Pentium 4 and Windows 8 compatibility

[tiagosilva29]

The early P4s supported SSE2 but not NX.

Indeed. NX - No eXecute bit - was only added in later versions of the Prescott line (5x[0/5/9]J) as XD - eXecute Disable.

[metro2012]

What you could do (although I dont recommend this as your system will problably crash) is install Windows 8 on a hard drive on a newer system then after instalation but that hard drive in your old system. problabl will not work but....

[zeta_immersion]

fail people helping this guy is a major fail ,,,

not sure if this bit of info helps but you could try faking (impersonating) a better one (CPU).

I know of a similar bypass fo OSX however I am not sure if there is such a thing for PC.

you might be better off waiting for the RC so people can start tweaking install files

[mikee286]

What you could do (although I dont recommend this as your system will problably crash) is install Windows 8 on a hard drive on a newer system then after instalation but that hard drive in your old system. problabl will not work but....

I have seen instances of this where the system didn't crash. I moved my friends old hdd from his old computer to his new one we were building and it didn't crash but the found new hardware thing went nuts for an hour. This probably won't work though since the computer I have is way newer than my test rig and the hdd in the p4 rig is ide

[Brandon Live Veteran]

What you could do (although I dont recommend this as your system will problably crash) is install Windows 8 on a hard drive on a newer system then after instalation but that hard drive in your old system. problabl will not work but....

The kernel will detect at boot that the CPU is not supported and will bugcheck ("blue screen"). This is called out in the whitepaper linked to earlier in this thread.

[metro2012]

The kernel will detect at boot that the CPU is not supported and will bugcheck ("blue screen"). This is called out in the whitepaper linked to earlier in this thread.

kernel switch to bypass checks like tha??

[n_K]

kernel switch to bypass checks like tha??

Well there isn't one... The idea is to stop it booting there and then rather than allowing it to boot up and potentially cause hardware corruption from doing things on a CPU that the CPU doesn't actually support, the response it gets is completely unknown.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

kernel switch to bypass checks like tha??

No.

[hjf288]

Time to upgrade that vastly out of date hardware...

Seriously you can't expect Microsoft to be supporting 10 year old machines with their latest...

[bogas04]

I remember ages ago i ran Windows 7 on FX 5500 and Pentium 4 PC , mine was umm 2.8GHz i guess. I think it should work with some tweak to installer

[Kelxin]

You seem to be pushing REALLY hard to waste your own time, so let me help. Install linux with as a virtual machine host, then try to install windows 8 inside that.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

You seem to be pushing REALLY hard to waste your own time, so let me help. Install linux with as a virtual machine host, then try to install windows 8 inside that.

You are joking right? :huh:

[PGHammer]

OP go to this link. You can get an Intel i7 2700k, motherboard and memory for about $400. Just need to get a new graphic card and you are set. A good graphic card is about $150. So your looking at $550.

http://www.pricewatc...memory/i7-2700k

And merely by judicious hardware reuse, you can come under that - even from an AGP-based PC.

1. Unless your drives are IDE/ATAPI (say the drives are SATA, for example), you can reuse those as they are. (That's not even remotely silly - there are motherboards that support both SATA *and* AGP; one of them - the ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe - dates back to 2004 and is less than twenty feet from my right elbow.)

2. Power Supplies - if you have a decent power supply (400W or greater), that's reusable as well, more likely than not. While newer motherboards *support* 24+8 PSU connections and 20+4/4+4 variants included) very few require them - if your PSU supports 20+4/4-pin and meets the power requirements, it should still work (taken directly from the manual of the ASUS P8Z77-V).

3. Unlike DDR, DDR3 is *inexpensive, inexpensive. inexpensive* - I can buy a matched (4GBx2) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 pair for $70 at (of all places) Best Buy - typically one of the WORST place to buy memory on a price basis. (And if pricing is that good at one of the WORST places on a price basis, how much better is pricing at the better places, such as Newegg and MicroCenter?)

4. PC cases haven't changed on a basic level; while there are new form-factors (such as BTX and ITX), those remain primarily niches - the basic ATX and mATX haven't gone anywhere. (My current motherboard is mATX- yet it's mounted in an *ATX* mid-tower case; I went mATX for reasons of price/budget. However, the motherboards I have in my shortlist are all ATX, but with my case also being ATX, I don't have to change it.)

