Home Editions Of Windows Vista Won't Run On Mac Or Linux Virtual Machines

[Matt Penna]

On Feb 3, 2007, at 4:49 PM, LuKreme wrote:

> I have no idea if the home version support multiple processors, but  
> XP Home doesn't, so I wouldn't be surprised if Vista Home also was  
> limited to a single processor. Less of an issue 5 years ago, but  
> potentially a big issue now.
>

This only applies to multiple physical processors. I.e., more than  
one CPU socket on the motherboard. A single processor with multiple  
cores is fully supported and used by the OS, so this limitation will  
not affect most people.

Having said that, I've always felt this sort of trickery about  
limiting the number of CPUs you can use to be a dumb limitation on  
Windows. A lot of engineers and designers out there would love to  
have a 4- or 8-CPU board in their systems and in order to support  
that, they need to run Windows Server - and moving beyond 4 CPUs  
requires Windows Server Enterprise Edition. (Which costs nearly $3500  
US.)

Very few network admins are going to deploy a server OS out on  
workstations that - in the case of CAD users - frequently require  
local administrator privileges. I could understand if Microsoft  
wanted to charge extra to use more physical processors on the  
workstation versions of Windows, but there is no such option, so this  
artificial limitation handicaps the people who most need more  
performance with no workaround.

	Matt
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Matt Penna

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"The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very  
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