From owner-freebsd-smp  Mon Apr 28 12:43:17 1997
Return-Path: <owner-smp>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA04003
          for smp-outgoing; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:43:17 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from INET-05-IMC.microsoft.com (mail5.microsoft.com [131.107.3.31])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA03997
          for <smp@freebsd.org>; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:43:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by INET-05-IMC with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1458.14)
	id <JTKJJXZ3>; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:39:04 -0700
Message-ID: <7D06B4AA8B39D011A64900805F682CDA014AAB4E@RED-09-MSG.dns.microsoft.com>
From: Arlie Davis <arlied@microsoft.com>
To: "'mef@cs.washington.edu'" <mef@cs.washington.edu>, smp@freebsd.org
Subject: RE: Quad Pro 150 motherboard?
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:38:06 -0700
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1458.14)
Sender: owner-smp@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

As I said in a previous message, NT "itself" supports up to 32
processors.  In other words, it was designed to scale to 32 processors.

The retail version of NT Server is only _licensed_ for machines with up
to four processors.  The retail version of NT Workstation is only
_licensed_ for machines with up to two processors.

Yes, basically, it is just a software check to see if your machine / OS
is licensed to use as many processors as you are offering.  Requiring
more licensing for more hardware (or users, or networks, or interfaces,
or whatever) is a very common, accepted practice in this industry.  And
if you think it is simply gouging the poor, unwitting public, then you
are not taking into account the very different development and support
requirements for machines on different sides of the multiprocessor
scale.

Again, NTS and NTW both support up to 32 processors.  You have to go
through an OEM to do so.

-- arlie

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	mef@cs.washington.edu [SMTP:mef@cs.washington.edu]
> Sent:	Monday, April 28, 1997 9:26 AM
> To:	smp@freebsd.org
> Subject:	Re: Quad Pro 150 motherboard?
> 
>    Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 04:49:18 -0400 (EDT)
>    From: Ben Black <black@zen.cypher.net>
>    from 
> 
> http://www.microsoft.com/syspro/technet/boes/bo/winntas/technote/nt101
> .htm
>    Windows NT Workstation supports up to two processors in a symmetric
> 
>    multiprocessing environment.
> 
> According to that document NT Workstation can only support two
> processors, but NT Server can support four processors.  I wouldn't be
> surprised if embedded in the code there was some sort of check:
> 	if (ms->makemoremoney->is_nt_server == TRUE) {
> 		/* support four processors */
> 	}
> 
> :)
> 
> M