually slow things down.

I don't think 128-bit in the general computer space (e.g. everyday applications, integer mathematics, etc) would ever be a good idea until we start seeing computers with more than 16 EB of memory (which we are nowhere near right now.) For everything else (e.g. vector math, high precision floating points, etc) we already have a nice GPU architecture for that which already handles data structures way larger than 128-bits even, and there's no need to change OS kernels for that beyond what we already have.

Originally Posted by K007

i guess what i am trying to say is...i wish we still didn't hang onto old things when new things are out...

I think this whole XP mode thing will solve that problem going forward. Right now they reserve it for people running the pro version (and the pro version is aimed at those who would care about it the most anyways,) but I think as they learn to integrate VM's with the host OS better and with faster speeds (and given that newer x86 CPU's have been made more efficient at running hypervisors) it will become something that is used more regularly as opposed to a proof of concept.

Once you can just throw everything that isn't compatible into a VM, you can start ditching legacy support.

In fact, I think it would be a good idea for Microsoft to completely drop 32-bit support in the next version of windows, and if anybody needs to run an older app, do so under a hypervisor.

[LordJuanlo]

I don't see any mainstream 128bit CPU in the near future. What I hope is that Microsoft does not release a 32bit version of Windows 8, they should have done it with 7 damn it

[Redeemed]

Well, this could be a hint at what the new architectures from Intel and AMD, or at least one of them, *might* offer.

This is a L O N G way off simply because people don't accept change. Windows Vista + should have been 64-bit only but it wasn't. Watch, windows 8 will be both 32 AND 64 as well.

[AthlonXP1800]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf_HK

Has either intel or AMD yet created any 128-bit instruction set?

Not sure about Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD already created 128bit CPU instruction set in bulldozer since R&D started in 2007.

It didnt take AMD, Intel and Microsoft 10 years to developed 64bit CPU and Windows. Look below for 64bit development timeline history.

64 bit

AMD AMD64 codenamed Sledgehammer R&D started 1999, tapeout 2002, production 2003.
Intel EM64T codenamed Yamhill R&D started 2001, tapeout 2004, production 2005.
Microsoft Windows XP x86 64bit OS prototype 2002, beta 2003, release candicate with EM64T support added 2004, RTM delayed to 2005.

128bit

Intel CPU codenamed Sandy Bridge? R&D started 2006, tapeout 2009, production 2010.
AMD CPU codenamed Bulldozer R&D started 2007, tapeout 2010, production 2011.
Microft Windows 8 x86 128bit OS prototype 2010, beta 2011, RC & RTM 2012 unless it delayed to add Intel 128bit CPU instruction.

[Rakeesh]

Originally Posted by LordJuanlo

I don't see any mainstream 128bit CPU in the near future. What I hope is that Microsoft does not release a 32bit version of Windows 8, they should have done it with 7 damn it

There's still more migration that needs to be done first. Breaking 32-bit support would just break too many things right now. With windows 7, Microsoft is aggressively pushing both IHV's and ISV's to make all of their products either 64-bit, or 64-bit compatible. As soon as the majority of them are on board, it will be safe to drop it.

I think if windows 8 really did take 4 years from now instead of like say 2 years, it would be fair to say that they could drop 32-bit with that release.