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64-bit Windows XP Tested And Reviewed

sebFlyte writes "64-bit Windows is nearly here, despite Microsoft quietly dropping support (and plans for it) for the Itanium on XP ... Windows XP for x64 RC1 has been tested, seemingly fairly thoroughly, and actually looks like a stable OS."

426 comments

  1. Windows Longhorn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Does anyone know if 64-bit will be present in Windows Longhorn in the upcoming future?

    1. Re:Windows Longhorn by Lindsay+Lohan · · Score: 5, Informative
      Does anyone know if 64-bit will be present in Windows Longhorn in the upcoming future?
      Yes it will be.
    2. Re:Windows Longhorn by SIGALRM · · Score: 5, Informative

      if 64-bit will be present in Windows Longhorn

      If you're interested, here's a good discussion on what 64-bit Longhorn will look like.

      --
      Sigs cause cancer.
    3. Re:Windows Longhorn by JQuick · · Score: 1

      Longhorn will have to be 64-bits.
      Otherwise by the time it ships the clock bits will wrap around. (rimshot).

    4. Re:Windows Longhorn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did someone not get enough sleep over at Microsoft? In the link pointing to MS's discussion on 64-bit windows, you can find this line right under "MBR Issues": structurean extended partitionis

  2. Alpha by Zule_Boy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems kind of funny after the whole NT on Alpha death microsoft induced. Now this should be the final blow (thankfully) for the UnObtanium.

    1. Re:Alpha by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      Seems kind of funny after the whole NT on Alpha death microsoft induced. Now this should be the final blow (thankfully) for the UnObtanium.

      Compaq purchased DEC, and halted the Windows2000 production agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft regretably pulled support from the Alpha in RC1 of Windows2000.

      So peeps can thank Compaq for killing the Alpha, not Microsoft.

    2. Re:Alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So peeps can thank Compaq for killing the Alpha, not Microsoft.

      Given that SPARC, POWER, PA-RISC, and MIPS are all still around, running Windows was never a pre-condition for survival. Alpha is like a foster child going from home to home eventually fizzling out and ending up in an addiction treatment shelter waiting out its last days hoping for a chance to die. Compaq, DEC, and HP just are bad parents, that's all.

    3. Re:Alpha by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Given that SPARC, POWER, PA-RISC, and MIPS are all still around, running Windows was never a pre-condition for survival. Alpha is like a foster child going from home to home eventually fizzling out and ending up in an addiction treatment shelter waiting out its last days hoping for a chance to die. Compaq, DEC, and HP just are bad parents, that's all.

      Ya, I agree, although the Alpha and Dec relationship to NT was more contigent than a lot of other processors. Dec used NT to showcase the power of the Alpha CPU, even before it was released back in 1992, it was being demonstrated runnting NT at comdex that year.

      So Dec had pinned a lot of the success on it relationship with NT.

      But it wasn't the loss of NT that killed the Alpha, everyone knew that Compaq had no interest in keeping the Alpha project alive when they aquired DEC, in some ways we pretty much knew they wanted to off the Alpha, as it was competing against Compaq servers of the time.

      Compaq not only cut the Alpha support off at the throat, they directly nailed the project the first chance they had.

    4. Re:Alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it was MS who made the Alpha port of NT
      commercially unviable by refusing to port any
      of their productivity app.s . The obvious
      selling point of NT on RISC would have been to
      allow the engineering workstation (almost
      invariably a RISC box in those days) and the PC
      running Office into a single system. Once it
      became clear that Microsoft weren't going to
      play, the non-Intel NT ports were dead in the water.

    5. Re:Alpha by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      The non-Intel ports of NT software was a problem, but not for Microsoft's productivity software. There was a Microsoft office for many of the ports.

      Alpha and Dec was one of the few chips to get past this, by providing an emulation for Intel apps on NT, and the emulation even got faster as the CPU learned how the software worked, it was quite nifty.

      You somehow think that Microsoft's software goals were directed at and for the Intel platform only, this is SO not true. Even NT itself was written on non-intel cpus and ran on these before it ever ran on the x86.

      NT's biggest flaw in the non-intel ports is that Microsoft should of had a rich managed subsystem that was not binary win32 specific for applications, hence why apps written for the x86 systems, were locked to run only on them unless they were recompiled.

      Microsoft did great things with providing emulation layers with Win16 and DOS, they should have kept this extendible model to something along the lines of what .NET is today, instead of the basic win32 API that was CPU dependant when compiled.

      Obviously Microsoft did this for performance at the time, but with the changes in hardware in the latter part of the 1990s, Microsoft could have easily changed the development APIs and model to support CPU independant software development. Or created an emulation subsytem for each port with a common instruction set to be emulated (probably the x86 set as the Win95 apps and market were then controlling the software markets, not NT)

  3. WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by st3v · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently built a Dual Xeon (with EM64T extensions) machine, and I tried Windows XP x64, and it is running pretty well so far. It is backwards compatible with 32-bit applications, but you need to find 64-bit drivers for your hardware. 32-bit drivers will not work.

    1. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by ArbitraryConstant · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Isn't DMA broken on the Intel x86-64 chips, slowing things down?

      --
      I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
    2. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by eMartin · · Score: 1

      And this seems to be the big problem at the moment.

      I don't know about you, but I certainly haven't been seeing optional 64-bit versions of drivers anywhere.

    3. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Billly+Gates · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Funny.

      The older 32bit drivers work fine on FOSS unix operating systems.

      Could it be because Windows is closed source or something dumb like NDIS and the DSDK is hardwared for 32-bit?

    4. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by st3v · · Score: 1

      Usually the on-board components such as Audio and Serial ATA/SCSI controllers on Xeon boards have 64-bit drivers; just search for the chipset number's 64-bit drivers on Google. ATI and NVIDIA have 64-bit video drivers. So does Creative Labs for Sound Blaster Cards. Since Windows XP x64 is still in testing, you need to look a little harder for drivers.

    5. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought 32-bit drivers work, it's just that XP will drop down to 32-bit mode until you get everything 64-bit.

    6. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Taladar · · Score: 1

      It could have something to do with not being able to recompile the drivers on Windows.

    7. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Anon+E.+Muss · · Score: 1

      Wrong! 64-bit Linux requires 64-bit drivers, just like Windows.

      --
      The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
    8. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by JamesP · · Score: 2, Informative

      You must have smoked some serious shit, man...

      32bit drivers on a 64bit OS is a big NO-NO, even for FOSS...

      It's not possible.

      --
      how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    9. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by lack1uster · · Score: 1

      How was he bashing windows? He's simply pointing out possible reasons why the drivers don't work on XP 64. BTW, as another poster pointed out it's because the drivers need to be recompiled for the 64-bit platform.

      Does Torvald's piss actually cure cancer? I might have more incentive to believe you if you weren't so eager to jump down people's throats over what you percieve to be "windows bashing".

    10. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by koreaman · · Score: 1

      Do you have a dell?

    11. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either you're a bit of a fool and so far incapable of reading some documentation when you have trouble, or you have a Dell machine which contains a card which is almost but not quite an emu10k1 sound chip, for which Creative and Dell refuse to release any information about and is therefor unsupported by both the OSS and ALSA emu10k1 drivers.

    12. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by RWerp · · Score: 1

      'A couple of graphics cards' == all newer ATI Radeons. A wonderful understatement.

      --
      "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
    13. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      I tried this.. The RC1 didn't recognise either my video card or network card. I downloaded the 64bit ATI driver and that didn't recognise it either (the old release recognised the card at least, even if it wouldn't do widescreen).

      No sign of anything resembling a network card driver... it couldn't even detect that I had one (I have two - one wireless and one fixed. Neither of them were detected even though they're in the default 32bit install CD).

    14. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Wiz · · Score: 4, Informative
      You are simplifying things a bit, but in a round-about way it is true!

      From Redhat's release notes for the update 2 to RHEL3.

      Software IOTLB -- Intel® EM64T does not support an IOMMU in hardware while AMD64 processors do. This means that physical addresses above 4GB (32 bits) cannot reliably be the source or destination of DMA operations. Therefore, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 2 kernel "bounces" all DMA operations to or from physical addresses above 4GB to buffers that the kernel pre-allocated below 4GB at boot time. This is likely to result in lower performance for IO-intensive workloads for Intel® EM64T as compared to AMD64 processors.

      See for yourself:

      Redhat.

    15. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by BJH · · Score: 1

      You have got to be kidding me... they go to all the trouble of adding the 64 bit extensions in, and we still have to use bounce buffers for DMA?!

      Screw that, my next PC is using AMD.

    16. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by BJH · · Score: 1

      ATI is supposed to be releasing a new set of drivers this month which will fix the current problems with Xorg6.8, 64bit distros, etc.

    17. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      What are your system specs(i.e. the video card and NIC)?

    18. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by sirReal.83. · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Between the dual-1.8GHz-opteron and the dual-3.4GHz-em64t machines that I use on a regular basis at work, I'd pick the AMD any day - the speed might be equalish but the Intel box produces several times the level of noise and heat.

    19. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      You can't use existing 32-bit drivers in the 64-bit OS. Hardware vendors will have to provide new drivers for people to download.

      What you probably heard is how the chip itself works. Until the 64-bit operating system is released you can (and many do since AMD-based machines have been available for awhile now) run an existing 32-bit operating system. Server 2003, XPSP2, even 32-bit linux installs. One of the cool things about these chips is that if you are running a 32-bit OS the chip is totally 32-bit compatible. All your existing drivers, applications, etc will work.
      (but you don't get the benefits of being 64-bit until you install the new OS and drivers)

    20. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by andreyw · · Score: 1

      Technically, it could be made to work. Just like Win'95, which ran in protected mode, could be made to use BIOS for disk access... so it would actually drop back into real mode, perform the operation, and go back. Yeah, it sucks.

      There is really no good reason TO make it work. Unnecessary overhead... hell.. do you really want your kernel to constantly switch from 64 to 32-bit mode? Thats pretty expensive!

    21. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yeah yeah, ATI are ALWAYS supposed to be releasing a new set of drivers that fix X, windows, the mac, and your mom's cooking.

      Meanwhile, the smart people are playing games and enjoying them with our GF cards.

    22. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by Wiz · · Score: 1

      I suppose the point is that Intel never really *wanted* to add them. AMD's sucess made them do it. Remember for a long time they even denied such a processor even existed, and that they never would make one. They wanted to push Itanium, which is now being relgated to high end number crunching only due to the this.

      Anyway, as the other follow-up said. You'd be best off with AMD anyway, they're faster (2.4GHz Opteron is unmatched by any Xeon I've seen) and generate much less heat. Got a 4-way 2.4GHz Opteron box at work, and the heat out of the back is less than our dual processor Xeon boxes. The dual processor Opterons we've got run very cool.

    23. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by BJH · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I guess it's one of those "Well, we don't want to make them too fast..." situations, where if the performance is too good they kill off their high end business.

    24. Re:WinXP x64 on Xeon machine by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 1

      But that isn't a driver. Well, technically it is a BIOS driver, but the point is moot. And anyways the code that accesses the BIOS has to be 64 bit.

  4. Re:Dupe much? by trainsnpep · · Score: 1

    Wow...I feel like an idiot now....I guess I should read the whole thing first...

    --
    --<Mike>--
  5. Windose... by ThisNukes4u · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is supposed to be a professional news site, can we just spell it as it is for once, and bash in the comments instead of the supposedly "objective" blurb?

    --
    thisnukes4u.net
    1. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the second highly modded flame of the same typo. Okay, so the submitter can't spell ha ha ha, that observation still isn't +4, or +anything else, insightful.

    2. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > supposed to be a professional news site

      Insightful? Funny, maybe, since there isn't anything close to stupid or ignorant.

    3. Re:Windose... by blonde+rser · · Score: 1

      can we just spell it as it is for once

      I realize that there is a slashdot community that the editors are heavily reliant upon. However aren't you putting on false heirs by using the word we instead of you in respect to this decision?

      By using we you are suggesting we all have a say on these decisions. We don't. These are the editors decisions. I have no complaint with observing and critisizing and even heckling. But in the end accept you don't have a vote. This may be considered our site but these are not our decisions.

      It makes total sense to rate this post of mine as (-1, OffTopic)

    4. Re:Windose... by geekoid · · Score: 0, Troll

      "... professional news site,..."
      dear lotd, where do people get that impression?
      has, at anytime in the history of slashdot, it been a professional news site?

      Maybe you missed typed?
      the CNN site is at www.cnn.com

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well I wish I could mod the parent up. It is obviously not a spelling error. Things like that make me embarrassed to tell people I read slashdot. It looks childish and biased.

    6. Re:Windose... by someonewhois · · Score: 1

      It's up to +5 now, in case you didn't notice.

    7. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well I wish I could mod the parent up. It is obviously not a spelling error.

      Please explain why it is obviously not a spelling error. I can't wait to hear your explanation of the deep mystical significance of using the word "windose".

    8. Re:Windose... by Taladar · · Score: 1

      You misspelled "propaganda"

    9. Re:Windose... by killerface · · Score: 1

      hahahahahah You're new here arent you

    10. Re:Windose... by killerface · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also maybe you havent noticed, many of the graphics for microsoft are either bill gates dressed as a borg or a windows logo cracked, if you want unbiased go to npr or fox even.

    11. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However aren't you putting on false heirs by using the word we instead of you in respect to this decision?

      The saying is 'putting on airs.'

    12. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, this is only a "news" site. Never forget that.

    13. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Sorry, but the word "news" implies an unbiased gathering and representation of the facts. Editorials are where people are supposed to speak their minds and have opinions. The who, what, when, why and where of reporting doesn't include, "whine". Granted this is a website like any other and you take it with a grain of salt, but then you can't also wonder why /. has no credibility outside the pinheads that generally comment here.

      From the wikipedia, (emphasis mine):

      In democracies, news organizations are often expected to aim for objectivity: reporters cover both sides in a controversy and try to eliminate bias. This is not true of all organizations in all cultures.