[Dashel]

Good posts Javik.

My main gripe with Win8 is the gpu requirement, the NX requirement is just salt in the wound.

[mikee286]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

guess its all good now

[SilverSolver]

This is still another nail in the Windows 8 coffin, as I see it. The UI is controversial and getting a traditional desktop gets more difficult with each release, and now we find that, though it is lighter than Vista and 7, it will refuse to run on certain older hardware, for no better reason than that someone at Microsoft thought that making people "safe" was more important than allowing people to use their software. Whatever would have been wrong with a warning: "Your processor does not support all of Windows 8's security features. Your system may be more susceptible to attack from malicious software. Do you still want to continue installing Windows 8?"

I'm not worried about it. Most of the people I serve (I'm a tech by trade) wouldn't even consider buying Windows 8, for the UI reason alone?they have work to do, and relearning everything is not an option they will willingly choose. The fact that XP/Vista/7 are still working just fine makes the status quo an even more desirable option.

Besides, I think it won't take long for the hackaround community to come up with a solution. It might be a patched kernel, but it would more than likely be a modified bootloader which invokes a TSR to simulate/emulate the necessary functionality. Remember the BIOS SLIC emulation bootloader that pirates use(d?) to fake Windows Vista/7 into thinking you had a particular OEM system so the equivalent OEM Windows would say "Windows is activated" without buying it? It would be much harder, yes, to emulate CPU functionality, but not impossible. It is also possible that the TSR could merely report the existence of said functionality, while the commands would simply be ignored. That would have the same effect as Windows 8 Consumer Preview: it runs without the additional security.

If they don't do it, Windows 8 will just be a bigger flop. Perhaps that wouldn't be all bad. Change for change's sake is rarely good, and "The UI formerly known as Metro" is exactly that. Maybe Microsoft will learn its lesson about making it more difficult to stay with what you prefer.

[ahhell]

^^ i didnt even get to that part the adviser before setup even began said processor not compatible. It has to be a glitch or this is the most bloated version of windows to date

You probably aren't going to get a lot of help with that kind of attitude. :rolleyes:

[Matias Nino]

I have an old P4 (Gallatin core) machine that was a hotrod back in 2004 (extreme edition). It runs Windows 7 like a champ. It's been running non stop for over 8 years with heavy downloading of all kinds of games and programs and NEVER got exploited via executable memory. My 6 year old son now uses it for games and learning and he wants Windows 8.

There is NO REASON whatsoever that Windows 8 should be blocked from running on this machine. I love MS and all but this is an irrationally bone-headed decision.

I realize it's a rare case and they can afford to do away with support for old hardware in the name of security, but it just rubs me the wrong way cause they've never done this before.

This machine is working FINE, and would run Windows 8 FINE, but now I have to drop $100 or so to replace it with more recent hardware.

[PGHammer]

Not really true. NX as we currently know it only made it's way into the Pentium 4 range from later iterations of Prescott cores and onwards, which means that all of the Williamette, Northwood, and first iterations of Pentium 4-M, Pentium 4 Mobile, and Gallatin (Pentium 4 Extreme edition) processors have SSE2 but no hardware support for NX, which is well over half of the Pentium 4 range. More specifically the Socket 775 or 5xJ and 5x9J series were the first CPU's to support hardware NX)

That is why I mentioned the Northwood-C.

The Northwood-C series of Pentium 4 CPUs was (unlike Prescott, which would succeed it) entirely socket 478 - however, like Prescott, Northwood-C supported HTT from end to end. (The only previous P4 that wasn't an Extreme Edition to support HTT was the P4 3.06 GHz Northwood-B.)

The Northwood-C was also pretty much a drop-in replacement for older Northwood CPUs (and especially the B) - the issue was making sure your motherboard BIOS was updated.

The tag-team of Northwood-C and DDR had a surprisingly LONG run in the world of Windows - starting with Windows XP, in fact; it took bargain-basement pricing for DDR3 to finally kill off the die-hards as of two years ago. (I have two motherboards with P4 Northwood CPUs - both with AGP slots, in fact - as shelved backups for possible usage in *retro* projects in the future.)

