Supporting Systems That Have More Than 64 Processors: Guidelines for Developers

The 64-bit versions of Windows 7 support more than 64 logical processors on a single machine. This paper provides information about the changes that some applications and drivers that run on Windows require to support this expanded number of processors. In the Windows 7 operating system, the 64-bit kernel supports more than 64 logical processors. To scale up to support this expanded number of processors, some applications and Windows kernel-mode components require modification. This paper describes the terminology, architecture, and concepts that Windows 7 introduces to support more than 64 logical processors and provides information about the modifications that software might require.