      Of course the last statement most closely resembles the news of /.

    14. Re:Windose... by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 1

      You may be a non-native English speaker, but using "we" in that context does not imply ownership. It's just a mildly "slang-ish" way of appealing to the general universe.

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    15. Re:Windose... by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      maybe a firefox extention to change windose, winblows and windoze to Microsoft Windows(TM).

    16. Re:Windose... by Uber+Banker · · Score: 1

      Its not a flame that "the submitter can't spell ha ha ha", its a criticism of building flamebait into the article summary.

    17. Re:Windose... by bunnyman · · Score: 1

      Let me be the first to welcome you to slashdot.

    18. Re:Windose... by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      I was going to mod as insightful then i found my last mod point had disappeared.

      What would be nice to see is if this version of windows acknowledges the existance of a drive other than C: and allows you to seperate data fom OS and programs.

      If you accept as fact at some point you will be forced to reinstall or restore your windows operating system why has it been made so difficult to keep your data safe on the d: drive

      In an ideal world restoring a ghost image of your C: drive would leave all your data intact and any downloaded upgrades ready to be installed as soon as the relevent application realises they are available.

      that would include the windows service packs too a major irritation running windows update to install what you installed a few months previous.

      maybe that is too much to ask.

    19. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The consensus opinion of MS products seen on slashdot isn't a matter of bias, it's a matter of experience.

    20. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, how about P.O.S.?

    21. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean it *looks* childish and biased? The owner's name for godsakes is CmdrTaco, based on an IRC handle. This site is fisher-price meets Compute magazine. Always has been childish and biased and always will be.

    22. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit...utter bullshit. Most of the Lin-bots on this site post their paranoid M$ and Windoze bashing tripe to garner mod points or to appear 'IN' with the crowd. Most of them are running Windows as their main OS and blame MS for it. Quit your bitching. My WinXP install ain't hacked and is adware and virus free. Yeah, it takes some effort. It also took some effort to get my Fedora Core 3 install to work properly on my Dell D800. Get off your high horse.

    23. Re:Windose... by Rirath.com · · Score: 2, Funny

      maybe a firefox extention to change windose, winblows and windoze to Microsoft Windows(TM).

      You may be on to something... like adblock in cleaning up the web, but for text. M$ becomes MS, etc etc. While we're at it, we can just de-1337 (get it?) the whole web and improve the intelligence overall.

      u = you
      r = are
      LOL = "That's a knee-slapper!"
      OMGWTF! = "I say, ol' chap!"

      Of course, for the people who actually find that kind of thing funny, there awaits much amusement as well in reverse. There's a lot of talk for filters like this (intended for profanity, go figure...) but little has actually been done. Perhaps with a 3rd party filter app (Proxomitron?) though.

    24. Re:Windose... by MWoody · · Score: 1

      Professional news site? This is just an overgrown blog. Just because the site gets big doesn't mean it has to suddenly be objective.

    25. Re:Windose... by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      I was joking, but there's is a plugin for gaim that allows you to filter your outgoing text, so you can type in bollocks and have it turn into real english, maybe i should set it up for my sister so i can understand her cool way of speaking.

      oh ye and lol at your:
      LOL = "That's a knee-slapper!"
      OMGWTF! = "I say, ol' chap!"

    26. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not the first. Moron.

    27. Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft fucked up far too many times in the past. Many people will not forgive them for this.

      Live with it. A lot of folks hate microsoft and will naturally bash them. Nothing wrong with that.

    28. Re:Windose... by NewNole2001 · · Score: 1

      My my "My Documents" folder points directly to the root of my D: drive. It's simple to do. In Windows Explorer, just right click on the "My Documents" root, and edit the target directory to whatever you would like. While this only protects data kept in My Documents directory, it is a start.

    29. Re:Windose... by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      oh ye and lol at your:
      LOL = "That's a knee-slapper!"
      OMGWTF! = "I say, ol' chap!"


      I read that as:

      oh ya and that's a knee-slapper! at your:
      That's a knee-slapper! = "That's a knee-slapper!"
      I say, ol' chap! = "I say, ol' chap!"

  6. *sits back* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *awaits justifications for why 64-bit linux platforms are better*

    1. Re:*sits back* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *awaits justifications for why 64-bit linux platforms are better*

      Uh... because they exist now, whereas 64-bit Windows will apparently exist one day?

    2. Re:*sits back* by kpharmer · · Score: 1

      > *awaits justifications for why 64-bit linux platforms are better*

      Because on a large & busy database server 8, 12, or 16 gbytes of memory is invaluable, and you can't get that via a 32-bit OS.

      And frankly, if I'm going to spread a db2 ice cluster across twenty 64-bit blade servers, I'd much rather put it on aix or linux than windows.

    3. Re:*sits back* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because on a large & busy database server 8, 12, or 16 gbytes of memory is invaluable, and you can't get that via a 32-bit OS.

      1. What does that have to do with anything? This is a discussion about a 64-bit version of Windows.

      2. You already can use 8, 12, or 16 Gigs of memory via a 32 bit OS. Look up Intel's PAE.

    4. Re:*sits back* by c0l0 · · Score: 1

      Probably to manage to do one more iteration of the algo utilized in the Rieman Hypotesis?

      --
      :%s/Open Source/Free Software/g

      YTARY!
    5. Re:*sits back* by Uber+Banker · · Score: 1

      Who wants windows in 64 bits? I'd prefer my window in one bit, thank you very much.

    6. Re:*sits back* by kpharmer · · Score: 1

      > 1. What does that have to do with anything? This is a discussion about a 64-bit version of Windows.

      read the parent post, it may make sense then.

      > 2. You already can use 8, 12, or 16 Gigs of memory via a 32 bit OS. Look up Intel's PAE.

      Yes, if I felt like rewriting application & database servers, I *could* do that. But I have no plans to develop my own database management software just so that I could use flaky 32-bit extentions.

      Both Oracle & DB2 support this - but can only use the memory for buffer caching, not for sorting, or other memory needs. So, it has some value - and can be the strategy to get you out of a tight spot - but having personally seen OS patches cause problems with this functionality, I always avoid it. Especially since 64-bit is about all that we buy anymore in the unix world anyway.

    7. Re:*sits back* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      read the parent post, it may make sense then.

      Er, yes, I did.

      The parent post said "awaits justifications for why 64-bit linux platforms are better". Since this is a discussion about 64-bit Windows, I think it's safe to assume the poster meant "... why 64-bit linux platforms are better than 64-bit windows platforms". You then proceed to talk about why 64-bit linux is better than a 32-bit system, which is completely irrelevant.

    8. Re:*sits back* by kpharmer · · Score: 1

      LOL, you're right - I misinterpreted the parent.

      Sorry about that. No more coffee for me today.

      ken

  7. Re:Dupe much? by sH4RD · · Score: 1

    You just created a new acronym! RTFS!

    --
    WASTE - The Secure P2P
  8. What, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    First the Windows anti-spyware outperforms ad-aware and spybot s&d now you're saying this thing looks like a stable OS?

    Who are you and what have you done with Slashdot?

    I, for one, will NOT welcome our new MS-loving overlords.

    1. Re:What, you say? by l3v1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      First the Windows anti-spyware outperforms ad-aware and spybot s&d now you're saying this thing looks like a stable OS?

      Maybe this is also made by Giant ? :D

      --
      I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
    2. Re:What, you say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this thing looks like a stable OS?

      Well, in all seriousness it's inevitable. If we assume that each OS is better than the versions before it (ignoring ME for the moment...) then XP64 should be as good or better than XP.

      Really all that happened is that MS ran through some type-checking (making sure that everything expected the new 64 bit values that they got - could cause problems with bit arrays and such) and recompiled windows for a 64 bit architecture. Beyond the bug-hunting, there's not that much new work to go into this and break.

  9. Don't know.. by orevo · · Score: 5, Informative

    what you all mean. My Windows Server 2003 desktop (YES I USE IT AS A DESKTOP!) is perfectly stable and has yet to give me one single hiccup. Granted, I'm not much of a gamer, but this setup seems to be working like a dream for me.

    1. Re:Don't know.. by Mike+Rubits · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You and me both. I use it as a gaming OS too. Awesome once you trim down the server fat you don't really need on a desktop. It's XP without the bull, and hand-holding.

    2. Re:Don't know.. by usernotfound · · Score: 1

      I tried that, but I found that I get by with less system resources on my mown-over XPpro than 2003. 17 proccesses at boot. Total load time, including BIOS and typing my password is 23 seconds, still, after 6 months of use.

      --
      You call it excessive, I call it ambitious.
    3. Re:Don't know.. by m3j00 · · Score: 0

      You and me both. I use it as a gaming OS too. Awesome once you trim down the server fat you don't really need on a desktop. It's XP without the bull, and hand-holding.

      So it's like WindowsXP + a bunch of bull for servers, minus a bunch of bull for desktops, plus a bunch of 3rd party software for desktops to replace the removed bull? EXCELLENT.

    4. Re:Don't know.. by adeydas · · Score: 1

      My institute uses Windows 98 SE (old, I know) and it works like a charm too.

    5. Re:Don't know.. by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I also found it a bit funny... Do the article submitter think Microsoft has done an awesome stabilization effort with Windows 64-bit? I can't see how it's much different than regular XP (possibly with SP2 though) if that's backported into it. Do 64-bit code a more stable OS make? No.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    6. Re:Don't know.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are using a copy of Windows 2003 Server as a desktop ?

      Wow. It doesn't sound plausible that someone will pay for a licensed copy of Windows 2003 Server just to use it as a desktop (gaming even!).

      Sounds like an unlicensed copy.

    7. Re:Don't know.. by SunFan · · Score: 1

      My Windows Server 2003 desktop

      How do you make a desk out of Windows Server 2003?

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    8. Re:Don't know.. by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      I demoed Windows 2k3 on my system. All of my graphics applications blazed. I ran some games and literally saw a 100% performance increase across the board. Windows 2k3 is like a miracle drug, too bad it's year is also the lowend price $2,003.

    9. Re:Don't know.. by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      No, adding extra bits doesn't make it more stable. The continued development process makes it more stable.

      Windows XP (the original 32-bit one) is a 5.1 versioned code base, as are the service packs that go with it.
      Windows XP x64 Edition is being built out of the same code base that Server 2003 was built out of, which makes it a 5.2 versioned code base (along with Server 2003 SP1, and Server 2003 x64 Editions).

      BTW, all of the XPSP2 features are in this release candidate already.

    10. Re:Don't know.. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      My amiga used to boot from cold to the workbench in 6 seconds flat, including the time it took to spin up the HD.. And it had lots of third party crap installed, not just the standard os..

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    11. Re:Don't know.. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Well adding extra bits *could* cure some integer overflow bugs...

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    12. Re:Don't know.. by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      And it has terminal services, which are very usefull..
      But also certain games won't work on it.. rise of nations doesn't atleast.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    13. Re:Don't know.. by Mike+Rubits · · Score: 1

      Hm, I'm pretty sure I played RoN. Most of the problems I run into are with the installers that detect the OS, in which case there an Installshield switch that installs it so you can do a network install, -r or someodd. Can probably google it if needed.

    14. Re:Don't know.. by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      I have tried several games and the only one I found that didn't work was Warcraft III.

  10. Slower gaming... by Frank+of+Earth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/os/0,39024180, 39183101-5,00.htm

    Looks like you drop a few fps when running the 32bit games in a 64bit os. I wonder if new nvidia drivers would make it as fast or faster though...

    1. Re:Slower gaming... by broadcast_255 · · Score: 1

      we tried 64bit debian and UT2004 actually on 32bit glxgears show ~ 1900 fps but on full 64bit(with 62bit nvidia drivers) - 2300 fps sadly 64bit debian is kinda unstable and performance is only seen in 3d apps, like ut

    2. Re:Slower gaming... by RWerp · · Score: 1

      It's not given that 64bit is always faster than 32bit. If you run in 32bit, you may have smaller memory-CPU transfers, thus your software may run faster.

      --
      "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
    3. Re:Slower gaming... by slycer · · Score: 1

      I was going to post about that.

      There was a link (can't find it atm) linking to a Dr Dobb's article where they discussed a 64 bit compiler vs a 32 bit compiler.

      The gist of it came down to:

      32 bit = x size pointers
      64 bit = 2*32 bit size pointers

      Hence, the cache fills up twice as quickly.

      Hence, the speed increase is minimal if anything.

      It's an interesting point at the very least, and I'm curious if anybody has any actual hard figures comparing a 64 bit process to a 32 bit process on as similar hardware as can be obtained.

    4. Re:Slower gaming... by RWerp · · Score: 1

      It's an interesting point at the very least, and I'm curious if anybody has any actual hard figures comparing a 64 bit process to a 32 bit process on as similar hardware as can be obtained.

      http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5768&page= 1

      --
      "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
  11. This article is useless without torrents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Er, I meant pictures.

    1. Re:This article is useless without torrents by Ryan+Stortz · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's still Beta, and Microsoft has been offering it up for download for awhile now. The article even points you to the download page.

      --
      Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
    2. Re:This article is useless without torrents by Sarkoon · · Score: 1

      Yes, but the ZDNet review refers to build 1289, whereas the version available for download at the Microsoft link you provide is build 1218.

      Perhaps you can locate a link to the current build?

      -Tom

    3. Re:This article is useless without torrents by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      It's on MSDN, if you (or perhaps your company) have it.

    4. Re:This article is useless without torrents by bob65 · · Score: 1

      Er, I think MS can handle a slashdotting. And how many slashdotters would actually go to the download page, let alone download it, anyways...

    5. Re:This article is useless without torrents by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      It has already been made available to your beta testers and MSDN subscribers, that's where a lot of people that are talking about it got it.

      For the general public, the "Customer Preview Program" link you found on microsoft.com, the RC1 build will be up later this month. I won't make a guarantee, but you may want to check back on Thursday.