[AJerman]

Wow, thanks for making me feel better guys. I was thinking how pathetically old my Opteron 165 system is, and you come in here talking about P4s, haha. Seriously though, you can't really complain about Microsoft when you're trying to use a 10 year old computer. You could upgrade that massively for like $150-200.

[shoemakerpom2010]

Even if you were to get it working somehow someway the experience would be useless since you would have to dumb it down to the point that you would not be able to use the features it presents. The time spent searching cpu's, max ram or even hard drive upgrades to make it work would be a complete waste. If you have bought the upgrade already you have the number code so go to craigslist and get a cheap or affordable windows vista or seven conputer and rerun the upgrade on that. This way you don't lose money on your purchase and you get windows 8 to boot.

[Noir Angel]

Wow, thanks for making me feel better guys. I was thinking how pathetically old my Opteron 165 system is, and you come in here talking about P4s, haha. Seriously though, you can't really complain about Microsoft when you're trying to use a 10 year old computer. You could upgrade that massively for like $150-200.

Why not? I understand SSE2 to an extent but NX is a completely arbitrary requirement. Plenty of CPUs without NX would run Windows 8 just fine. I've never seen any real evidence that NX improves security all that drastically anyway.

[MikeChipshop Member]

it was the upgrade assistant that told me it wasn't compatible. I would try installing it with a flash drive and see what happens but the computer doesn't support booting from usb I dont think and I don't have any blank dvds

(edit)

32bit says cpu not compatible

c'mon MS you jacked up the requirements too much I heard it doesnt even have aero anymore and they go and make the requirement too high I mean tablets haven't even broke the 2ghz mark yet so I don't see how there will be any win 8 tablets

sorry just a rant but this is such a fail on microsofts part

^^ i didnt even get to that part the adviser before setup even began said processor not compatible. It has to be a glitch or this is the most bloated version of windows to date

He's looking for help and all you guys do is come in here and tell him to upgrade, or bash him for no other reason other than to satisfy your own supremacy. None of you ever give thought to maybe he has low income. I would tell him to just use XP, for Windows. But then you guys would come in and bash about a great and not even unsupported (yet) OS.

So he is dammed if he does and dammed if he doesn't. Here is your advice OP: Roll Linux on that rig, Lubuntu to be exact, It's going to do everything you need for that particular machine and it's Modern. You will not have to feel forced to upgrade every time Microsoft tells you to upgrade. For others: Don't bother posting if all you have to contribute is to make the OP feel low and satisfy your need to be a Troll, and I'm not coming back to read abusive comments projected at me, if you got something bad to say about me, meet me somewhere.

The way he approached his question was flawed from the outset. Instead of realizing he has a very outdated system, he decided it was all Microsoft's fault. Quite simply if you want help, behave like an adult.

Same goes for you and your whole "if you got something bad to say about me, meet me somewhere." which is frankly pathetic coming from a grown up.

[francescob]

It's funny how Microsoft tries to force system requirements to avoid screwing up customers (to avoid another Vista capable fiasco) but in the end they still end up screwing customers anyway. What a paradox.

[AJerman]

Why not? I understand SSE2 to an extent but NX is a completely arbitrary requirement. Plenty of CPUs without NX would run Windows 8 just fine. I've never seen any real evidence that NX improves security all that drastically anyway.

The specifics can be up for debate, I'm not saying SSE2 or NX should or shouldn't be necessary, I'm just saying that in the computer world, a computer with a P4 is ancient. I've had a P4 retired in a box for probably about 8 years now. When you can probably build a system that's at least 5 times faster for $150, it's probably time to just do the upgrade. You can debate whether it's fair or not on Microsoft's part, but the argument is entirely and 100 percent useless since you'll never find enough people running systems that old and trying to upgrade to the "latest and greatest" OS. Usually people who are willing to pay for the very latest OS as soon as it comes out are also willing to pay a little to keep their computer at least somewhat up to date. The people who aren't interested in updating their computer usually stick to the OS that came with it like XP which would still run just fine on a P4.