Microsoft Readies a 'Lean' Windows Client

Cheap Windows for cheap clients

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1815438,00.asp
from WinCustomize Forums

So what is the enterprise customer on a tight budget to do about getting their spy-ware ridden, security vulnerable desktops up to par?  Microsoft's answer: "Eiger".

Eiger is basically Windows XP with as much stripped out as possible to get it to run on very low end hardware.  So that state government office with 300 copies of Windows 98SE running on Pentium 600s with 128M of RAM will finally be able to be brought into the 21st century.

Mary Jo Foley has details on this latest project. Read the whole thing.

10,216 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Interesting...
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
maybe this would help my pII 366mhz w/192mb mem laptop run a bit faster
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sounds cool. Everyone seems to be complaining about features being "removed" from OS 10.4 and all that, but I'd love to see an XP that is just the OS, instead of all the extra tools I never use anyway.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Chadamus - I think the thing that remains to be seen is whether it would be a useable OS for day to day work for the majority of people.

"It can't run games, office-productivity software or line-of-business applications"
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hmm it would be useful for reusing those older machines.

Especially laptops, which is always useful.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
odd, since I have XP Pro running here on a PII 450 with 384 RAM. works fine for me as is.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This version will be able to run on 64 Megs of RAM. Forget it with regular XP.

But this is not intended for home users, but for some legacy office computers running in terminal mode or mainframe-terminal, or even for those running some Internet-based applications.
This OS wouldn't be much use for most people. It seems to me it's mainly just to increase the OS security of these offices still running DOS applications and such.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yes, they are making it in the hope that it will decrease the amount of security vulnerable computers. Computers with out of date security isn't just a threat and annoyance to the owers of the computer, but everyone else connected to that computer, such as through the internet.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
There are other OS’s out here in the "real world" that would run great on those PC’s, are much more secure then WINDOWS, and it would not cost them anything. They are called... LINUX Distro's. most of them have the free openoffice software on them. and if they don’t like openoffice, Corel is releasing a Bata of their software for LINUX. just a thought.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sounds like they're basically taking a certain configuration of Windows XP Embedded and rolling it out as a consumer (or business) product. Which isn't a bad idea, really. One size seldom fits all.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is pretty funny...I can make Windows XP Pro fly on a PII 400 by just running nLite on an installation first. You dont need to give Microsoft anymore money to get a lighter version....you can do it for free.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Pentium 600s


That's faster than the computer I'm typing this on (P3/500)!

And I'm running XP Home with WB, DX, Rainlendar, Winamp and Sysmetrix right now!

And this does have 384 meg of RAM.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Guys, this OS is targeted towards Pentium class processors (that's around 100 Mhz and less), not Pentium II or Pentium III, with 64 Megs of RAM.
Regular XP can run fine even on 300 Mhz processors, but certainly not on a Pentium 75.

And no, Linux is not an option for the target market of this OS, as the target is office computers running legacy terminal applications (DOS). These will not run on Linux. The whole point is to avoid having to replace the DOS application.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Old but nice news ...

Guys, this OS is targeted towards Pentium class processors (that's around 100 Mhz and less), not Pentium II or Pentium III, with 64 Megs of RAM.
Regular XP can run fine even on 300 Mhz processors, but certainly not on a Pentium 75.


I do have doubts about it ..

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This version will be able to run on 64 Megs of RAM. Forget it with regular XP.


I have to disagree. I have installed XP on a computer with 64. It of course wasn't the fastest, but it worked just fine.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
define "worked just fine" = it did stuff i wanted ......eventually