  12. I've been using it... by TexVex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recently upgraded to an Athlon64 3200+ and downloaded the Win64 eval/beta. There's practically no difference between it an Windows XP. I hvaen't had a single weird application incompatibility -- it's running all my 32-bit stuff just fine. I'm a gamer, so "32-bit apps" includes some hefty 3D-accellerated, DirectX-using stuff. I don't have any 64-bit apps to test with.

    Hardware support required some initial digging to get drivers, but everything works fine.

    In other words, if it weren't for the "64-Bit Edition" on the bootup screen and the Task Manager identifying 32-bit apps as such, I wouldn't really notice a difference between this and regular old WinXP.

    --
    Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    1. Re:I've been using it... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      How was gaming performance on it?

      I heard its slower due to drivers and some strange hoops that the older 32-bit code had to go through in order to run.

    2. Re:I've been using it... by TexVex · · Score: 5, Interesting
      How was gaming performance on it?
      I use an nVidia card and mobo chipset, and nVidia has been excellent for providing 64-bit drivers for their hardware. The WinXP-64 install had a driver for my graphics card (though I did go and download a newer one from nVidia after install). I'm not so hard core that I run my own benchmarks and tweak to get every last frame out of my system. For Doom 3 and for World of Warcraft, there hasn't been a noticeable drop in frame rate. If it is slower, it's not enough for my flesh-and-blood eyes to notice.

      For reference, my old hardware was an Athlon 3200+. My new hardware is an Athlon64 3200+. The mobos are different. I'm using the same video card, RAM, sound card, etc..
      --
      Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    3. Re:I've been using it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other words, if it weren't for the "64-Bit Edition" on the bootup screen and the Task Manager identifying 32-bit apps as such, I wouldn't really notice a difference between this and regular old WinXP.

      you mean to tell me it's still crappy? i'm surprised.

    4. Re:I've been using it... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I second the parent's assertion, it really is just like XP32. With RC1, Microsoft has finally turned off debugging and cleaned up the memory management code so that memory usage is more or less exactly in line with XP32(the previous Beta builds ate memory like Roseanne Barr at a buffet), and ZDNet has a good point about the driver stuff, since RC1 includes support for such new stuff as ATI's Radeon X-series cards right out of the box.

      I really only have a handful of complaints at this point, and they're mostly F/OSS related actually. Cygwin has not been patched in any way to deal with XP64(which it needs to, as 32bit Cygwin and the 64bit CMD.exe do not get along), which is hindering other software ports since a lot of F/OSS stuff for Windows is built with Cygwin. My other issue is that the Java Standard Widget Toolkit(SWT) has not been ported to XP64(nor to the devs seem to have a plan to do so at the moment) which means no Eclipse or Azureus in spite of the whole write-once, run-anywhere Java mentality(and it's a shame, poor Sun actually has had a version of Java ready for XP64 for some time now). I also have a complaint of Microsoft: they didn't port Windows Media Player of all things to 64bit. 32bit WMP runs just fine, so it's not a problem, but the included software should all be 64bit, in my opinion.

      Still, don't get me wrong, those are the biggest issues I have, and they're overall a .1 on a 1-10 scale of severity. As far as an architecture change goes, XP64 as it is right now is about as clean of a change as I could see happening. It's going to be a good OS, and I'm looking forward to having the chance to use some more 64bit software on it.

    5. Re:I've been using it... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      Anything feeling like running faster than usually?

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    6. Re:I've been using it... by njcoder · · Score: 1
      "My other issue is that the Java Standard Widget Toolkit(SWT) has not been ported to XP64(nor to the devs seem to have a plan to do so at the moment) which means no Eclipse or Azureus in spite of the whole write-once, run-anywhere Java mentality"

      Regardless of wheter the word "Standard" is in the name, SWT is not part of the java spec, it is a third party toolkit. Sun has been bitching about SWT because it is not pure java (it relies on a lot of native hooks) and breaks the write once run anywhere theme of java.

      If it was a swing app instead of swt, then you wouldn't have a problem since Sun has their jre ported to the os. You mention Sun and Java but the real people to blame for this not working are either IBM or the open source developers that develop swt.

    7. Re:I've been using it... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      For the record, I only mention Sun and Java because I feel sorry for Sun going through all this work to get Java up and running on XP64, only for the Eclipse project's SWT to not be ready, locking people out of two of the most popular Java apps out there. I'm plenty aware of how SWT has nothing to do with Sun, and vice versa.;-)

    8. Re:I've been using it... by LarsWestergren · · Score: 1

      My other issue is that the Java Standard Widget Toolkit(SWT) has not been ported to XP64(nor to the devs seem to have a plan to do so at the moment) which means no Eclipse or Azureus in spite of the whole write-once, run-anywhere Java mentality(and it's a shame, poor Sun actually has had a version of Java ready for XP64 for some time now).

      Yeah... I like SWT too, but maybe Sun is right in that the speed comes at a price.

      You could try Netbeans instead of Eclipse. I prefer Eclipse, but several friends swear by Netbeans.

      --

      Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

    9. Re:I've been using it... by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the info. I'm going to get a chance to play with it in the next couple weeks (after I get done installing gentoo, that is :) - the hardware will be here any day now.

      Any other tips? Also running nvidia cards, and I'll have a epox k8t800 chipset board. Other than that pretty much a vanilla P-ATA setup, at first anyways :)

      cheers,
      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    10. Re:I've been using it... by TexVex · · Score: 2, Informative
      Any other tips?
      Motherboard chipsets and video cards seem to be well-supported with drivers. You should double-check and make sure you'll have support for your network and sound hardware. Win64 supports 32-bit apps, but not 32-bit drivers.

      The nVidia video card driver that came with the OS install was buggy. 2D support worked just fine but 3D errors made games unplayable until I updated to the latest driver. Updating the driver fixed the problems and games now look identical, whether I'm running XP or XP-64.

      The XP-64 installer will issue a warning against installing it beside a regular XP install, but it will offer to upgrade. I chose to do a side-by-side install and haven't had any problems. XP-64 uses spearate "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" directories. It puts 64-bit apps in the former and 32-bit ones in the latter. It's a bit annoying but is manageable. My Program Files directory now has a combination of my 32-bit apps installed there originally on XP, plus the few 64-bit ones that come with XP-64.

      Hardware-wise, you'll also find that installing the CPU and heat sink/fan is much better than with older Athlons. With the Socket 754 setup, the entire top of the CPU unit is metallic, creating a much larger area of contact between it and the heat sink, and the heat sink has a much larger patch of thermal paste preapplied. The new mounting bracket can be operated with fingers only and even if the heat sink could be put on backwards it would no longer make a difference. My Athlon64 3200+ runs at about 35 degrees Centigrade when idle, much cooler than the old Athlon 3200+..
      --
      Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    11. Re:I've been using it... by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      TexVex, I want to thank you for that post! Saying that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the 64 and 32-bit versions actually is a great compliment, and validation that we're doing our jobs.

      One of our goals with the x64 product is to make sure that the experience people migrating over get is flawless. There will be a lot of 32-bit applications out there for a long time, and we're working hard to make sure we don't have any regressions in functionality from XPSP2 / 32-bit versions of the OS.

      The closer we get to the final ship date the more 3rd party drivers will be available (and easier to find on those company's websites of course). Just you wait until you see some x64 apps / games, it will rock your socks.

    12. Re:I've been using it... by Mavakoy · · Score: 1

      I suspect the reason that MS haven't included Media Player as a 64 bit version is to do with the EU's recent court case against them, for bundling it as part of the OS...

      Would you want to spend money on tightly integrating it into the OS, then have to undo it all if the EU rules against you?

  13. congratulations ms by unit01 · · Score: 1

    now u can sell your product to those who got amd64 comps for xmas and weren't told that the pre installed os would be holding them back. also congratulations to linux x86_64 which is going on 19 months old.

    1. Re:congratulations ms by TexVex · · Score: 1

      I downloaded the x64 Mandrake distro. When it boots from DVD, it freezes when starting up the USB ports. To their credit, the installer is quite navigable with just the keyboard, so if I disconnect my mouse I can actually get the install started. Then, about 30% of the way through the install, the installer locks up.

      I hear SUSE's x64 distribution is pretty good. Maybe when the x64 distro is no longer a version behind I'll give that a shot.

      --
      Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    2. Re:congratulations ms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try Gentoo.. All of the versions since 2003.1 have installed flawlessly for me on both x86 and x86_64.

      Granted there are no pretty pictures to look at while the system works, but that's where books come in handy (Or using Knoppix to install)

    3. Re:congratulations ms by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      afaik your allowed to download copies of the latest version, just not from them. email them to check, then go gander for a torrent.

    4. Re:congratulations ms by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      now u can sell your product to those who got amd64 comps for xmas and weren't told that the pre installed os would be holding them back. also congratulations to linux x86_64 which is going on 19 months old.

      1). 64bit CPU users will get to upgrade to the 64bit (AMD) native version of XP for free.

      2). WindowsNT has been running natively on 64bit processsors for more than 10 years. Even Windows 64bit Desktop for Itanium was released in 2001.

      Besides the fact your statement isn't even fully accurate, as Linux also had 64bit variants far before 19mos ago, just not on the AMD. And the AMD version has not been a 'mature' product for 19mos, it has been in sort of a 'beta' stage, just like WindowsXP for AMD64bit has been.

    5. Re:congratulations ms by a9db0 · · Score: 1

      Head over to LWN and check out their articles on several 64-bit Linux distributions.

      Problems aren't unusual, but there are those that work.

      --
      -- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
  14. Looks like a stable OS by IO+ERROR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Every version of Windows looks stable. Just wait until you get that first STOP error.

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    1. Re:Looks like a stable OS by lowe0 · · Score: 1

      Still waiting....

      The last BSOD I saw was a year ago. I struggled with it for a month before running a RAM tester. I replaced the blown-out stick, and my machine hasn't crashed since.

      I realize that anecdotal evidence isn't enough to support an argument, but I'm still waiting to see this massive instability everyone says is present in Windows.

    2. Re:Looks like a stable OS by rduke15 · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting to see this massive instability everyone says is present in Windows.

      I wouldn't hold my breath. These everyone probably only know Win9x/ME.

      Win2K/XP is indeed extremely stable. On the server side I still prefer Linux, but it's not because of stability which is probably just as good on Windows servers.

    3. Re:Looks like a stable OS by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 1

      "Just wait until you get that first STOP error."

      99% of Stop Errors are caused by:

      - Faulty hardware (usually DRAM or a disk)
      - Faulty drivers

      Run WHQL drivers, run MemTest86 too see if your DRAM is OK, and see if you still get Stop Errors.

    4. Re:Looks like a stable OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can only agree, I have got a BSOD on XP, but I can only recall the time when I used a non-WHQL driver for my graphics card with my new TV tuner (since it did something good to some game). I downgraded and voila!

    5. Re:Looks like a stable OS by dnoyeb · · Score: 1

      In my experience 99% of stop errors are caused by

      Well yes, Faulty hardware (poorly seated Cards/RAM)

  15. Re:spelling it like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whichever idiot modded this as 5 insightful (now down to 4 insightful) should be thrown off of Slashdot and forced at gunpoint to compute pi to a trillion digits using only their fingers and toes. Ridiculous.

  16. Upgraing from 32 to 64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My system is an Athlon 64, and I'm running XP Pro (32 bit version). Any idea how expensive it will be to "upgrade" to a 64-bit version? Has Microsoft said it would offer an easy-upgrade path for people like me running 32bit versions on 64bit hardware?

    1. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by unit01 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Windows XP Professional x64 will be priced at the same level as the 32-bit version of Windows XP Pro, Microsoft said in a statement, and the three versions of Windows Server 2003 x64 will come with price tags similar to their 32-bit Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter cousins." -informationweek.com

    2. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      It was just recently announced that Windows XP 64bit would be a free upgrade for 64bit CPU users that had purchased or received a computer with the 32bit version of Windows XP.

      So it will be free if you already purchased the 32bit version for you computer. The retail prices for 64bit XP are expected to be the same as the 32bit version of XP.

      The upgrade path is something Microsoft purposely left out for moving users to a 64bit world. So you will have to do a clean or full install of 64bit XP, upgrading from the 32bit version is not supported.

    3. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by Jarnis · · Score: 1

      32bit version of XP _Pro_

      Home edition users are out of luck at least for now. There is no AMD64 XP Home, and unsurprisingly MS won't give you free upgrade to AMD64 Pro version from a 32bit Home version.

    4. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      No but they will let you buy it at the upgrade price from home to pro.

      And if there is a manufacturer shipping home edition on a 64bit system, they are the ones that need to be yelled at, as Microsoft's OEM division even tells them not to do this.

    5. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      I hope that "free" sounds good to you :) Once we RTM there is going to be a program in place where you can swap your 32-bit license for a 64-bit license. I don't know all the details on it, like time frames and stuff, but we aren't going to be penalizing the early adopters.

    6. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Remember the "File and Settings Transfer Wizard" that helped people migrate between machines, and even different OS versions? (I think it was released with the original XP) It supported moving files between like Win 95, 98, XP, etc by direct cable connection or by generating a file of settings that could be transfered some other way (drive, net).

      Well, it is still around. You will be able to use it to migrate your files and settings from your old 32-bit install to your new 64-bit install.

    7. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by Jarnis · · Score: 1

      Of course they do. Pro version is substantially more expensive, and offers just about zero features that a home user needs.

      Not that a home user needs 64bit addressing anytime soon either. It's a nice feature in AMD64 CPUs since it basically doesn't cost you any extra, but offers nothing to an average home user right now.

    8. Re:Upgraing from 32 to 64? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1

      I think the previous post was asking how easy of a transition it was going to be. It won't be an upgrade that preseves installed applications, so some work is required.

      But you are right, the file and settings transfer wizard and even a basic backup and you will move to the new install pretty easily.

  17. Re:spelling it like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whichever idiot modded this as 5 insightful (now down to 4 insightful)

    It hasn't been knocked down yet, Slashdot often lies about the rating when you're replying to a message, to confuse the unwary.

  18. Linky? by UncleScrooge · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Anyone got a download link, I NEED to try this fudger out.

