It's long been known that Windows has indeed made computing more accessible to anyone but how has this monopoly hindered the hardware manufacturers as the speed of windows still struggles to keep up with OS's from the early 90's

Here is a link to a Seagate view

http://www.betanews.com/article/Seagate-tries-a-new-hybrid-solidstate-HDD-this-time-without-Microsofts-help/1274729975

I don't think Windows has hindered hardware progress at all.  OS X uses the same hardware after all and that's the next biggest competitor.  Hardware has progressed amazingly in speed and performance over the last few short years, too, so I don't think I follow this argument at all...  My windows machine of today runs way faster than any of my windows or linux machines I have ever had in the past so again, I don't agree with the argument that Windows is holding back hardware progress at all.

I remember reading a while back that Microsoft had told Intel to stop development of a multi-core CPU, otherwise they'd exclusively support AMD. Apparently this was to prolong using MHz and GHz to advertise CPUs, and so Microsoft would have more time to code for multi-core architecture.

Is it true? I have no clue :P

You could certainly make an argument that a rigid commitment to x86 architecture has slowed research into more efficient/powerful RISC processors while chipmakers develop all kinds of voodoo to get more juice out of CISC chips.

It all works out in the end, though, as ARM takes over the world through our pockets.

famousringo said: You could certainly make an argument that a rigid commitment to x86 architecture has slowed research into more efficient/powerful RISC processors while chipmakers develop all kinds of voodoo to get more juice out of CISC chips. It all works out in the end, though, as ARM takes over the world through our pockets.

Well CISC has been the design basis for cpus since the beginning of computing. You really have to blame IBM for intel's x86 taking over; they really missed the PC market needs.

 Of course you have to consider that RISC chips are better suited to designer needs like servers, mobile devices, and game consoles(although xenon and cell have an expanded the RISC instruction sets). So IBM and ARM have had it pretty good too.

I don't think it hindered hardware speed.

The only place where it demonstrably held back hardware performance was AMD dual-cores 2005 - 2006, and AMD quad-cores 2007 - 2008. Both scheduler design flaws in Windows that AMD had to patch themselves to limited effect (the first case) or had to remove a feature from the next generation to fix it (second).

First - AMD dual-cores were slowed down as the scheduler didn't use both cores effectively. Required the 'dual core optimiser' patch but even that didn't fix it entirely.

Second - Independent clocking of cores on Phenom I again led to the scheduler not utilising all the cores properly. Was removed in Phenom II.

...I suppose you could count the lockout of BeOS in the 90s and Linux in the, uh, 00s from OEMs meant that non-Intel processor architectures couldn't get any mainstream support. But Intel and AMD provide enough competition and performance increases that it hansn't mattered.