Vista runs (slowly) on PS3

Robert Hallock (Thrax) Some enthusiast has managed to get the PS3 running Vista.

August 6, 2008 7:11 PM ET in News, , , ,

There have been many operating systems running on the PS3, but all are Linux-derived and compiled specifically for the unique Cell CPU. One daring user has gone ahead and successfully run Vista on the machine.

By success, we mean something nearer to that of Enron or MCI Worldcom’s definition, but success all the same. The feat employed the processor emulator QEMU and managed to launch notepad in a spry twelve minutes.

It appears Microsoft has been hard at work enhancing the responsiveness of the Vista platform.

(Ed note: Zing.)

6 Comments:

  1. kryyst
    7 Aug '08, 2:28 am

    That's cool - but not really a fair example. It's running in an emulator.

  2. Thrax
    7 Aug '08, 2:43 am

    Nobody said it was. It's just novelty.

  3. Snarkasm
    7 Aug '08, 6:05 pm

    Definitely. The story's more the effort the kid put in to get it on the PS3 than the response time of the system. Much props to him, thinking outside the box is always more fun than doing what you're supposed to.

  4. kryyst
    7 Aug '08, 6:42 pm

    No, what I'm saying is that it's not a case of him getting Vista to run on the ps3 - he's technically not. So he really didn't do anything outside of what's already been possible to do. All he did was get qemu running on the PS3 (which I might add is full of google pages on how-to's). Once that's done vista is just running in an emulated environment. The vista install doesn't know it's on a PS3, doesn't even care.

    It's still neat to see, but it's not a huge hack. I could nit pick it further and point out that nothing in windows that relies on directx would work either since qemu doesn't support it.

  5. Thrax
    7 Aug '08, 7:15 pm

    But we all know these things.

    It's just for novelty factor. We know that Windows Vista would need to be recoded to work on Cell. We know that it's x86 or x64.

    We know it's emulated, the video says it's emulated, we say it's emulated. It's just fun.

  6. kryyst
    7 Aug '08, 7:40 pm

    True - and I know that. I guess really my beef is with the title more then anything. It's not really running on the PS3, even though that is the physical hardware that it's running on. One of those personal pet peeves that I can't get over some times. I've always hated misleading headlines. It's like getting a fake winning lottery ticket for your birthday

    I mean I quit my job, left my wife, and moved out of the country when I got that ticket....then when I went back to cash it. Well you should have just seen the expression on my face - oh did I laugh and laugh and laugh.

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