    --
    Slashdot 1|0 Productivity
  19. Already a veteran WinXP64 user by Zedrick · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I've used the 64-bit version since March or April something. Build 1069 had it's fair share of problems, but I've been running build 1218 for a while now, and it isn't much different from normal XP.

    All hardware except for an old USB webcam works fine with the built in drivers (but I ofcourse downloaded and installed 64bit drivers from Nvidia for my FX5600). I use it quite a lot for gaming and remote access to manage porn-downloads from work (dualbooting FreeBSD for useful stuff). All in all, works fine.

    1. Re:Already a veteran WinXP64 user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why?

    2. Re:Already a veteran WinXP64 user by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Glad we could help you with such an important task. I think I'll incorporate that in to my daily 'selfhosting'. All in the name of science of course - I wouldn't want to regress the scenario you've grown accustomed to!

  20. More problems too! by tanveer1979 · · Score: 1

    Yup i found the same issues with my athlon 64 too. Another big big problem. SATA support is still not in natively. So you have to use the CD provided by the manufacturer. So if you build a brand new system with SATA, best of luck if you dont have the drivers on a floppy. Installation says press so and so key if you have SCSI/RAID drivers and then if you do so looks for them on floppy. Then there were some other bugs like wallpapers acting funny and all. I didnt really see a huge performance dip in Windows Explorer and Internet explorer, so i am sticking to my 32 bit XP for now.

    --
    My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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    1. Re:More problems too! by Taladar · · Score: 1

      So to use modern harddisks with Windows you need an antique floppy drive most of us haven't used for years?

    2. Re:More problems too! by Sven+The+Space+Monke · · Score: 1
      Yeah, that's pretty much it. I would have thought that winXP64 would have included SATA drivers, but nope, they aren't included. It would have been nice if they had of at least made it possible to grab them of a usb keyfob/thumbdrive/whatever you wanna call 'em. I mean, c'mon, I can boot a full Linux distro off one of those things. I expect windows could have at least been able to grab some drivers off 'em.

      The 64 bit drivers can be a real bitch, too. For instance, if you have an all-in-wonder card, it turns out that there are beta versions of the catalyst drivers available, but that's it. None of the capture drivers are available yet.

      Then there's Alcohol 120/Deamon tools - the CD emulation drivers aren't available in 64 bit yet (and are apparantly really low on the TODO list).

      Plus, windowsupdate.microsoft.com doesn't work either. It comes up with a warning that it has to run in IE32, launches IE32, and then windowsupdate complains about an unknown error. Granted, they may have fixed this since last week, but I'm not holding my breath.

      --
      A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
    3. Re:More problems too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like it. The really odd thing is why the generic ATA driver for Windows can't detect and use generic SATA routines for at least basic support; it isn't hard to do. SATA controllers should still work using the PATA/IDE registers even, so there shouldn't be much reason for SATA support being so flaky.

    4. Re:More problems too! by rikkards · · Score: 1

      I would say that rather than including sata drivers, if during installation it would have at least asked for any drive i.e floppy, cd, usb even would have been nice. I had this happen with changing motherboards in XP.

      The best thing to have done was install the drivers, sysprep and then replace the motherboard but I forgot.

      The motherboard I bought did not provide a floppy
      with the drivers instead they were on a cd. So I booted up in my BartPE rescue cd and copied the files off of the cd onto a floppy and started building then.

    5. Re:More problems too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No you just have to have/make a slipstreamed version with the drivers included.

    6. Re:More problems too! by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      There are no patches on Windows Update for you to download. The new version of the site that supports x64 should be up soon (if it isn't already up).

      There is support for grabbing drivers off of some USB hardware, I don't remember what all of it entailed or if all of that support made it in before the RC was released or not. There are machines that no longer ship with floppy drives, and we understand that.

      There are some SATA drivers "in box", but Windows never has had drivers for 100% of hardware built in. Even for drivers that will end up "in box" by the time XP x64 ships they aren't all necessarily there yet.

      In general if you have hardware or software with drivers that you want to use and they are not currently supporting 64-bit platforms then email them. If some random software company hears that their customers want a 64-bit version of the product that may help move it up their priority list.

  21. Windose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somewhere in the world a village is missing their idiot.

    1. Re:Windose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now all we have to do is bring you back to your village....

  22. Re:spelling it like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I didn't know people started sentences in lowercase.

  23. Re:Dupe much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  24. .... actually looks like a stable OS." by CODiNE · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's soo darn stable
    it can hold up my table
    no booting this week.

    A nice big square box
    means my dinner rarely rocks
    up solid all month!

    Linux geeks trashing,
    yet food is never crashing
    Communists BEWARE!

    -Don.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  25. wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't understand... does it mean that I can use it on my commodore 64?

  26. actually looks like a stable OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    actually looks like a stable OS

    Ha ha ha ha!

  27. "Windose"? by damiangerous · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Okay I get "M$", "Winblows" and "Windoze", even though I think it makes the writer look stupid, but how the hell is "Windose" supposed to be denigrating?

    1. Re:"Windose"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay I get "M$", "Winblows" and "Windoze", even though I think it makes the writer look stupid, but how the hell is "Windose" supposed to be denigrating?

      I'll explain this as simply as I can:

      "Windose" is a spelling error. It isn't supposed to be denigrating. It is supposed to be "Windows".

      Understand now? If not then ask a grown up to explain it to you.

    2. Re:"Windose"? by CableModemSniper · · Score: 1

      I think it was actually a real honest-to-god typo. Look at where the w and s keys are on a qwerty keyboard.

      --
      Why not fork?
    3. Re:"Windose"? by Dracil · · Score: 1

      That wouldn't explain the e at the end though.

    4. Re:"Windose"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So he's managed both to switch around the last two letters of the word AND to type the next character over instead of one of them. OH MY GOD, let's hold an inquisition! Two common typos in one word, in the inviolate spelling haven of a Slashdot story. It cannot be!

    5. Re:"Windose"? by CableModemSniper · · Score: 1

      sure it does. Two typos!
      w e
      s

      --
      Why not fork?
    6. Re:"Windose"? by Jarlsberg · · Score: 1

      Bet you wouldn't say this if it was about Linux and the submitter spelt it "Linuse". Windose is not even a word - wouldn't even a half decent spell checker have picked it up?

    7. Re:"Windose"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A half decent spelling checker would pick up most of the other typose in Slashdot submissions too. Okay, it'd leave all those instances of "then" instead of "than" but it'd at least do something about the horrific "rediculous". The reason that all these typos get through is because there is no Slashdot spelling checker, whether half decent or otherwise.

      If someone types "Linuse" instead of "linux" then yes, I'd think they'd typed it wrong. What would you think?

    8. Re:"Windose"? by Frumious+Wombat · · Score: 1

      Maybe he meant "a helping of". One win-dose is the maximum quantity of windows you're supposed to be exposed to daily. Kind of like Rems for people who work with x-rays.

      --
      the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
  28. Typo in article? by kschawel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With the 32-bit version the maximum is 4GB, while systems running the 64-bit version will have as much as 32GB

    Isn't it supposed to be 16TB not 32GB? Just look at the table. Maybe it is referring to something else...

    1. Re:Typo in article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To my knowledge, all 64-bit systems are currently limited by their memory controller's bits.

      As 64-bits: 16 exabytes...
      48-bit (found on some systems) 128 terabytes...

    2. Re:Typo in article? by nanodude · · Score: 2, Informative

      the pagefile/swap is limited to terabytes, ram is limited to gigabytes

    3. Re:Typo in article? by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      very few standard motherboards will support more than 32Gb of RAM. That doesn't stop you having several TB of virtual address space however. IIRC the EMT_64 has an address space of 40 bits while AMD64 supports up to 48 bits

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  29. Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by IcarusMoth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I actually do this in both a classic and modern sense. Modernly Its Gentoo and XPx64-beta on the modern machine. I've only had it up and running since just 2 weeks prior to christmas, and have had no major hiccups so far. I have concerns about the speed and availibility of service packs and drivers (as in with such a small niche of customers having these processors will Microsoft, and more importantly 3rd party software and driver venders be as dilligent in keeping them updated, prior experience says no) Still It feels faster than having it run XPpro x32. AND it was free for the beta testing, SO, I've got like 340 more days of free OS action to keep me going.

    In a Classic sense, right next to the AMD sits an Original, |D|I|G|I|T|A|L| Alpha thats currently running NT4 for Alpha and Gentoo (Though it started out with Red Hat). Running NT4Alpha is one of those things that you never forget. Its fast, stable and relatively virus proof but the biggest problem with it is the LACK OF APPLICATIONS. There were and are no third party apps compiled for NT4Alpha. this was such a major issue that |D|I|G|I|T|A|L| released an emulator thingie, but even that was too little too late to save it.

    Thankfully, AMD decided to include Backwards compatibility on the die. because doing it at the higher level chalks up some major performance penalties. But lest we forget, liscensing Alpha technology is the reason we have a lot of the "innovations" boosting speed as of late *cough* Hyperthreading *cough*

    ---
    For great justice move sig

  30. Not trolling but it did crash on me by parryFromIndia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I tried installing it on my R3240 Compaq laptop which has a Athlon64 processor - Installed fine on a external Maxtor USB drive, but when I boot it I get immediate BSOD.

    Now the fact that it allowed me to install on a USB external drive is still impressive given the fact that FC3 does not even offer me to install it on USB drive.

    But I don't think Microsoft is investing as much testing / development efforts in it compared to what it did during the release of Windows 2000 - which was the first stable kernel from Redmond.

    1. Re:Not trolling but it did crash on me by ssimontis · · Score: 1

      I think Microsoft should go back to Windows 2000 for further product releases. I have NEVER had a problem with Windows 2000. Everything worked perfectly for me. When I purchased Windows XP Home for my computer, I found all sorts of trouble. XP Professional doesn't give me trouble either. Microsoft needs to ditch the Home/Pro scheme and offer one version, so that we can cut the crap and get a stable OS. Many people don't believe Windows is stable, but I have had good experiences with it in the past.

      --
      Scott Simontis
    2. Re:Not trolling but it did crash on me by bwoodring · · Score: 1

      "But I don't think Microsoft is investing as much testing / development efforts in it compared to what it did during the release of Windows 2000" Well Parry, I think since you're running a BETA FRIGGING OPERATING SYSTEM, maybe a few crashes are to be expected. Do you remember how stable Beta versions of Windows 2000 were? I do, because I was desperate to get off Windows 98. The answer was pretty damn unstable, but I was still glad to move to the NT Kernel.

    3. Re:Not trolling but it did crash on me by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Actually Windows XP x64 Edition is based on the Server 2003 SP1 code base (and as indicated in a number of articles already, the Server 2003 SP1, Server 2003 x64 Edition, and XP Pro x64 Edition releases are all tied together).

      I can't begin to think of an explanation on why you have problems with XP Home and not XP Pro. Your assumption that there is something fundamentally different between the two versions that would make one 'stable' and the other 'crap' is wrong. If you look at the version number information on the two you will find that they are the same code base - in the same way that Standard Server and Datacenter Server are brothers.

      If I were forced to guess why you have better luck with 2000 than XP, I would guess 3rd party drivers.

    4. Re:Not trolling but it did crash on me by ssimontis · · Score: 1

      I have never used the server versions of Windows, so I can't speak about those. I really don't know if XP Pro v. Home was the problem now that I think about it. When I first built my computer, it had Pro, and ran for several months without problems. But I also didn't tweak settings as much. I probably just began using the computer differently, and my point is not valid anymore on that. Sorry about the stupid comment. As for 2000, as long as I have enough memory I have no problems. Last night I was working on my brother's machine, which runs 2000 Pro and has 256MB of memory. It frequently locked up for a few seconds at a time, but I added another 256MB of RAM this morning and everything was fixed. I don't know that I was thinking at the time I made this post, but it was wrong. Thanks for catching that.

      --
      Scott Simontis
    5. Re:Not trolling but it did crash on me by parryFromIndia · · Score: 1

      maybe a few crashes are to be expected
      Well, few crashes after few working minutes/hours may be fine but No boots at all is not a sign of FRIGGNING BETA. It sounds more like a half hearted development and testing effort. No and I didn't mean to say Win2k did not crash in it's beta - The testing effort that Microsoft put in Win2K was notably higher than what you are seeing with X64 edition. And come on - for an OS which has run on 32bits most of the time, it needs more beta testing by Microsoft and may be end users via a more visible beta program and feedback mechanism.

  31. final sentence. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Then perhaps Intel will finally jump up on the 64-bit-bandwagon that was set rolling by AMD and Microsoft.
    .. Yeah ! Right ! , Thanks to AMD and M$ for bringing us 64bit processors and operating systems. I thought it would never happen.

    1. Re:final sentence. by iainl · · Score: 1

      Shall I just sit here and be smug about the OSF box on my desk, then?

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  32. Re:How about... by sH4RD · · Score: 1

    I don't think that is the point. I think he is pointing out that spelling "Windows" as "Windose" does not make you more credible in a Linux crowd.

    --
    WASTE - The Secure P2P
  33. higher requiremetns? by archen · · Score: 1

    It's interesting that 64bit windows requires more memory. If that applies across the board, I wonder if some people will suffer a degradation in performance because their RAM pool decreased. I doubt anyone with a 64 bit processor would skimp on RAM, but it's something to consider.

    Sort of like in Linux if it's worth turning himem support on if you have a gig of ram I guess.

    1. Re:higher requiremetns? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      just the way things are. All those 32-bit longs suddenly become 64-bit longs, etc etc. The reason they'd have done that is probably due to performance - as data types aligned on the bus (ie 32 bits aligned at 32 bit boundaries) were faster on x86 processors.

      However, this is what I think, not what I know - so please tell me otherwise if there's other reasons.

    2. Re:higher requiremetns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sort of like in Linux if it's worth turning himem support on if you have a gig of ram I guess

      Hehe--you said hymen...oops, hold on...never mind.

