Will Windows 8 be 128-bit?

Robert Hallock (Thrax) A Senior Microsoft R&D employee has accidentally revealed that Microsoft is working to add 128-bit support to Windows 8.

October 8, 2009 6:39 PM ET in News, , , , , ,

windows7In another lesson regarding what you say online lasting forever, a senior Microsoft R&D employee has revealed on LinkedIn that Microsoft is actively working to add 128-bit compatibility to the Windows 8 kernel.

The leak was posted as the job description for Robert Morgan’s Senior R&D position at Microsoft–a position Morgan has held for nearly eight years. The job description has since been removed, but it remains in that wily Google cache:

Working in high security department for research and development involving strategic planning for medium and longterm [sic] projects. Research & Development projects including 128bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan. Forming relationships with major partners: Intel, AMD, HP and IBM.

It’s hard to imagine 128-bit support being cooked into the desktop kernel, but it’s not unreasonable for Microsoft’s line of Server OSes. Several architectures, including Intel’s Itanium, Sun’s SPARC and IBM’s POWER line are expected to implement some semblance of 128-bit over the next five years. This timeline falls in line with Windows 8’s expected release date, which is no sooner than 2013.

17 Comments:

  1. chrisWhite
    9 Oct '09, 5:56 am

    Maybe this will mean all 3rd parties will get their act together and give us 64-bit support for everything.

  2. Thrax
    9 Oct '09, 6:00 am

    Windows 8, codename Midori, is to be exclusively 64-bit.

  3. MachineDog
    9 Oct '09, 8:28 am

    What would be the purpose of 128-bit?

  4. Snarkasm
    9 Oct '09, 9:21 am

    SUPER-unlimited memory addressability?

  5. mirage
    9 Oct '09, 10:55 am

    I don't think 128-bit is coming any time soon, at least to the consumer space. What would require a larger address space than 17.2 billion gigabytes? Any ideas?

  6. Snarkasm
    9 Oct '09, 11:07 am

    Look, whether you like to admit it or not, Skynet is coming.

    And it's hungry.

  7. Zuntar
    9 Oct '09, 11:10 am

    I'll believe it when i see it.

  8. ardichoke
    9 Oct '09, 11:15 am
    Quoting Snarkasm

    Look, whether you like to admit it or not, Skynet is coming.

    And it's hungry.

    Wait... how can an AI be hungry? It has no stomach

    /me 's brain asplodes

  9. AlexDeGruven
    9 Oct '09, 12:57 pm

    It would make sense that 128-bit compatibility would be built into the kernel for both server and desktop OSs.

    Since MS has been using (essentially) a unified kernel architecture since XP/2003 (XP and 2003 share a kernel, Vista and 2008 share a kernel, 7 and 2008R2 share a kernel), it's been on the front-end user experience and back-end processes where the server and desktop OSs have differentiated themselves.

    At 128-bit, encryption and compression operations would be super-massive-insaneo-fast, as well.

  10. Thrax
    9 Oct '09, 1:20 pm

    Well, let's see... 128-bit is the key size for many of today's popular encryption algorithms, it can process quadruple-precision float/int (big deal for science). Those are the big two.

  11. mirage
    9 Oct '09, 1:23 pm

    Ok, it is not all about address space, it makes sense now.

  12. MachineDog
    9 Oct '09, 7:07 pm

    That's what I was asking. I had read about the encryption key sizes, but I wasn't sure if that actually made a difference.

    Also, can/do graphics cards do this kind of work currently?

  13. Thrax
    9 Oct '09, 7:20 pm

    GPUs are much faster at encryption and compression, but not so much double (and especially not) quadruple-precision float/int.

  14. Tim
    9 Oct '09, 10:20 pm

    We are just getting 64 bit to be widely accepted, and now they want 128 bit. Some people (like software engineers) are just never happy with what they've got.......

  15. Thrax
    9 Oct '09, 10:51 pm

    People being happy with what they've got has given us the last decade of misery under IE6.

  16. Butters
    9 Oct '09, 10:58 pm

    Whether or not 128-bit is used or accepted 5 years from now, I think its a good move and proper planning. Besides I rather have an OS planned with 128-bit support rather than an afterthought.

    Cloud enviroments may require this- or at least Exchange 2015 will. Jerks!

  17. ardichoke
    10 Oct '09, 5:00 am
    Quoting Thrax

    People being happy with what they've got has given us the last decade of misery under IE6.

    ... He says to the person that willingly uses IE6 still. >_<

    Being happy with what you have right now doesn't exactly fuel innovation.

Troll-free since 2003 ®