Windows 7 Optimized for HyperThreading

HyperThreading was cool. It was an innovative way to process threads concurrently without actually having two physical CPU cores. Of course, then we got two (or more) physical cores with the Core 2 processor, and so went away HyperThreading. But now HyperThreading is back with Intel’s Nehalem and even Atom processors supporting the technology, and Microsoft’s optimizing Windows 7 for it.

Bill Veghte, senior vice president for Windows business, spoke last week at the Tech•Ed event and touched upon many upcoming Windows technologies. As expected, Microsoft works closely with partners such as Intel to ensure that software takes advantage of the hardware.

Veghte explained that Microsoft and Intel worked closely together on many angles. “One is around power management, power management in what they do across their cores and across their chipsets, and what we do in the OS. And the work that we've done across Windows 7 and Nehalem, the Nehalem lineup, I think you'll be very, very, very excited about,” he said.

With Nehalem’s arrival, Intel’s HyperThreading technology is back. Veghte explains that Windows 7 contains optimizations to take advantage of HyperThreading (and we’ll assume that will also apply to any system with multiple cores).

“The second thing that we're excited to announce in terms of the cooperation and the work that's been done is around hyper-threading. And obviously the work that Intel has done around hyper-threading across a multi-core system is absolutely critical for you,” said Veghte. “And so the work that we've done in Windows 7 in the scheduler and in the core of the system to take full advantage of those capabilities, ultimately we think together we can deliver a great and better experience for you.”

Some enhancements could be related to changes in how Windows 7 renders its 2D desktop graphics. (Read more here.)

Of course, it’s only natural to see software evolving alongside hardware, but it’s things like this that Microsoft hopes will be enough to get users still stuck on Windows XP to ditch the aging OS for the new and shiny one.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • joebob2000
    Am I the only one who got this as a takeaway?

    Microsoft: "Good news guys, now we support hyperthreading!"
    Reply
  • jerreece
    Speaking of "power management", I just installed Win 7 RC last night. Much to my surprise, the vanilla install does some default power management things I didn't much care for.

    By default, my Desktop PC was set to "Balanced", was set to SLEEP after 20 minutes, and the CPU was set to throttle itself before increasing fan speed ("Passive Cooling").

    I had to manually configure it to "Active Cooling" so it would increase fan speed before it throttles the CPU, had to manually setup a Performance setting, and turn off all the SLEEP and Hybrid Hibernation settings. Hopefully this isn't what Microsoft and Intel conspired to set up and call "power management".

    Reinstalled Age of Conan, and left my PC on overnight to let it download it's 3GB worth of updates. Much to my surprise, my system was off in the morning, and had never updated (thanks to the default Sleep setting).
    Reply
  • hellwig
    I think that they mean they recognize when a core is virtual, and schedule jobs accordingly. Before Ht cores just showed up as regular cores, and probably weren't tasked appropriately.

    I.e. maybe now they can reduce the number of active cores by sending background tasks to the virtual HT core of an already active real core. Rather than use two physical cores, they can use only one, reduce power consumption. If that's the case, this is a good thing (now AMD needs to add them in).

    It might also mean they won't send your video games or rendering software to HT cores knowing they aren't as efficient as real cores.

    If Microsoft just means they can use all 8 cores (real/HT) of the Core i7s, I'm not impressed.
    Reply
  • chripuck
    Microsoft has supported HT cores since XP. Anybody could see this with their old P4's w/ HT. I'd see two cores under CPU cores with XP and my old Northwood P4.
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    Optimized != support
    Reply
  • dman3k
    Nothing wrong with M$ optimizing the OS for a processor, but I was under the impression that this was common sense and not newsworthy.

    Are we supposed to get excited because M$ improved its threading?
    Reply
  • kelfen
    well lets all compare this to vista lol the excitement is rising and MS is finally optimizing the os and actually imnproving it
    Reply
  • I want to hear the story(s) of MS working with AMD to optimize MS' operating system with THEIR processors.
    One of the biggest headaches I encountered was when I upgraded a clients computer with XP SP3 and found it would not boot period. Came to find out that an INTEL power management driver got in there, which confused the AMD Sempron machine. Is it that hard to NOT have an Intel driver install on an AMD build?
    Still... I do enjoy seeing cooperation between hardware and software.
    Reply
  • starhoof
    I think its good, it will give people the power they need. I think it makes a lot of sence, to get stuff worked out now, so people wont have to download all the stuff later, I sure hope they will work out all the bugs =)
    Reply
  • ossie
    Finally, m$'s toy O$ has (proper?) support for a pentium4 feature...
    M. Yam... contains optimizations to take advantage of HyperThreading (and we’ll assume that will also apply to any system with multiple cores).You assume wrong. HT can take advantage just if the instructions, in the alternate streams, are destined for different execution units, unlike "real" multicores. If the instruction streams are contending for the same resources, it's just getting worse.
    andetdhdfdbI want to hear the story(s) of MS working with AMD to optimize MS' operating system with THEIR processors.One of the biggest headaches I encountered was when I upgraded a clients computer with XP SP3 and found it would not boot period. Came to find out that an INTEL power management driver got in there, which confused the AMD Sempron machine. Is it that hard to NOT have an Intel driver install on an AMD build?Still... I do enjoy seeing cooperation between hardware and software.It's not called wintel for nothing... monopolies stick together.

    Mr. Yam, quit m$ a$$ licking ("ohhh, it's so yummy"), you're getting really pathetic lately..
    Reply