    3. Re:higher requiremetns? by Bluefire · · Score: 1

      Actually, the standard size of ints is still 32 bits. The main part of any size increase would be the increased size for pointers.

      --
      My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right
    4. Re:higher requiremetns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      just the way things are. All those 32-bit longs suddenly become 64-bit longs, etc etc. The reason they'd have done that is probably due to performance - as data types aligned on the bus (ie 32 bits aligned at 32 bit boundaries) were faster on x86 processors.

      However, this is what I think, not what I know - so please tell me otherwise if there's other reasons.

      I think that you're partly correct. However the fact that it's a beta might have something to do with the increased code size.

    5. Re:higher requiremetns? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      Yeah it's wierd that MS did that.

      MS 64bit:

      short - 16bit
      int - 32bit
      long - 32bit
      void* - 64bit

      Everyone else on the entire planet:

      short - 16bit
      int - 64bit/32bit (varies)
      long - 64bit
      void* 64bit

      This makes porting apps to 64bit Windows rather a trying experience... Assuming you can get a pointer in a long is fairly common, and passing pointers via window messages *extremely* common - and doesn't now work (since DWORD hasn't changed size).

    6. Re:higher requiremetns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could the increased memory usage be a result of a lot of debug code still being in the kernel? It is a RC.

    7. Re:higher requiremetns? by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      The minimum system requirements are really low. I would be willing to be that they are lower than what anyone configuring a system with an x64 processor would purchase. Why someone would want to buy a brand new 64-bit-capable computer and then drop 128 megs of ram in to it I don't know... That said, we do test on all sorts of different configurations.

    8. Re:higher requiremetns? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      According to MS, the LP64 model - where a long is 64bits, makes it more difficult to have a single codebase that compiles cleanly on both 32bit and 64 bit architectures, whereas the LLP64 model (whcih MS has adopted) makes it easier, and easier to have code that still works after porting.

      New Data Types

      The 64-bit version of Windows uses the LLP64 data model. What this means is that the standard C types int and long remain 32-bit integers. The data type size_t is mapped to the processor's word size (32-bits for IA32 and 64-bits for IA64), and __int64 is a 64-bit integer. This was done to assist in porting 32-bit code. The significance is that you can have the same code base for both the 32-bit and 64-bit version of your application.

      There is another data model called LP64, which maps the standard C type long to a 64-bit integer; and int remains a 32-bit integer. This data model is common on Unix platforms, but can make it harder to create both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of your application from a single code base. You might notice a common theme here. The idea of a 32-bit versus a 64-bit platform is that you should be able to build both versions of your application from a single code base. If you can't do that, then you may want to revisit your design. Having a single code base is a huge win, especially if you plan to ship both versions.


      So I think MS took the view that everyone will have to release both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of their code for the foreseable future. That might have made sense last year, but today it does look like 64-bit CPUs will dominate (mainly because they're much cheaper than anticipated)

    9. Re:higher requiremetns? by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      I read an article which included an anecdote about optimisation problems in the 64 bit version of the MSVC compiler. The problem is that compilers use a vast number of pointers, and while the number of registers has increased, the amount of cache has not and so they can only fit half the number of pointers into cache on chip and are getting more soft page faults as a consequence. This almost exactly offsets the gain caused by the extra registers so the 32bit and 64 versions of the compiler run at just the same speed.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  34. Windows 2000 by bayerwerke · · Score: 1

    So basically it's as if you are using Windows 2000?

    1. Re:Windows 2000 by ScytheBlade1 · · Score: 1

      Only unlike 2000, the XP drivers aren't going to be slowly phased out, same goes for 2003 drivers.

      Consequently, startup times....just a slight difference.

      Basically, "quit holding my hand" and "hey look uber support in the future", plus "much faster startup times."

    2. Re:Windows 2000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's enough corps on Win2000, and it's 'close enough' to WinXP that you won't have to worry about drivers for many years. maybe if you are talking about some consumer cheez.

    3. Re:Windows 2000 by Mike+Rubits · · Score: 1

      We are. You missed the entire point of the thread - using it as a desktop system. Plenty of corps use 2000 fine, and will be fine for them. Not for me, who's always adding some random new hardware.

  35. Stability is not the problem... by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 1

    ...the intrinsic bloated clunkiness of it is. The user experience remains a complete shitstorm.

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  36. mnb Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1.Two characters are wrong, not just one.
    2."Windose" won't pass a spelling checker.
    3.That spelling is not an uncommon slur against MS.

    1. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3.That spelling is not an uncommon slur against MS.

      Explain the slur. Maybe I'm being thick here, but I don't see it. Something to do with winning a dose of something?

    2. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by mabinogi · · Score: 1

      Yes it's a spelling mistake, but it's a spelling mistake of a slur.

      It was meant to be Windoze, but I'd guess that the submitter was from a non US country, and being stupid enough to think that Windoze is funny, was also stupid enough to not realise that it's only the -ise words in which we use 's' not 'z'.

      --
      Advanced users are users too!
    3. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was meant to be Windoze, but I'd guess that the submitter was from a non US country, and being stupid enough to think that Windoze is funny, was also stupid enough to not realise that it's only the -ise words in which we use 's' not 'z'

      This is getting more stupid by the second. Non-US posters don't start with US spellings and then apply some rule of using 's' instead of 'z'. They start with their own spelling.

    4. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he's not from the US, maybe he fucking misspelled Windows. I love all you Microsoft apologists and your kneejerk reactions.

      HE MISSPELLED WINDOWS! HE'S THEREFORE TRYING TO IMPLY WE'RE INFERIOR, AND THAT I HAVE A SMALL PENIS! QUICK, MOD ME UP AS INSIGHTFUL!

      That's right lameness filter, it is yelling.

    5. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by sebFlyte · · Score: 1

      As i explain somewhere else, it was meant to be ..doze, but i don't proof on weekends out of principle, though maybe i should when submitting stuff to slashdot during (and not after) my first cup of coffee. And yeah, i'm not from the US, but that doesn't make me illiterate (but i am aware i'm not helping my case much ATM).

      --
      "Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
    6. Re:mnb Re:Windose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      he spelled it correctly the second time you douche. it's such an obvious and lame MS bash and was boring even in 1995.

  37. not mature yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While it does look pretty good and runs briskly, there's still a lot of meat that isn't there yet. Judgements belong to a later stage of maturity.

    It is notable that Microsoft makes this beta available without too much bother to the downloader. This is in stark contrast to other corporations.

    What it means for me and my company is that we can have our porting tasks pretty much finished when release comes. Usually it's just the matter of some final sanity checks at that point.

  38. Mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mods on crack

  39. And in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    MS Buys /.!

    1. Re:And in other news... by SunFan · · Score: 1


      Wait, you still didn't know that Slashdot is the new Perl.NET testbed?!? Get with the times, man!

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  40. Diversity... by tjwhaynes · · Score: 1

    Linux has existed on 64 bit platforms for a number of years, running on Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, IA64, AMD64 and probably a couple I've forgotten. It's a more mature 64bit offering.

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
    1. Re:Diversity... by Gleenie · · Score: 1

      PA-RISC...

      --
      -- Your mother uses Emacs.
    2. Re:Diversity... by JesseT · · Score: 1

      Don't forget that Windows NT and 2000 have existed on 64-bit Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, and Itanium processors. These builds weren't generally available to the public, however, as they were made for special orders with business partners. The only difference now is that 64-bit processors have become available to the general public at an affordable price. The Windows NT/2K/XP/2K3 kernels and core subsystems are just as portable and CPU-word-size agnostic as say Linux or FreeBSD.

  41. Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and money by dtjohnson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Windows XP 64-bit edition has some major limitations. First, it uses a new driver model that means that all of the 32-bit drivers for your existing hardware will not work with the new Windows. Second, it has no support implemented for legacy 16-bit DOS or Windows apps which will therefore not run on it. The x86-64 cpus have support for running 16-bit software but Micrsoft chose not to enable it. These limitations don't exist for the 64-bit Linux versions. Microsoft ruled the 32-bit desktop but the 64-bit desktop should belong to Linux.

  42. Re:There's always one. by QCompson · · Score: 1

    Please... if you seriously think 2000 or XP are no improvement over Windows 98 or ME then I have a wall in China to sell you. And if you can't get a modern windows system to stay up for more than 3 days then I have serious doubts about the competency of your "excellent" in house support staff.

  43. Funny? by RMH101 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't funny. It's sad. Deeply predictable, and very very sad indeed. This single post summarises what's crap about slashdot over the last couple of years. Pointless point scoring over content, intelligent discussion and debate. Fuck off.

    1. Re:Funny? by jcr · · Score: 1

      I disagree. It's quite funny, and richly deserved.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Funny? by Selecter · · Score: 1
      I think you take your internet a bit too seriously. Your tone is usually reservedby normal folks for something like condemning mothers who drive their children into lakes strapped in their seat belts. Thats something to be distressed over.

      /. is not in that league. Go outside, and quit worrying about things you cannot control. And dont tell poeple you dont know to fuck off. It's bad manners, you little fucker. :)

    3. Re:Funny? by kd5ujz · · Score: 1

      Perhaps there is a reason its predictable. Microsoft Software is predictable. They do have a reputation, and they lived up to it a few days ago at CES.

      --
      -William
      God is everything science has yet to explain.
    4. Re:Funny? by andalay · · Score: 1

      Its almost as if he is taunting us: "Haha look, it sucks and you're still gonna have to buy it"

    5. Re:Funny? by FlynnMP3 · · Score: 1

      This isn't funny

      Slashdot has become much more enjoyable for me once I followed this advice: Every post modded as funny gets an -4 extra modifier from my preferences. Try it, and maybe your enjoyment of /. will go up.

      -FlynnMP3

    6. Re:Funny? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You tell the OP to fuck off, and you think you've got the moral highground? Jerk.

      Here's the facts - Bill Gates just ran down the entire open source community internationally by describing them as communists - which, unfortunately, is an insult in many Western countries.

      Bill Gates repeatedly lies about Open Source maliciously and deliberately.

      Microsoft has been funding SCO and their huge tirade against Linux.

      They have done a damn lot of EVIL things, for no other purpose than to further their own power and profit.

      I think the odd comment on a board like Slashdot which is made in jest, and doesn't even come close to the realworld despicable things that Bill Gates and Microsoft do EVERY SINGLE DAY, is not too much of a problem.

      So, no, why don't you fuck off? After all the shit that Microsoft shovels, the odd thing flung back their way is richly deserved.

  44. Wait a minute..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Two pro-MS summaries on /. in one day?

    Satan is putting the snow chains on his SUV as we speak.

  45. Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applications by modicr · · Score: 1

    It seems that there is no NTVDM (WOW) for
    running DOS or Windows 3.x applications.
    Is it possible install 16-bit
    subsystem manually using files
    from 32-bit Windows XP?

  46. Re: Linsux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are of course trying to be as dense as the rest of the /. crowd, your humor is pathetic. Oh, and Linsux -- oops, a typo.

  47. who cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By end of this year most people will be using Linux anyways so who cares about that Microsoft OS?

  48. Re: Linsux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, and Linsux -- oops, a typo.

    I'll explain "Linux" for you. "Sux" sounds like "sucks" and people say something "sucks" to mean it's no good. So like Linux sucks.. Linsux... Ha Ha Ha.

    Now please explain "windose" to me because I still don't get it, other than on the fucking obvious level that it's a typo, and you evidently see something else there.

  49. Re:How about... by xutopia · · Score: 0

    Starting a sentence with a but is so much better I presume?

  50. Re:Slower gaming... due to crappy drivers. by JesseT · · Score: 1

    As you suggested, it's primarily because of the drivers and because most games are not compiled natively as 64-bit executables yet. The 64-bit drivers from ATI and nVidia are still beta. No self-respecting person would base a final decision off of benchmarking such drivers.

    However, even so, with some applications, I've noticed huge increases in speed when running non-DirectX/non-Opengl 32-bit applications in 32-bit emulation mode on my AMD 64 3500+ (with Windows XP Pro x64 Edition RC1). This is due to the fact that memory bandwidth is now doubled, as the WoW64 emulator is running 64-bit mode simulating an environment for the 32-bit apps.

    Anyway, I suspect that shortly after Win XP Pro 64 goes gold, we'll see a lot of updates to 64-bit drivers that are still in beta.

  51. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's a butfor?

  52. Where are my Mod points??? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 1

    WTF? Insightful?

    Where are my mod points when I need them the most????? I could have used all of my mod points to mod this down FIVE TIMES! (Well, i know its not possible... but WTF)

  53. MOD DOWN: INCORRECT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not true. You must compile 64-bit drivers for 64-bit Linux. The only difference is that the source is (usually) available to you in Linux. Minus modern graphics drivers, of course.

  54. Re:How about... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...spelling "Windows" as "Windose" does not make you more credible in a Linux crowd.

    Of course it doesn't.
    You need to spell it Windoze.
    The 'z' makes you really credible.

  55. 64bits, fewer crashes... by jeif1k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... and still nothing decent on.

    Seriously, the problem with Windows are ultimately its bloat, its user interface, its administrative tools, and its functionality. While making it more stable and porting it to a 64bit processor are nice, they don't fix what is fundamentally wrong with it.

    1. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That's pretty funny. Bloat I can see, but the rest?

      Whose user interface are you comparing it to? Apple, maybe, sure. But that's about it. The majority of people with IQs over 80 have problems with Windows's user interface. Don't even try to tell me that anything in Linux is more intuitive.

      Administrative tools. Once again, in comparison to what? Linux? Sorry buddy, I like Linux, but running vi on files in /etc is hardly an easy-to-use tool. Sure, it's powerful the first time, but it's time consuming to consult the docs 6 months down the road when you need to change something and have forgotten each app's specific syntax. Windows's snap-in interface (with MMC) is pretty nice, I have to say.

      Functionality. Seriously, what are you missing that you need? No, seriously. Maybe you can make an argument on the server end... _maybe_. But on the desktop, it's hard to argue that Windows has anything but the best in functionality simply because there are so many 3rd party developers. Yes, you can do all sorts of weird and crazy QoS with the Linux kernel, but that's a pretty niche feature.

