Talk:SoftPC

Latest comment: 9 years ago by Mark Grant

"However, they had also made changes to Windows to allow it to run on alternative processors"

This is misleading. "Windows" (as in Windows 3.0/3.1/95/98) was never changed to run on alternative processors. Rather a new operating system named "Windows NT" was written from the beginning to run on multiple processors, one of them being the x86. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.134.254.26 (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

  • The above is technically not true, SoftWindows (not RealPC/SoftPC) used recompiled components (most notably parts of GDI) to improve performance, while this isn't a true port, it does constitute a change to allow parts of Windows to run natively on non ia32 architectures in order to improve performance, it is also the reason why the company had a source code licence for Windows (this is verified by publications like infoworld at the time as well as the Windows licensee list from the time). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.71.70.38 (talk) 14:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • The comment, I believe, refers to Microsoft 'making changes to Windows to allow it to run on alternative processors', not Insignia. So I would say it's perfectly true, in that NT probably didn't share much of the existing Windows code base, and the kernel was presumably a total rewrite where CPU-independence was included from the start. Any changes Insignia made to the code were only to allow the recompiled Windows to run natively in SoftWindows on non-x86 machines, and nothing to do with versions of Windows sold by Microsoft. Mark Grant (talk) 02:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)Reply