4 ms·
I found not just the naming aspect funny, but the whole munging of 32/64 bit files good, too. That's beyond naming atrocities.
by taude 13y ago
I found not just the naming aspect funny, but the whole munging of 32/64 bit files good, too. That's beyond naming atrocities.
- bhauer 13y agoAgreed. To me, it's even more funny when you realize "WOW" actually means "Windows on Windows." Say what??
- harrytuttle 13y agoMakes sense to me, then again I know NT inside out... It's NT's syscall translation layer, CPU mode switching backend and entry point front end. It was originally used to run 16-bit apps on 32-bit platforms but is now WOW64 so is to run 32-bit apps on 64-bit machines. Basically it's a very light weight virtualisation layer. And it works well. My circa 1996 RPN calculator I wrote in VC++ works perfectly on 2013 x64 machine.
- bhauer 13y agoDon't get me wrong. I know it makes sense once you know what it is. And the result in terms of compatibility and stability is impressive. Still, when I first heard the phrase "Windows on Windows" I had a chuckle. It reminds me that I enjoyed the way x86 apps ran on my old Alpha NT machine. If I recall correctly, the process list included "fx32" beside each.
- quarterto 13y agoWOW doesn't stand for Windows On Windows. WOW64 stands for Windows On Windows 64 [bit].
- bhauer 13y agoOh, that I didn't fully appreciate. That actually makes it more reasonable. (Not being sarcastic!) What are you trying to do? Make me feel bad for having a good laugh at the name when I first looked it up? :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- JonnieCache 13y ago>Still, when I first heard the phrase "Windows on Windows" I had a chuckle. The Windows 2000 loading screen had the tagline "Built on Windows NT Technology." They left it there through multiple SP rollouts IIRC.
- archangel_one 13y agoI always assumed that was to placate business customers who might have (justifiably) worried that Windows 2000 was related to Windows 98, rather than descending from NT 4.
- woobar 13y agoNT stands for "New Technology". For everyone worried about Win98 relation simple "Built on Windows NT" would work.
- twoodfin 13y agoThat's really what it is. 32-bit Windows applications on 64-bit Windows are running in what is essentially an emulation layer. It's a fairly thin layer now, but remember that the original 64-bit Windows ran on Itanium. The original Itanium had an embedded (slow) x86 chip for compatibility. I'm not sure if WoW ever used it, but certainly the WoW for Itanium 2 didn't, since it was dropped for that processor.
- agumonkey 13y agoA Linux equivalent acronym would be childish.
- bitwize 13y agoIt's an API compatibility layer to allow 16-bit Windows programs to run on 32-bit Windows -- or, more recently, 32-bit Windows programs on 64-bit Windows. Recently Microsoft went full Keanu with Windows on ARM or WOA -- but eventually they changed that to Windows RT (which might be actually worse).