      You're just FUDing. Windows isn't the best tool for everything, but to write off its user interface, administrative tools, and functionality is ridiculous. Those are its strengths, not its weaknesses.

    2. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by MXK · · Score: 1

      That's funny... I could say the same thing about linux!

      bloat - yea, my windows install still fits onto a single CD which is more then most linux distros can say.
      its user interfaces - many, and each one worse then the one before.
      its administrative tools - which you just have to find before being able to use, not to mention having to memorize sequences of random letters and numbers for program names.
      its functionality - which is non-existent unless you dedicate your life to your OS, believe it or not, some of us actually use our computer to get work done.

      Sorry, but if you're going to bad mouth windows at least pick arguments which can't be applied to anything else out there. Bloat, user interface and administrative tools are not some of windows weaknesses. As for functionality, I can still do more things in less amount of time on my windows box then on my linux. That tells me something.

    3. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by demon · · Score: 1

      bloat - yea, my windows install still fits onto a single CD which is more then most linux distros can say.

      Sure, as long as you don't intend to do anything useful with the machine once you've installed the OS. A typical Linux distribution includes a variety of applications - Windows's included set of "applications" (and I use that term loosely) is slightly better than nothing, but only slightly.

      its user interfaces - many, and each one worse then the one before.

      I find Gnome 2.8 to be just fine, thanks; on a server, if you need a "user interface", maybe you should be reconsidering what you're doing, or pay someone who knows what they're doing. (I work for a company that provides dedicated servers, and I've seen some people buy Windows dedicated servers, and be like "uh... now what?" - these are people who really should pay an admin...)

      its functionality - which is non-existent unless you dedicate your life to your OS, believe it or not, some of us actually use our computer to get work done.

      Strangely, I can get things done, and quickly, on a Linux machine (like the PowerBook I have on my lap, running Debian), and find Windows to be bloated and slow, and mostly impossible to use, on systems where I can actually use it. I guess if you're used to Windows, then you can work better on it; it's been years since I used Windows on anything resembling a regular basis, and I couldn't be happier.

      --

      Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
      Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
    4. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, the problem with Windows are ultimately its bloat, its user interface, its administrative tools, and its functionality.

      You know, you could say the same with many "user friendly" Linux distros that install about 500% more content from its 4-5 CD's by default. Thinking of Mandrake, etc. At least Windows XP still only comes on 1 CD with all its "bloat". And KDE still looks like a Windows clone, with tons of settings to configure to overwhelm many users. It's about "freedom", they say. Yes, but if it was about "freedom" they could just as well give me a 1 MB text document with user configurable GUI settings. It's about "less bloat" as well.

    5. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A typical Linux distribution includes a variety of applications - Windows's included set of "applications" (and I use that term loosely) is slightly better than nothing, but only slightly.

      Hmm, but it's still bloat anyway, right? It's often thrown into as default choices in the installer and although a user can (sometimes) deselect options at install-time, it's sometimes hard to know how/what everything does and if one package is required by another. So often you end up with saying "OK, proceed" and the installer goes "YES! Time to make use of this clueless bastard's hard drive and install THE WHOLE THING without knowing what he'll use the OS for!! Quadruple image viewers? Yep! Web editor? Yep! Development IDE? Yep! Groupware? Yep! At least two browsers (e.g. Konqueror and Mozilla)? Yep!".

      Then there's those slimmed down distros of course. But then you end up at Windows' level with 1 CD and a tiny bit of everything but not a whole lot of everything.

    6. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by SunFan · · Score: 1

      While making it more stable and porting it to a 64bit processor are nice, they don't fix what is fundamentally wrong with it.

      The 64-bit addressing in Windows XP is a lead-in to Longhorn's system requirements: 2768MB minimum RAM (8GB recommended).

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    7. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by sacredchao · · Score: 1

      "I find Gnome 2.8 to be just fine, thanks; on a server, if you need a "user interface", maybe you should be reconsidering what you're doing, or pay someone who knows what they're doing. (I work for a company that provides dedicated servers, and I've seen some people buy Windows dedicated servers, and be like "uh... now what?" - these are people who really should pay an admin...)"

      So what you're saying is that the UI in XP is horrible but if someone points out that maybe Gnome or KDE isn't any better then of course, the UI isn't that important if you're using a desktop OS on a server, and you're obviously not 1337 enough to go near a computer if you're not using a command line interface.

      We're talking about a DESKTOP OS. I can manage my own desktop OS well enough that I don't get infested with spyware and malware. Also, more than two years after I installed it, including constant installing and uninstalling of games, trying out browsers, playing with mail clients, hardware swaps (including remove PIII and m/board, replace with Athlon, turn machine back on and let the OS sort things out) XP Pro is still behaving itself. I don't need or want a sysadmin for my HOME machine.

      I'm not bashing Linux by any means, it's a great OS, and, quite frankly, I like the fire that it lights under Microsoft (and Apple, if it comes to that). I'd happily agree with you if you were to simply argue that Microsoft have employed questionable business tactics and that some of their efforts with operating systems in the past have been iffy, but really, merrily smacking everything Microsoft is at best, peurile, and at worst, myopic. Likewise, comparing server and desktop requirements, especially with regards to issues like UI friendliness, demonstrates either a total lack of understanding of those issues, or lack of any desire other than to utterly distort any discussion on that issue.

    8. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by evilviper · · Score: 1
      While making it more stable and porting it to a 64bit processor are nice, they don't fix what is fundamentally wrong with it.


      And cleaning the floors in a restaurant doesn't make the food taste any better, either...
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    9. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by jeif1k · · Score: 1

      bloat - yea, my windows install still fits onto a single CD which is more then most linux distros can say.

      That's because your Windows CD doesn't contain any useful applications. A 700M CD for a blank desktop, a browser, and mine sweeper is bloat. A 700M CD for a complete set of desktop applications, development tools, and office suite (like you get with Linux) is not.

      its administrative tools - which you just have to find before being able to use, not to mention having to memorize sequences of random letters and numbers for program names.

      Windows admin documentation contains flowcharts of screenshots that you have to memorize because the GUI paths are so non-intuitive.

      In any case, Linux has several excellent GUI-based admin tools that beat the junk that comes with Windows hands-down.

      its functionality - which is non-existent unless you dedicate your life to your OS, believe it or not, some of us actually use our computer to get work done.

      Yes, Linux has the functionality most people need, out of the box: office suites, productivity software, development environments, scientific software. Windows is useless for getting work done--it doesn't ship with anything, and you'll have to spend lots of extra time and money getting separate applications.

      As for functionality, I can still do more things in less amount of time on my windows box then on my linux. That tells me something.

      You're kidding yourself if you believe that.

    10. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by jeif1k · · Score: 1

      Don't even try to tell me that anything in Linux is more intuitive.

      Well, I'm sorry that your mind is closed, but it's true.

      Administrative tools. Once again, in comparison to what? Linux? Sorry buddy, I like Linux, but running vi on files in /etc is hardly an easy-to-use tool.

      Linux distributions have GUI-based admin tools that are more consistent, better organized, and easier to use than what Windows has. The fact that Linux also still has text-file based configurations is an additional bonus.

      But on the desktop, it's hard to argue that Windows has anything but the best in functionality simply because there are so many 3rd party developers. Yes, you can do all sorts of weird and crazy QoS with the Linux kernel, but that's a pretty niche feature.

      You're making the standard Microsoft mistake of confusing "better functionality" with "more features".

      Windows isn't the best tool for everything, but to write off its user interface, administrative tools, and functionality is ridiculous. Those are its strengths, not its weaknesses.

      You just go on believing that.

      You're just FUDing.

      You obviously don't understand what the term FUD means.

    11. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It might, depending on how much time your food sits there

    12. Re:64bits, fewer crashes... by jeif1k · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is that the UI in XP is horrible but if someone points out that maybe Gnome or KDE isn't any better

      But the Gnome and KDE UIs are already better, as is the Linux kernel, the Linux admin tools, and the standard applications applications. The only reason at this point to keep using Windows is compatibility and the existence of specific proprietary software that you may need if the vendor hasn't been enlightened enough to create a Linux version yet.

  56. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So your theory is a. that the poster can't spell "doze" but that b. it's invonceivable that he can't spell "windows".

    The problem with this theory is that it's fucking stupid.

  57. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Esben · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You are feeding the arguments for what I have been saying for years: Not only have the MS monopoly keeped the OS development back. It has also stifled the chip-development. All developers developed for MS-Intel. Nothing else. Most propetary software isn't portable. Therefore there was no applications for NT4 on Alpha. Therefore MS have given up on WindowsNT on PPC even though the OS might be easily portable in itself. Therefore all the superiour architectures to i386 has died.

    If we are going to get new architectures - if it is not already too late - on the desktop we have to take either the route of open source, where each user (in principle) can recompile the application for his architecture, or the route of virtual machines (Java or .Net), which can do hotspot compilation locally. The distribution system of current properetary, closed source software, where precompiled binaries are distributed, kills every attempt to make an architecture which isn't compatible with the dominat i386 (maybe x64 in the future).

    There is a good thing happening though: Intel and AMD seems to got stuck wrt. clock-speed. They can't make the CPUs run any faster now. They have to go for hypethreading or multi-core chips. For that to give any performance benifit most applications have to be rewritten. If while doing that people start to think about portability ther might be a chance that those rewritten applications will also run on other architectures. Even PC programmers aren't living in the near-assambler programming world as they did in the 80's and beginning of the 90s anymore!

  58. Crashing Indeed by koko775 · · Score: 1

    Yeah. I can't even get past the initial terminal-style install to the GUI -- The blue screen BSODs on me. Ha.

  59. Only stable until... by JediLow · · Score: 0

    It'll only be stable until Bill Gates previews the new release.

  60. Re:cool by Audacious · · Score: 1

    Yeah, now there's 64 locations to have problems instead of 32! ;-) Does that mean we will have 2^64-1 number of viruses instead of only 2^32-1 of them?

    Truthfully though, when microcomputers went from 8-bit to 16-bit they basically had a 1000% increase in speed simply because they could read twice as much. And yeah, going from 16mhz to 100mhz also had a bit to do with it. Going from 16-bit to 32-bit again greatly increased the speed of the computer. The move from 32-bit to 64-bit will again greatly increase the overall speed of the computer.

    But there are a few things to think about. First, do you really need it? Computers are so fast now that most (but not all) common place usages are done instantaneously. Most (but again not all) games play smoothly. True, if you want to move even further down the road of real-time, photo realistic, computer graphics then 64-bit processors are the way to go (and so would 128-bit cpus). But this is only because it makes sense to be able to grab more information faster so it can be applied. But for most business usages? No. If it takes ten seconds or one second to recalculate an entire set of spreadsheets. Or if it takes a few seconds for MS-Word to reformat a paragraph - most people are satisfied.

    Further, it is not just a matter of having a faster, better CPU. Whether 32 or 64 bit. It is also a matter of having faster memory, disk drives, graphic cards, and faster monitors. I just recently (like last week) had to replace my motherboard. The motherboard I had was from 1998. In computer terms - it was ancient. It used 133mhz memory and used the built in graphics (SIS) card. I've now upgraded to a new motherboard, 400mhz memory, and an ATI Sapphire graphics card. Just by doing that and keeping the same CPU the entire computer ramped up. It takes about a tenth of the time it used to to do anything. Never Winter Nights (or NWN) now runs without crashing, the game looks 100% better, response time is phenomenal. So although I know that a 64-bit computer would increase everything even further - this is really all I need for right now.

    Finally, there is the consideration of money. First, we are going into tax season. Second, people have (and are) giving money to help out the people caught up in the tsunami incident. Third, how much will all of this cost? Will we have to rebuy everything yet again? If so, it is very unlikely that this will ever get off the ground for at least another five years. Not that it won't be available - just that most people are going to go "Why? What I've got is good enough."

    Just a few thoughts. :-)
    And that is the main problem. Why upgrade when what you have is already good enough?

    --
    Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke. :-)
  61. XP64 = Good news for linux x86_64 by Klar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have 64 bit fedora core 3 installed on my laptop right now. The OS works great, but there is a big lack of wireless card drivers. Now with 32bit linux, you are able to run the windows wireless drivers using emulation in linux fine; however, since the windows drivers are 32 bit, you can't use them with a 64 bit os! XP64 should bring more 64 bit wireless drivers, which could be emulated in linux, thus allowing me to use wireless in linux, instead of having to boot to windows to get a wireless connection!

  62. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by JesseT · · Score: 2, Informative

    Let me get this straight. First, you say that WinXP 64 won't run your legacy DOS/Win3.1 applications, and then you say that these limitations don't exist for 64-bit Linux? But since when did 16-bit DOS or Windows 3.1 applications run under Linux without an emulator? Sure Wine will run 16-bit DOS and Windows 3.1 applications on Linux. But guess what? Wine is also available for Windows. As for the new driver model, I believe they changed it to increase security, stability, and the ease with which developers can create drivers. It's a good thing that they changed it, not a bad one. That does mean that a lot of old hardware won't be supported, and that that good drivers won't exist for other more modern pieces of hardware until the hardware vendors release them. But for one, Windows XP 64 was made for modern hardware, not old machines, and the shortage of some drivers is only temporary. So sure, you're stuck with using a limited array of hardware to start out with, but Linux still suffers from the same problem. There's unfortunately still a lot of Linux unfriendly hardware out there. All in all, I think you are being hypocritical, just for the sake of bashing MS. If you're going to bash them, at least do so with some solid facts. You're making the rest of us look bad.

  63. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You're kidding, right? Who gives a flying fuck about 16-bit applications anymore? Sure, maybe if your company is running applications from 10 years ago, but if so, I doubt your company will be investing in 64-bit machines for all its staff any time soon.

