Windows 8.x: CPUs vs CPU cores matters!
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/08/09
After finding out that Windows 8.1 only uses 2 of of 3 CPU cores, I found [WayBack] How many physical processors does Windows 8 Support? – Super User.
This especially matters when doing virtualisation: here you can choose over how many CPU sockets the cores are divided.
So this limits Windows 8.x to 2 CPU cores, because they 3 cores are spread over 3 sockets:
And this allows Windows 8.x to use 3 CPU cores as it is in one socket:
Note this still applies to more recent non-Server Microsoft products ([Wayback] Windows 10 Home/Pro: 1/2 CPU sockets 64/128 cores; [Wayback] SQL Server Express/Standard: lesser of 1/4 CPU sockets, 4/24 cores) as well. Not sure why the OS would be limited so much, as for development purposes it can make sense to have a 2+ CPU socket machine running a non-server OS.
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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