New
#11
Hi there
As Windows is used by almost every conceivable piece of hardware out there and also loads of hardware yet to be even thought about much less actually designed !!! this isn't really an option -- like buying a Car and having a restriction that you can't put any fuel in it.
The Hardware manufacturers usually design their own drivers anyway sometimes with but often without any help from Ms.
Yes I suppose it theoretically could be done but the reality would have a probability of ZERO of this being done.
As far as disabling Linux stuff -- how many people out there are happily using NAS boxes on Windows LAN's -- loads I suspect. Windows doesn't have anything like that yet -- lowish power CPU so low power consumption for "always on box", decent nr of bays for several TB of storage with FAST I/O and data transfer and an optimised file system for serving media and data. Some of these NAS boxes use Intel CPU's but they don't have to so even giants like intel need to tread carefully by restricting OS'es that can run on their chips --and in any case it's always possible for an alternate chip manufacturer to "emulate" a particular CPU and trap the instructions that restrict a specific OS from being used . Can be done in the chip's microcode set.
People might cast their days back to when IBM mainframes ruled the roost -- Amdahl and Hitachi also made mainframes which actually could run the IBM OS'es such as MVS/XA etc simply by code written in the microcode set of the CPU hardware.
Cheers
jimbo