    And oh no, you have to get new drivers! Hint: in Linux, you also have to get new drivers when you upgrade to 64-bit; you're just lucky that you have the source available. In any case, who cares? Your motherboard manufacturer will certainly be supplying 64-bit drivers, and ATI, nVidia, and Creative Labs already supply them for their products. Ok, so a couple of your PCI cards may not have drivers for a couple of months. Well, don't upgrade yet. You live on the bleeding edge, you have to expect a few problems.

  64. One problem with WinXP 32-bit by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

    The version I used about 3 months ago didn't work with any copy-protection schemes. For example no Ubisoft games worked with it including Doom 3, Far Cry, and XIII. The really funny thing was that Ubisoft tech support didn't understand that I was using a beta XP 64-bit OS. They just kept telling me that there are no problems with Windows XP. I finally gave in, and reverted back to XP 32-bit.

    Note that it also doesn't run 16-bit applications, which is rarely a problem, but every now and then I see something dumb, like an installer that has a 16-bit stub somewhere.

    1. Re:One problem with WinXP 32-bit by Bachus9000 · · Score: 1

      every now and then I see something dumb, like an installer that has a 16-bit stub somewhere.

      Let me guess, Installshield, right? :D

    2. Re:One problem with WinXP 32-bit by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Lots of copy protection schemes are done through drivers. Since x64 doesn't use 32-bit drivers some stuff needs to get updated, that is dictated by the timelines of those companies.

      That said, application compatibility is high up on our list of things to watch, so don't worry to much. I've seen Doom 3 and Far Cry run on x64 boxes, BTW.

  65. the power of commercial software development by geg81 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft manages to deliver a beta of a 64bit version of Windows only, what, several years later than Linux. And while the 64bit Linux distributions come with most applications actually recompiled as 64bits, you will hardly get any 64bit applications for Windows.

    1. Re:the power of commercial software development by HoboMaster · · Score: 1

      There's been a beta 64-bit version of Windows available for download a while now, about a year, I believe. As fas as the programs, are you trying to blame Microsoft for that? There will be programs when it becomes profitable for companies to make 64-bit programs, and in the meantime, you can use legacy 32-bit stuff, it works fine. Unlike people who make Linux programs, Windows developers are looking to actually make money, and *gasp* support themselves. Do your homework before arbitrarily bashing things. Oh, wait, it's slashdot.... Never mind, carry on.

      --
      Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
  66. I just don't understand. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you think that, of all things, its user interface is a problem? I can understand bloat, and to an extent functionality and administrative tools. But I don't understand what is wrong with the user interface. It has been, if nothing else, consistent across all versions of Windows since the 3.x days (with the addition of the Start menu / taskbar in Win95). I understand why people complain when programs don't use native widgets or follow UI guidelines, but this is not the fault of Windows. I also understand why people don't like the GIMP UI or complain about all the different widget sets in use in different Linux programs (not Linux's problem). But what is wrong with Windows' user interface? I'm not saying it's perfect, but I don't see any glaring errors or omissions in it.

    1. Re:I just don't understand. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It has been, if nothing else, consistent across all versions of Windows since the 3.x days

      And large parts of the Linux community are working their asses of to clone it, even in its latest revisions, down to the gradients and color hues in title bars. ;-)

  67. Trim down the server fat? by sp0rk173 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When i ran Server 2k3 as my desktop, i had to ADD desktop fat. Turning on the Sound subsystem, install java, turn on graphics acceleration, loosen up security in IE, install firefox, enable direct X, install XP video card drivers (I had an ATi card back then, and they don't produce drivers for 2k3 like nVidia does), turn on image acquisition, turn on the CD burning subsystem, tweak memory usage to make it run more desktop-friendly. The only thing you actually turn off (and really don't have to) is that annoying shutdown tracker.

    To me, and this is just me...you might have a totally different definition of "trim", that seems more like adding services that are unneeded for a server. Like i said before, Desktop "fat".

    1. Re:Trim down the server fat? by Mike+Rubits · · Score: 1

      Oops, I subliminally included all of that in trimming server fat. Yea, it sucks if you don't have the time/don't want to tweak it, but I prefer using it over XP now. I can spare a day of my weekend every couple of years. (Actually, haven't had to reinstall yet, though I basically did when I had a massive utter failure of my comp - somehow the mobo dieing took out both harddrives :\)

    2. Re:Trim down the server fat? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      The locked down IE is the best feature of 2003 DESKTOP.. And no, i could never consider any os with a mandatory browser and gui as atall suitable for a server.. What use is all that when the machine is sitting headless in a datacenter?
      2003 is more suitable for a corporate desktop than a server of any kind.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    3. Re:Trim down the server fat? by sp0rk173 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I totally agree. I've never taken any microsoft operating systems seriously as server platforms...not even xenix.

  68. Re:There's always one. by koreaman · · Score: 1

    You are wrong. XP is based on the NT kernel, which is WAY better and more stable than the Windows Home 16-bit crashes-every-day kernel. I love Linux, and it's all I use (when I can help it) but to say that XP is less stable than any "old windows" like 3.x, 9x and ME is insane

    Free software does everything Microsoft can and does it better.
    Not true. Ever compared MSVS to Dev-C++? (hint hint MSVS wins)

  69. Re:There's always one. by orevo · · Score: 1

    And you know, there's always one person who says that free software is better and that Windows crashes every hour for them. Oh hell, there are tons of those. If your XP and 2000 machines can't go past 3 days, that's sad. No really, I wonder what you do that makes them go under so fast. That takes talent. My Windows Server 2003 machine has a current uptime of over 24 days and 15 hours. Now, that's not as impressive yet as my FreeBSD server that has 87 days of uptime. But the point is, that Windows does not crash every day like the 9x days. And XP is NOT as buggy as Windows 3.1. I doubt you ever used 3.1 then if you can say THAT with a straight face.

  70. Stable my rear-end by OverlordQ · · Score: 1, Troll

    mIRC randomly freezes (guessing probably some 16 bit code laying around somewhere).

    And certain pictures in Firefox causes a crash in the video drivers.

    Various 3rd party shareware progs I like dont run (again probably 16-bit code), like say the win32 openssl dlls.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  71. Spelling it like that... by sebFlyte · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Is a result of 's' being next to 'z' on my keyboard, and me not proofing on weekends out of principle. Secondly, credibility? Meh. I spell it that way mainly because it makes me smile, and it's my own pathetic way of soothing the pain from the the chafe-marks i have from using XP all week and only being able to use OSX at home.

    --
    "Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
  72. Suse 9.2 64 bit rocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have been using it for the last 3 months and I love it .

  73. Re: Linsux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Sally sucks!" -> is that good or bad? To me, it could go either way, depending on sally's use of teeth.

    Oh, wait, this is slashdot. You guys have no idea what i'm talking about.

  74. Stable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "actually looks like a stable OS."

    I remember hearing that about NT, then NT4, then Win2K, then WinXP.

    Sorry, Microsoft, you've cried wolf too many times. I don't believe it. Or maybe they mean "stable" as in "as stable as WinXP", i.e., "not very stable".

    1. Re:Stable? by fyrewulff · · Score: 2, Interesting

      if by "not very stable" you mean "XP has only crashed on me once in the last 3 years" like my experience, Linux must have negative crashes.

      --
      "We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
    2. Re:Stable? by SunFan · · Score: 1

      I remember hearing that about NT, then NT4, then Win2K, then WinXP.

      Three name changes in a decade for this product line is not bad at all. I'd stay that is quite stable.

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
    3. Re:Stable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if by "not very stable" you mean "XP has only crashed on me once in the last 3 years" like my experience, Linux must have negative crashes.

      If you've ever written a program that more than 2 people had to use, you'd know that "stable" is a completely different ballpark from "works for me". It's the difference between a demo and a product; it's often an order of magnitude more work.

      I'm happy WinXP works for you. Really. Keep using it, and enjoy. More power to you.

      Just don't be mislead into believing that because it works for you, it's perfect.

    4. Re:Stable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work on a program that, at any given time, at least 150,000 people use.

      It's Windows only. And, by the way, Windows XP has blue-screened on me a grand total of once, and that was bad RAM. Linux has thrown me WAY more kernel panics than XP has Blue Screened.

  75. BSODed on me in SETUP by y00nix · · Score: 1

    This OS is trash...I tried the 64-bit version, however it BSODed before it even got to picking the hard drive. And yes, I had the right drivers - and not like the hardware was uncommon either (NF3,A64, SATA) Fedora Core 3 installed without a hitch.

  76. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Kymermosst · · Score: 4, Informative

    Now, I'm not one who normally defends Microsoft products, nor do I usually respond to trolls, but here goes:

    Windows XP 64-bit edition has some major limitations. First, it uses a new driver model that means that all of the 32-bit drivers for your existing hardware will not work with the new Windows.

    Given that almost all hardware manufacturers target Windows, I doubt this will be a problem for long for currently-supported hardware.

    Second, it has no support implemented for legacy 16-bit DOS or Windows apps which will therefore not run on it. The x86-64 cpus have support for running 16-bit software but Micrsoft chose not to enable it.

    Credit to Microsoft for finally taking the plunge and not supporting obsolete code. Nobody *has* to use 64-bit Windows, and frankly, using a 64-bit box to run 16-bit software is... a waste. Legacy support has bitten Microsoft in the ass more than a few times when it came to security problems with Windows. Besides, if you need to, you can always run old code using a product like VMware, as well.

    These limitations don't exist for the 64-bit Linux versions.

    This might be because the Linux kernel never "supported" 16-bit DOS or Windows apps by itself. (In fact, the Linux kernel can't run any 16-bit programs by itself, you needed a program like dosemu.)

    Nice troll.

    Microsoft ruled the 32-bit desktop but the 64-bit desktop should belong to Linux.

    That may turn out to be true, but not for any reason you listed.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  77. Re: Linsux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Christ, could this thread get any dumber?

    Did you fall off of a turnip truck yesterday?

    "Doze" (spelled "dose" here) as in "to sleep" as in "Windows is so slow that it puts you to sleep". It's the most common "joke" misspelling of Windows in the universe.

    This is such an old slur, that (A) it is quasi-official by virtue of being in the jargon file; and (B) I don't honestly believe that you've never heard it before.

  78. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by Kymermosst · · Score: 1

    It seems that there is no NTVDM (WOW) for
    running DOS or Windows 3.x applications.


    What 16-bit DOS or Windows applications are you running?

    Is it possible install 16-bit
    subsystem manually using files
    from 32-bit Windows XP?


    Probably not, but did you ever consider using virtualization software like VMware ($) or an emulator like bochs (free)? You could run your 16-bit code that way.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  79. Shouldn't 64 bit be a LOT faster than 32 bit? by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    Most of the comments here say that the 64 bit versions of Windows or Linux (on a 64 bit machines) runs about as fast as the 32 bit versions (on 32 bit machines or Athlon 64). I would think we would see a BIG jump in performance.

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    1. Re:Shouldn't 64 bit be a LOT faster than 32 bit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Care to elaborate as to why?

    2. Re:Shouldn't 64 bit be a LOT faster than 32 bit? by NotoriousQ · · Score: 1

      The answer is no. There are three possible sources of speed up. Computation of numbers larger than 2 to the 32nd, in which case 64 bit allows to not do multiple calculations. More registers that x86_64 has, which increases the number of variables that can be stored on the proc. (I am assuming that they did not get rid of immediates that were there, which compensated x86 for its incredible lack of registers.) Ability to hold doubles in registers...which is probably not a very big deal, but may speed up loading and unloading of floating point registers.

      No other benefits.

      --
      badness 10000
    3. Re:Shouldn't 64 bit be a LOT faster than 32 bit? by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

      In the words of "Tim Allen"... More Power!!!

      --
      If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  80. Re:cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    " wow. crashing in 64 bit."

    Yes, lokking forward to it in Windows after years of 64-bit crashing in Linux.

  81. +1 Insightful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  82. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You could say EXACTLY the same thing about Linux.

    While the Linux kernel itself is not bloated, most distributions are (so many text editors, so little time). I won't even talk about the problems with Linux's user interface. As for administrative tools, most daemons and applications read plain-text configuration files that need to be edited by hand. Sure, there are a few nice front-ends for the major stuff, but for most things you are stuck with vi. At least Windows provides a central location where you can access everything in a consistent manner. Hell, most configuration files in Linux have completely different syntax. Looking it up in the man pages is time consuming, to say the least. Functionality?! There are third party apps to do whatever you can think of out there. I guess you are just complaining that Windows does not come bundled with these apps like most Linux distributions, but then you would complain about antritrust laws.

  83. Insightful? by Svartalf · · Score: 0, Troll

    This isn't insightful. It's sad. Deeply predictable, and very sad indeed. This single post summarizes what's crap about Slashdot over the last couple of years. Pointless whining about something that offends their sensabilities and then someone going and modding them up instead of intelligent discussion and debate. I'd tell you to "fuck off", but I've got a little more class than that.

    --
    I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    1. Re:Insightful? by a+whoabot · · Score: 1

      You're so classy Svartalf, you're like a millionaire socialite out on the scene.

    2. Re:Insightful? by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      Don't you think that the predictability of any MS OS announcement drawing posts about its poor quality are a result of reliably bad MS software releases?

      Nope, I think its the result of it being a popular thing to say on slashdot.

      If this was a blog dedicated to high quality user interfaces then it would probably be very popular to trash Linux in a similar way.

      As a matter of fact Windows was in 64 bit before Linux existed. The original Windows ran on MIPS and the 64 bit Dec Alpha.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    3. Re:Insightful? by Ryan+Huddleston · · Score: 1

      Bullshit alert!

      The original Windows ran on top of DOS, on 16/32 bit x86 only. The original Windows NT, which I think you are really talking about, was released in 1993 and supported 386 and MIPS, with later Alpha support. Linux was up to version 0.96 at that point.

    4. Re:Insightful? by Zonnald · · Score: 0

      A form of windows was 64-bit before linux existed.
      Pendant!

