AfterDawn: News

Microsoft will give Windows 7 users some DirectX 11.1 features

Just a week ago, Microsoft announced that DirectX 11.1 will be a Windows 8 exclusive. The company said there were no plans to make it available for Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, either.

Today, however, it seems the company has given in to critics, and will make some features available to those with Windows 7.



Microsoft says the following features will be added to W7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well:

ID3D11Device1, ID2D1Factory1, IDWriteFactory1, IDXGIFactory2, IWICImagingFactory2, ID3DUserDefinedAnnotation and related APIs are available
Improved Direct3D 11 device interoperability via ID3DDeviceContextState, including the improved interop with Direct2D/DirectWrite
D3D11_FEATURE_DATA_D3D9_OPTIONS feature detection
In addition to the new Windows 8 WIC features, this update also fixes decoding of 96bpp floating-point TIFF images.

Everything else will remain a Windows 8 exclusive.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Nov 2012 14:59

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• 10 comments

• Mysttic

  Quote:Everything else will remain a Windows 8 exclusive.
  For now....

  19.11.2012 15:40 #1

• A5J4DX

  Originally posted by Mysttic: Quote:Everything else will remain a Windows 8 exclusive.
  For now....
  
  haha too right
  

  19.11.2012 16:48 #2

• ronhondo

  I will never use Win 8 so they can stick their Direct X crap !
  

  19.11.2012 16:54 #3

• cart0181

  DonOriginally posted by ronhondo: I will never use Win 8 so they can stick their Direct X crap ! Don't knock it till you try it. I will admit, the upgrade seems quite unnecessary at this point. It's more for fun, "because I can" really.
  

  19.11.2012 21:54 #4

• dali

  Quote:Microsoft says the following features will be added to W7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well
  Why the hell would anyone want DirectX on a server? In fact, when will they release a server version WITHOUT ANY GUI, or at most a minimal, OPTIONAL one, which wouldn't need to be rebooted after almost EVERY installation or update? I like Win7 as Desktop OS, but Microsoft server family is still making no sense at all.
  

  "You know, it seems that quotes on the internet are becoming less and less reliable." -Abraham Lincoln.

  20.11.2012 05:59 #5

• Bozobub

  Actually, Win7 often doesn't need a reboot when I think it should. Updating graphics drivers, for example, never requires a reboot any more o.O' ... I do anyway, just to be safe - lol.

  20.11.2012 12:31 #6

• dali

  Originally posted by Bozobub: Actually, Win7 often doesn't need a reboot when I think it should. Updating graphics drivers, for example, never requires a reboot any more o.O' ... I do anyway, just to be safe - lol.
  You should be able to install almost any piece of software without restarting at all. Every service should be restartable, with the sole exception of the kernel itself. I only restart my linux boxes when I need upgrading their kernel or doing some kind of hardware maintennance on them. Any server OS should work like that to maximize uptime and productivity.
  

  "You know, it seems that quotes on the internet are becoming less and less reliable." -Abraham Lincoln.

  20.11.2012 12:46 #7

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by dali: Quote:Microsoft says the following features will be added to W7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well
  Why the hell would anyone want DirectX on a server? In fact, when will they release a server version WITHOUT ANY GUI, or at most a minimal, OPTIONAL one, which wouldn't need to be rebooted after almost EVERY installation or update? I like Win7 as Desktop OS, but Microsoft server family is still making no sense at all. They are both the same thing under the hood...making an installer for 2008r2 only adds about 2 minutes of working time to making the W7 version, so might as well just in case someone wants it for a cloud server or something. Also...and I'm sure this was not their intention...but I appreciate it because I've used up all my Windows 7 technet licenses and am now using 2008r2 as a desktop OS on several of my systems...so I'll be able to continue using them as full capability desktops.
  
  As for reboots, the vast majority of updates don't need to reboot the system...the services ARE restartable. The updates are just written to be easily installed by morons, so rather than telling them to restart services, it tells them to restart the system. Plus, the time used to restart the system is usually a lot less than the time that would be needed to restart a bunch of services.
  
  The new Windows 8-based server actually comes in a GUI-free version, or at least the gui needs to be started manually if you want to use it.
  

  
  

  21.11.2012 08:52 #8

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by dali: Quote:Microsoft says the following features will be added to W7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well
  Why the hell would anyone want DirectX on a server? In fact, when will they release a server version WITHOUT ANY GUI, or at most a minimal, OPTIONAL one, which wouldn't need to be rebooted after almost EVERY installation or update? I like Win7 as Desktop OS, but Microsoft server family is still making no sense at all. They are both the same thing under the hood...making an installer for 2008r2 only adds about 2 minutes of working time to making the W7 version, so might as well just in case someone wants it for a cloud server or something. Also...and I'm sure this was not their intention...but I appreciate it because I've used up all my Windows 7 technet licenses and am now using 2008r2 as a desktop OS on several of my systems...so I'll be able to continue using them as full capability desktops.
  
  As for reboots, the vast majority of updates don't need to reboot the system...the services ARE restartable. The updates are just written to be easily installed by morons, so rather than telling them to restart services, it tells them to restart the system. Plus, the time used to restart the system is usually a lot less than the time that would be needed to restart a bunch of services.
  
  The new Windows 8-based server actually comes in a GUI-free version, or at least the gui needs to be started manually if you want to use it.
  

  
  

  21.11.2012 08:52 #9

• dali

  Yes, I agree with you. The kernel is the same on desktop and server editions since Windows XP (which wasn't much more than a revamp of Win2K Pro). Fortunately, upgrades that don't need a full restart are growing fast, but there still are many of the others, and I think it's the upgrade which should try and restart the affected services by itself, not the user. Since restarting a server will take effect on the majority of desktops connected to it, and it may take ages to complete a reboot, it shouldn't need to be restarted more than once every couple of months or so.
  

  "You know, it seems that quotes on the internet are becoming less and less reliable." -Abraham Lincoln.

  21.11.2012 11:28 #10