X64 or Vista

Well I dont know about you but Im definately looking forward to the release of windows vista (was codenamed Longhorn). Thing is does anyone know whats going to be better, xp x64 when its officially released as a retail product of vista when it comes out hopefully end of next year.
X64 is obviously for 64bit processors but Vista can be used with 'almost any computer' so microsoft say. The new os is promised to deliver better performance reliability etc.. but will it be as good/worse/better than x64.
If vista will work with both 32bit and 64bit systems then Im guessing 64bit systems will take more advantage of the new os. So why is microsoft spending time on releasing x64 aswell??

 

XP 64 will not be released as retail, AFAIK. The target audience isn't big enough to warrant it, kind of like Windows XP MCE.

MS isn't spending any time on X64, it is done already. Both are/are to be based on Windows 2003 code. So, both should have similar reliability, but not one person here could tell you which will be better.

Vista won't work with both 32 bit and 64 bit. There will be two different versions. Seeing how X64 is already here, all they have to do is build upon that code, making the job easier for the 64 bit version.

 

What Windows version does Vista claim to be? 5.3? 6.0? I was under the impression they rewrote the kernel, but it doesn't sound like they did that here.

What the heck am I buying it for if it has the same basic kernel as Windows 2000? Why do I want 8 year old technology?

 

Saying its the same basic kernel as Windows 2000, and being 8 years old is like asking why would you want OSX, because of its BSD kernel, which is consierably older.

The answer? Features. People want more features, and this will have it. You don't need a magnifenctly different kernel for more features. Windows 2003 kernel is not the same kernel as Windows 2000, just like 2000 is not the same kernel as NT4. They are considerable updates of each other.

Did you choose to stay with Windows 95, instead of upgrading to 98, when it was based on 95? MS has always built on the previous OS kernel.

Not trying to start an argument, just curious.

 

But they already took out all the really interesting features! Remember the three pillars for Longhorn? They're gone. They all got dropped. No Avalon. No Indigo. No WinFS.

So... it looks better and it will have a real RTM 64-bit edition (which might actually be useful by 2007). And what else? Is there anything in the OS itself -- not IE 7 or "WMP 11" or "DirectX 10" -- adds? Updated built-in drivers, whee.

To be clear I did mean features when I said that the Win2k kernel is essentially the same. I agree the basic operations of the kernel (disk access, memory access, process control) don't need to be changed. Although I can make a really strong argument that Windows needs much better process management, and there is no real improvement between Win2k and Win2k3 on that AFAICT.

Realistically, what did WinXP add to Win2k? An improved WoWexec and NTVDM for legacy support. A firewall. A somewhat better user interface (improved Start Menu and Task Bar). Builtin ZIP and CD Burning. How was that worth the $200 it cost at release? All that software is already available for free!

I see MS steadily moving away from improving their OS with Service Packs and adding features and instead crippling new features and prohibiting them from working on older OS simply to inflate the value of their new OS. Case in point: Windows Media Player 10. There is no reason this could not be installed on Win2k except that MS configured their installer to prohibit it. Another case: IE 7.

I wouldn't be surprised if they make Office 12 for WinXP and Vista only. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if they just call it "Office Vista" and make it Vista-only. Not that Office Vista will have any features worth the upgrade.

So MS is repackaging their old OS with a new interface and more software. Not real OS features. Just more software. And it's the same thing. Still crappy NTFS5. Still crappy registry. Still crappy pagefile system.

Sorry, don't mean to go off on a rant. It just frustrates me that MS expects us to pay for something we should already have. Instead, MS purposefully depreciates the value of their software to force us into their new package, which by itself isn't a compelling upgrade.

Bah.

It would be like releasing the Playstation 3 or the XBox 360, but not having better graphics or hardware support and instead coding the new games just to not run on a PS2.

http://www.silversanctum.com/images/rant.gif

 

Well, tbh, I don't think its fair to judge an OS on its initial beta, especially since all the "cool" stuff they are supposedly adding will not be added until beta 2.

To be fair, I think we should all wait until beta 2 to pass judgement. I too was dissapointed with the removal of winFS, indigo and avalon.

 

That's true.

Still, I think I'm basing my opinions off of MS's behavior with Win2k, WinXP, and Win2k3.

 

Didnt know that microsoft were just leaving x64 as an oem! Id have thought theyd do favours to companies and integrate drivers for people so their hardware works. A bit like xp now..just attach something new to you computer and xp sorts it out. Ive heard a lot about people being disatisfied with being able to get their hardware to work with x64.
Shame they're not progressing on it in a way since my processor is 64bit and I want this dramatic performance increase everyone is going on about with x64.
If companies slowly release 64bit drivers for their hardware etc Im guessing it will be a while, at least a year or so before a lot of the market is doing so, so Im guessing waiting for Vista to be released is the best thing...

Ive got to ask, what exactly does a kernel do? I know they're some kind of instruction code :s

 

The kernel is the true OS core. Everyhing else is basically added onto it. As for dramatic performance increase with X64, not really. Games especially tend to perform the same and sometimes, a little slower.

 

Like Ad said, the kernel pretty much is the OS. Linux, for example, is just the name of the kernel. Everything else is software that runs on it.

The kernel is responsible for:
> Managing disk and memory access
> Managing memory allocations
> Translating application functions into hardware requests through installed device drivers
> Managing system hardware
> Managing and prioritizing processes and threads, including input from the user
> Determining conventions for how applications execute and what applications are able to do

In Windows XP, the OS kernel is c:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe, but also includes krnl386.exe, kernel32.dll, and ntkrnlpa.exe. I think win32k.sys is part of it, too.

So the kernel is the core of the OS. You've probably also heard the command prompt called a "shell". The shell is a program that users use to send commands to the kernel. It's what we see and interact with, much like the outer shell of a kernel of corn. Command.com, cmd.exe, and explorer.exe (which runs the desktop, My Computer, and the Start menu) are all shells.