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News Windows 'Threshold' details leaked

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 10 Dec 2013.

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  1. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    That's an over simplification. Mavericks is a free upgrade from Snow Leopard onwards (That's the previous to the previous version of OS X BTW). If you don't have a licence for Snow Leopard, then not only you part of a really tiny percentage of users) but buying Snow Leopard is only £14. It's nothing to do with the age of the system, it's because Apple only offer Mavericks through the App Store and OS versions prior to Snow Leopard don't have the app store.

    So worst case scenario it costs £14 to upgrade your Mac(s). But seriously, if you've survived this long on Leopard then just stick with it and keep Windows ME on your PC while you're at it!
     
    Guinevere, 10 Dec 2013
    #21
  2. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    An oversimplification (one word, by the way)? On a web forum? Written on my phone?! SURELY NOT!

    Nice to see you're back, by the way. Fancy responding to the various threads you left with your tail firmly between your legs, Guinevere? Like this one, or this one? Hmm? Surely you've had time to think of a response (hint: "I was wrong and I apologise" would be a great way to start) by now?
    That's an oversimplification (hah!) If your Mac is one of the early Intel models with only an x86 (not AMD64) processor in it, there is no way to upgrade to Mavericks without replacing the entire computer. What's the cheapest Mac again? £700?

    Windows 8.1, on the other hand? Available in x86 and AMD64 flavours, no extra charge.

    EDIT: To put that into perspective: were I to have an old Dell from 2000 - THIRTEEN YEARS AGO - featuring a 1.5GHz Willamette Pentium 4 and at least 1GB of RAM, I could install Windows 8.1 on it - whereas my friend's MacBook (an actual example from life, by the way - he runs Linux on it these days) from 2006 cannot be upgraded to a newer version of OS X than it runs now. Not for free, not for £14, not for any price. It could run Windows 8.1, though. Which is amusing.

    EDIT 2: As r3loaded has correctly pointed out, the Willamette lacks the NX bit support required for Windows 8.1. The decade-old Athlon 64 family from 2003, however, includes all the instructions required for Windows 8.1 - and is still three years older than the unsupported MacBook of the example.
     
    Last edited: 11 Dec 2013
    Gareth Halfacree, 10 Dec 2013
    #22
  3. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    I think it's high time Microsoft does something similar honestly. How long do transitions really need to be? Outside of lumbering enterprises do we really still need things like 16bit support for Windows 3.1 programs? Get rid of it! They can do one last x86 release for legacy hardware (pre x64) and software with a 10 years support cycle.
    x64 has been around for what ten years as mainstream, and still we are largely stuck with 32bit. I would like to see OS and cpu go x64 ONLY and drop 32bit x86 all together. I think this should happen sooner rather than later.
     
    IvanIvanovich, 10 Dec 2013
    #23
  4. Bauul

    Bauul Sir Bongaminge

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    Makes sense too. There's still a distinctive divide between the way people expect their tablets/phones and laptops/PCs to work (i.e., a mouse and keyboard versus touchscreen).

    I agree with Brooxy though: WP is a lovely bit of software. It's still missing a bunch of basic functionalities, but the basic stuff it does do it does better than any other smartphone OS IMO.
     
    Bauul, 10 Dec 2013
    #24
  5. r3loaded

    r3loaded Minimodder

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    Actually, you can't - Windows 8 requires certain CPU instructions such as NX which the old Pentium 4 does not support. I know, because I've tried it on an old Dell with a Northwood P4 with 1GB RAM ;)

    You can hack around it to install Windows, but it'll crash as soon as it tries to execute an unsupported instruction.
     
    r3loaded, 11 Dec 2013
    #25
  6. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Oh, I missed the NX requirement - I was looking purely at SSE2, which Willamette includes. I see that the 2004 Prescott Pentium 4 family includes XD (Intel's NX implementation) - so my point still stands, albeit not as dramatically. Wonder when AMD started to support NX... <heads to Google>

    EDIT: 2003, apparently, in the SledgeHammer Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX - which include NX, SSE2 and PAE, which is everything you need to run Windows 8/8.1. I'll correct my earlier post to reflect that - cheers!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 11 Dec 2013
    #26
  7. Star*Dagger

    Star*Dagger What's a Dremel?

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    They should send a kill code to all computers running XP, giving people 7 days to get a clue with a big screen that pops up every ten minutes telling them how much time they have to buy a real OS.
     
    Star*Dagger, 11 Dec 2013
    #27
  8. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    When Windows Threshold rolls out it maybe free for Windows Phone and RT
    http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/11/5199446/microsoft-considers-free-versions-windows-phone-windows-rt
     
    Corky42, 11 Dec 2013
    #28
  9. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Who died and donated their brain to Microsoft all of a sudden? :p
     
    Nexxo, 12 Dec 2013
    #29
  10. damien c

    damien c Mad FPS Gamer

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    Well I gave Windows 8.1 a try and ended up going back to Windows 7 and to my suprise it wasn't because of the lack of start menu, it was because the network card I was using wasn't working properly.

    Since then I noticed my pc just felt sluggish when doing certain things compared to when I was on Windows 8.1 so I took the card out and have been back on Windows 8.1 for a week now and I honestly do not miss the start, menu that much at all just every now and then but it's easy to solve.

    In the end this will probably bring more people to the latest OS.
     
    damien c, 12 Dec 2013
    #30
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