Last week came word that Microsoft had to delay the release of XP SP3 and Vista SP1 due to some complications with the Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System.

Well, it looks like the issues have been worked out temporarily and the service packs will now be available again via Windows Update. Microsoft developed a filter that will prohibit machines running Dynamics RMS from installing either of the two updates. Microsoft is still working on a fix that will resolve the issue completely.

Via News.com

Hold the train. Just as news was starting to spread that Microsoft was about to release XP Service Pack 3, comes word of yet another delay. According to CNet’s News.com:

The software maker said there is a "compatibility issue" between the XP service pack and Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, a retail chain management program for small and midsize businesses.

Microsoft finalized the code for Windows XP SP3 last week and had planned to make it broadly available starting Tuesday.

"In order to make sure customers have the best possible experience, we have decided to delay releasing Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and Microsoft Download Center," the company said in a statement.

The glitch also exists between Microsoft Dynamics RMS and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, though that product has already been broadly released. Microsoft started pushing out Vista SP1 last week via Automatic Updates.

There have been a couple of posts recently about lack of support for certain functionality in 64-bit Windows environments. 

James Kendrick pointed out that the Send to OneNote feature is missing in the 64-bit version of the OS.

GBM provided the bad news that there is not going to be a fix for the current version of Office.

David Rasmussen provided some valuable context around why the Send to OneNote feature is not there on the 64-bit OS and why it is not going to be fixed in this version.

Drivers must be fully ported from 32 bit to 64 bit to work on 64 bit OSes. 32 bit Application code works on 64 bit OSes on top of an emulation layer (called WOW64 or Windows on Windows 64), so getting the application code to work is not too hard. Drivers are a whole different story though because they hook into the OS at a lower level and can't run on WOW64 emulation. Also, older drivers tend to contain a lot of low level code and often assembly code that is not easy to port.
Given the size of the code, and the issues above, porting the MODI print driver for OneNote 2007 would be a LOT of work. Work that we would have to trade off directly against other improvements, and features that many users such as yourselves have been asking us for. That makes it a difficult decision. One we thought about a lot.

There have been other examples uncovered recently - I learned that the Ink Analysis API currently only supports 32-bit architectures.  This means that any application that uses this API will have to run in the WOW64 emulation.

Personally I would like to see 64-bit support throughout the OS, the APIs and the applications that Microsoft produces, but it is simply not there yet.  So the question has to be asked - if I have a machine that supports the 64-bit OS?  The answer - in fact - is no.  Here's why I say that. 

First - some background.  Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of what 64-bit is all about.

One of the key benefits of a 64-bit Operating System is the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM.  From Wikipedia:

A 32-bit register meant that 2³² addresses, or 4 GBs of RAM, could be referenced. At the time these architectures were devised, 4 GB of memory was so far beyond the typical quantities (0.016 GB) available in installations that this was considered to be enough "headroom" for addressing.

However - for most mobile PCs today - this is quite irrelevant for two main reasons.  The first reason is that the vast majority of mobile PCs shipping today have either one or two physical slots on the motherboard.  Since, AFAIK, the largest RAM DIMM you can buy for a laptop today is 2GB most mobile PCs therefore have a maximum memory capacity less than or equal to 4GB.

The second (and much more important) reason that for the mobile PCs on the market today, even if you install 4GB of RAM you will not see it all with either a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS.  The reasons for this were described in great detail about a year ago by Hilton Locke:

Due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM (ranges from ~2.75GB to 3.5GB depending on the devices installed, motherboard's chipset & BIOS).

This behavior is due to "memory mapped IO reservations". Those reservations overlay the physical address space and mask out those physical addresses so that they cannot be used for working memory. This is independent of the OS running on the machine.

Significant chunks of address space below 4GB (the highest address accessible via 32-bit) get reserved for use by system hardware:

• BIOS – including ACPI and legacy video support

• PCI bus including bridges etc.

• PCI Express support will reserve at least 256MB, up to 768MB depending on graphics card installed memory

What this means is a typical system may see between ~256MB and 1GB of address space below 4GB reserved for hardware use that the OS cannot access.

The other major benefit of a 64-bit OS is that the memory bus is 64-bits wide.  The performance of a computer is going to be partially influenced by both the speed of the bus and the width of the bus.  However - that benefit is only realised if the application running on the 64-bit OS is actually a 64-bit application.  If not it is going to run in the Windows on Windows emulation and is only going to put data on the bus in 32-bit chunks.  Because the majority of applications that are available today are not 64-bit applications there will be minimal performance gain by running 64-bit OS.

So the upshot is that while you can run a 64-bit OS on many of the Tablet PCs and Mobile PCs available today, there will actually be little benefit in doing so.  Lay on top of the the pain you will encounter trying to find 64-bit drivers for hardware and missing features in applications like OneNote and it is just not worth running a 64-bit OS.  By all means buy hardware that is 64-bit capable for the sake of future proofing, but if it is a mobile PC, install the 32-bit OS for now.

Microsoft announced today that June 30 is indeed the final cut-off for manufacturers to make Windows XP a pre-load option on PCs, with an exception being made for those now popular low cost portables, like the Asus Eee, Intel Classmate, and others. Those low cost portables will still be allowed to ship with Windows XP Home Edition through June 30, 2010 or one year after the general availability of the next version of Windows.

In familiar Microsoft fashion, they've also come up with a name for those low cost, XP Home Edition sporting portables: the Ultra Low-Cost PC. Now, don't get those confused with their more powerful brethen, the Ultra-Mobile PC, ok?

Here is Michael Dix, General Manager of Windows Client Group Product Management explaining what a Ultra Low-Cost PC is:

PressPass: What are ultra-low-cost personal computers (ULCPCs)?

Dix: ULCPCs are a new and growing class of mobile computers designed for first-time PC buyers and customers interested in complementing their primary Windows-based PCs with companion devices with limited hardware capabilities.  These machines vary, but they typically have smaller screen sizes and lower-powered processors than more expensive mobile PCs. While originally intended for students and other first-time PC customers in emerging markets, we’re now seeing interest in these affordable devices in developed countries as well.

One thing we’ve heard loud and clear, from both our customers and our partners, is the desire for Windows on this new class of devices. We are enthusiastic about this category because it enables us to bring the benefits of Windows to more customers. ( emphasis mine )

If memory serves me right, wasn't one of the major goals of the Ultra-Mobile PC / Origami initiative to be in the $500 range, which is where these Ultra Low-Cost PCs are currently priced? Wasn't it also designed to be a companion device that also had limited hardware capabilities?

That Q & A reads just like what the Ultra-Mobile PC / Origami space was after and targeting several years ago, but apparently lost its way. Now, the industry and consumer has let Microsoft know what it wants and the type of low impact software it wants to run, and Microsoft is wisely listening. This little tidbit bodes well for mobile devices - running Windows on devices with less than 4 GB of flash-based storage:

We are also taking a number of steps to enable our partners to support this growing class of computers, such as publishing formal design guidelines to the Web to enable manufacturers to build Windows-based flash-based machines with even greater hardware limitations (e.g., under 4GB flash-based storage).  We believe these guidelines will enable PC makers to build more reliable, low-cost and easy-to-maintain ULCPCs for customers. 

This makes me wonder, though - where does this all leave the Ultra-Mobile PC? Could we start to see a shift in to the ULCPC area? By the way, thanks for muddying up an already muddied up space with the new name.

via Mary Jo Foley