With Windows 9, Microsoft may finally forget the past and embrace the future

Little early to panic -- Win8 will be supported through January 10, 2023.

I think it's almost certain that Win8 will be the last that runs on 32-bit CPUs, but I kinda doubt they'll ditch Win32 compatibility entirely. They still haven't released a Visual Studio development kit that runs natively in 64 bit.

Heck, the 32 bit edition of Windows 8 will still run 16 bit programs.

 

This may be the kick in the pants that software developers need to put out their programs in 64-bit. There's really no reason to be running 32-bit Windows on a PC anymore, especially with the current legacy support for 64-bit apps. 64-bit has been around for quite some time, but developers have been dragging their feet putting out their apps in 64-bit format.

By the time Windows 9 rolls out, a lot of us will probably be thinking about a PC upgrade anyway. There's a certain percentage of PC sales that are directly related to the new release of a Windows OS (just don't ask me what it is ). If you still need 32-bit support, hang onto that old PC to use on special occasions. If it's running XP, just disconnect it from the internet and you'll be fine.

 

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Moving apps to 64-bit is not a simple recompile and done, it does take work. And if you don't need the extra memory, why do you think they would want to take the time and money to do it?

 

Actually, it is a simple recompile and done if the apps was written well instead of being filled with bad assumptions like ints and pointers being the same size. I've seen vast amounts of code port from 32 to 64 bit with zero effort (and, of course, equally vast amounts of code that didn't .

 

Actually video codes is a really good reason to want to go to 64 bits, not for more memory, but for twice as many vector registers being available in the 64 bit x86 architecture. Certainly the ffmpeg software takes advantage of that for most of their codecs.

 

Anyone that claims porting a lot of legacy code to 64-bit is trivial really hasn't done a lot of code porting, IMO (not looking at you Tom, in general). And more importantly, there is little to no benefit in doing so for the vast majority of apps out there. Wasn't Office still 32-bit until 2010 came out? And even now, there's not much need for a 64-bit version of it.

The notion that Win9 won't support 32-bit apps is a non-starter, IMO.

 

Actually Office 2013 is still 32 bit predominantly as well. The only thing that has 64-bit option is Access and Excel I think. Further MS recommends not installing 64-bit versions unless you actually need it due to compatibility.

They are bringing back the start menu in Windows 9, they showed a screen shot of it yesterday, which is for desktop users who will most likely be using legacy apps. Why would they do that and drop 32-bit.

Don't believe it.

 

I think they will likely only be a 64 bit OS; but, still run 32 bit apps.

That is just my wild guess.

Tim S.

 

Yep, probably ARM based RT for Phone / Small tablet and 64 bit only x86-64 for laptop / desktop / server. They dropped 32-bit version of server 5 years ago. The 32-bit version of 8(.1) existed mostly for really low end x86 tablets which are slowly going away.

 

On my Windows 8.1 I use a $5 program from Stardock that gives the same thing, start button and much more, makes Windows 8.1 look like windows 7.

 

LIkely this was just an April Fools posting

 

They're bringing back the start menu before 9

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ng-start-menu-back-in-future-windows-8-update

 

I've always said the day Microsift makes something that doesnt suck will be the day they start selling vacuum cleaners