    5. Re:Insightful? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Er, even assuming that's true, don't you think 15 years is a long time to be getting Windows/64b to merely "look like a stable OS"? Since you think that kind of history is complimentary, of course you think it's popular on Slashdot because it's popular on Slashdot, ignoring all the evidence (on Slashdot and elsewhere) that MS produces great profits, but crappy software.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    6. Re:Insightful? by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      Er, even assuming that's true, don't you think 15 years is a long time to be getting Windows/64b to merely "look like a stable OS"? Since you think that kind of history is complimentary, of course you think it's popular on Slashdot because it's popular on Slashdot, ignoring all the evidence (on Slashdot and elsewhere) that MS produces great profits, but crappy software

      Twenty five years later UNIX has still not delivered a decent online help system and it still is nowhere near the levels of reliability VMS achieved.

      It all depends on what you consider essential. I prefer to use an environment that does not appear to have the idea that its performing a continuous IQ test on the user.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    7. Re:Insightful? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Well, that's where we differ. I pass IQ tests with flying colors, so I prefer not to have my intelligence insulted by a half-bright OS. As for the online help system, I believe that "Unix" delivered something called the World Wide Web (the NextStep flavor, I believe), which has, happily, replaced most of the MS Help programs.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    8. Re:Insightful? by Ryan+Huddleston · · Score: 1

      ...

      No. It wasn't. Linux = 1991; Windows NT = 1993.
      End. Of. Story.

    9. Re:Insightful? by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      Well, that's where we differ. I pass IQ tests with flying colors, so I prefer not to have my intelligence insulted by a half-bright OS.

      I have a degree in Nuclear Physics and a measured IQ that is more than three standard deviations above the mean.

      I believe that "Unix" delivered something called the World Wide Web

      Funny you should raise that one given that I worked on the Web back in the earliest days. The code all ran on VMS or UNIX.

      Linux is nowhere near a match for the Nextstep environment that the Web was originally built on and it is completely ridiculous to claim Nextstep as a UNIX 'flavor' as if the differences were minor issues of taste. Nextstep was an engineered system, UNIX was is and probably always will be a botch job.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    10. Re:Insightful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whooo. You must be like, God or something. 3 whole deviations above the mean.

      Seriously, the pissing contests belong in 6th grade, don't they?

    11. Re:Insightful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CONGRATURATION!

      YOUR A FAGOT!

      Important Stuff # Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

    12. Re:Insightful? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Congratulations! By posting as an Anonymous Coward, you managed to submit a post in which every single sentence is wrong. If you had used "UH" instead of "A" in the second sentence, then every word would have been wrong, a perfect post. But I digress. Now, back to the demerits of Windows...

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    13. Re:Insightful? by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      IIRC windows on Alpha could run 32 bit binaries due to a translation layer called FX!32. It's amazing how similar that seems to be to the WoW64 layer in windows x64 edition. The Alpha is dead, long live the Alpha!

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  84. Re:cool by ckaminski · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been doing catalog tearsheets for sometime in Photoshop, and I'm routinely getting up to gigabyte+ images. With WIN32 restricting me artifically to 2GB total memory usage per program, I cannot do much better than this without 64 bit support. And in a year or two, I may be pushing that limit.

    32 bits is just barely sufficient for me now.

    With most processors on the market in the next 2 or three years being 64 bit, who cares? It's the next wave.

  85. Are all Linux users terminally stupid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's amazing how many people respond to this type of post. *sits back and waits to see how many people expose themselves to be fucking idiots* would be more descriptive. And even then you'd still have 30+ people posting about why Linux, whose desktop market share currently sits at 0.25%, is the best OS ever created.

  86. NT on Alpha is 32-bit only by alba7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    And now the Alpha is dead.

    --
    Post tenebras lux. Post fenestras tux.
    1. Re:NT on Alpha is 32-bit only by IcarusMoth · · Score: 1

      I beg to differ, the Alpha lives on in the technologies it spawned, that are just now showing up in the current generation of processors. Alpha, and few would argue against this, was a processor, ahead of its time, created and undermarketed by a company seemingly more interested in advancing the technology than maintaining hte bottom line. That is what ultimately lead to its downfall, a lack of business savvy. However, because some of the very best and brightest worked on its chipset, many of its exclusive features were highly advanced. So in effect, the Company |D|I|G|I|T|A|L| might be dead, and the Processor line might be too, but the technology behind them most certainly lives on.

    2. Re:NT on Alpha is 32-bit only by Anne+Honime · · Score: 1
      Alpha's not dead ; it just smells that way.


      The legacy of alpha lives in AMD processors, and inspired many pseudo-new features in most chip makers.


      Moreover, as long as my PWS lives, the alpha will be my station of choice for work. And you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead, fingers.

  87. MS haven't released rc1 to the public yet ... by popoutman · · Score: 3, Interesting
    When you go through the signup procedure to order the beta/evaluation version, you get a link to an iso of a previous version. The latest publicly available .iso of winxp-64 is build 1218. Build version 1289 is the latest of windows server 2003-64bit, and that uses the same code as reviewed.

    Build version 1289 of XP professional is MSDN only at the moment, and is supposed to be released to CPP towards the end of the month.

    I am running 64-bit 2003 server at the moment on a 3000+ amd64 and it just flies along. No real issues so far, apart from dvd layback and some motherboard incompatibility with some graphics cards, but that is a seperate issue.

    I'd suggest trying it for a while. Some of the default security makes sense now, compared to that in vanilla XP.

    --
    - This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
    1. Re:MS haven't released rc1 to the public yet ... by dbIII · · Score: 1
      I am running 64-bit 2003 server at the moment on a 3000+ amd64 and it just flies along
      I ran that for a while a couple of weeks back, mostly to run windows media player, and it worked well once I downloaded some drivers. It even ran a game that won't run on win2k out of the box - "Dungeon Keeper II". In the end a lack of a camera driver moved me back to 32bit win2k (and linux 2.6.*), but that is not Microsofts problem.
    2. Re:MS haven't released rc1 to the public yet ... by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      I'm not making any promises, but check the CPP later this week (like Thursday or Friday).

  88. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by GoCoGi · · Score: 1

    It is impossible to use 32-bit drivers with a 64-bit kernel. Not even on linux.

  89. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by modicr · · Score: 1

    DOS:
    Wordstar 2000 (don't laugh)

    Windows 3.11:
    Client for Tobit Faxware 5.x
    which is running on Netware 4.2 server

  90. Insightful? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    Don't you think that the predictability of any MS OS announcement drawing posts about its poor quality are a result of reliably bad MS software releases? We'd all rather use the economies of scale in development, purchasing, marketing and everything else offered by an environment "unified" under a Microsoft monopoly, if that monopoly didn't offer MS better economies in bad software than usable stuff. In other words, you're shooting the messenger, while MS has earned that reputation. Which you're denying like some kind of Microslave. Fuck yourself, but don't fuck with us.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  91. State of the art by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    I dunno, WinXP looks like a stable OS, until it freezes.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  92. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by xenocide2 · · Score: 1

    Which distribution would you suggest then, if I want to build a 64bit desktop, and do things like run a scanner, a printer and my wifi card? And if I find a novel 32bit program, such as those Kento Cho shooter games written in D, can I run it?

    --
    I Browse at +4 Flamebait

    Open Source Sysadmin

  93. that's what benchmarks are for by Khashishi · · Score: 1

    so you don't need to notice any difference with your flesh-and-blood eyes.

  94. Re:cool by RWerp · · Score: 2

    Don't worry, we physicists shall always find use for faster CPUs.

    --
    "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
  95. Re:cool by reflective+recursion · · Score: 1

    Speed isn't really the issue with changing machine word size. It's nice to have larger "native" integers as that's what makes things faster really, but the biggest plus is addressable memory size.

    I think the potential killer-app for 64-bit platforms will be fully persistent OSes. Unfortunately, they are still something of a research problem. The ideal platform, or OS, IMO would be a single addressable space with a Lispish OS built on top. Protection mechanisms would be at the desired granularity at all times (i.e. if a symbol is "bound" then the user has access to the object to which the symbol points to). Combine that with orthogonal persistence and global garbage collection and you have one hell of a platform... one that is optimized for malleability and experimentation, unlike today's systems which are organized around permenanence and standard compliance (many of which are obsolete). It's 2005 and we must still worry about memory corruption and the related security issues, viruses/worms, and media issues such as saving files, disk space issues (cleaning up, etc.). All which are unrelated to getting actual work done, but all can be automated and/or eliminated to some degree.

    --
    Dijkstra Considered Dead
  96. skin deep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    looks aren't everything.

  97. Re:Windose...=P.O.S. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i agree.
    seems the more money you pay nowadays, the more apt you are to get defrauded.
    640k memory ought to be enough for everyone.
    bill gates is a joo BTW, and is a practicianor of Islam, so, what does that tell ya about who the commie really is?

  98. Re:Windose...=P.O.S. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i agree.
    seems the more money you pay nowadays, the more apt you are to get defrauded.
    640k memory ought to be enough for everyone.
    bill gates is a joo BTW, and is a worshiper of Islam, so, what does that tell ya about who the commie really is?

  99. 15 yo posters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they just don't count.

  100. Why no 16-bit support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I've always been very baffled as to why there is no 16-bit support in Windows on x86-64? There are tons of 16-bit programs still out there, more than one might think. Many installers even for modern programs are still 16-bit.

    Microsoft always makes such a big deal about backwards compatibility, and introducing ugly hacks to accomodate misbehaved programs. And on the other hand, they drop 16-bit support. I wouldn't mind if they used an emulator to run the stuff and the performance on 16-bit programs was 20x lower.

    1. Re:Why no 16-bit support? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 1

      the bottom line is this whole effort is a POS by microsloth.
      How many years have they been working on this? I got a friend
      who had a nice bonus to buy 64bit AMD's last year on expectation of this upgrade to XP. Needless to say I
      feel somewhat guilty about it. Beyond the failure to do it
      over the past 2+ years, its crap. No 16 bit support (and no
      legit reason why). 32 bit code that wont run. I mean wtf?
      why is there no transparency so that current drivers can run
      even it if involves a small performance hit until native 64
      bit drivers are fully worked out? Not that there own 64 bit
      drivers show any performance improvement.

    2. Re:Why no 16-bit support? by cnettel · · Score: 1
      Regarding installers, I think the official line is that most of these installers are of a few common types, and that there will be replacement programs hooking in transparently for those. This means you don't need a patch for the specific program you want to install, "just" for the installer creator (InstallShield x.x and the like) that was used.

      I'm still surprised by the move to leave 16-bit out, though. I wouldn't have thought that it was that complicated, but maybe it gets much easier somehow to leave V86 mode out.

    3. Re:Why no 16-bit support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because NOBODY uses it anymore.

      "There are tons of 16-bit programs still out there, more than one might think. Many installers even for modern programs are still 16-bit."

      And tons of these programs aren't in use anymore except for less than 1% of Windows' userbase. Anyone who is throwing 64-bit hardware at these 10-year old applications is wasting money, as they will probably run excellently on as little as a classic Pentium with NT4.

      I can't think of a single program that still uses a 16-bit installer, except maybe some applications that were written in the first year or two of Windows 95's existance. Maybe you could clue me in on one?

      Don't try to tell me that Linux should be able to run 16-bit PDP Unix applications, because someone somewhere still has a PDP-11 churning away in an ancient datacenter, and they want to upgrade now.

    4. Re:Why no 16-bit support? by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      I won't name any program names, but you would be really surprised. There are many modern (like last year) 32-bit applications that still make use of a 16-bit installer.

      If you're an application vendor and you already own a license to an installer product that you have a lot of experience with it is possible that you might not spend the money to upgrade to a more recent version of that product if you didn't need to use any of its other new features.

      We're doing a number of things to help mitigate this issue. There aren't that many 16-bit installers (the actual installer program itself) that are still being used by these app vendors, so there are some on-the-fly kind of things we can try to do to make the installation seamless. Whether we're able to do that for any particular app or not, we have good communication with different companies and it is pretty easy to make this issue known to them.

  101. Re:cool by mattkime · · Score: 1

    perhaps you should be working with smaller files. gig plus photos. is it a life size billboard catalog? a gig file goes well past 20x24".

    --
    Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  102. Gee, by toby · · Score: 1
    I thought it was some of the most subtle bashing possible here.

    Bash away! They're still in business!

    --
    you had me at #!
  103. Runs fine by Zilverfire · · Score: 1

    Im running the beta of win-64 on my machine and it runs fine. Only real issue ive had it incompatibility for 32 bit programs

    --
    "Could you put that in a memo entitled, SHIT I ALREADY KNOW!" - Sarge
    1. Re:Runs fine by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Which ones? We've got pretty good 32-bit compatibility, unless the application uses a 16-bit installer or installs 32-bit drivers.

    2. Re:Runs fine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Im running the beta of win-64 on my machine and it runs fine. Only real issue ive had it incompatibility for 32 bit programs

      I've got this new text editor. It's pretty sweet. Runs fine. Only real issue is incompatibility with ASCII.

      (Why the heck would anybody use Windows, except to run current win32 programs?)

    3. Re:Runs fine by iroll · · Score: 1

      Hilariously enough (at least to me), the GRE Test-Prep software is broken. Actually, I've noticed that every once in a while, I'll get an error when trying to run older software that says something to the effect of "The executable is correct, but not for this machine type." Or something like that. Is this the 16-bit compatability issue raising its head?

      --
      Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
    4. Re:Runs fine by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      Yea, I think so. I know you'll get that error if you try to run, for example, a Pocket PC executable on your desktop, and I imagine we would just have used the same code to handle all the other executable/architecture mismatches.

  104. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Dahan · · Score: 1

    What in the world is "|D|I|G|I|T|A|L|"??

  105. Which one? by CrkHead · · Score: 4, Funny
    "actually looks like a stable OS."

    So, what OS does it look like now?

  106. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What in the world is "|D|I|G|I|T|A|L|"??

    My best guess; it's an ASCII-rendering of the old Digital (DEC) logo. Not really sure why it was done there, though...

  107. windows update in win xp 64 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry to be a little off topic, but is there anybody who has windows xp 64 and is getting an error trying to use windows update (even when switching to IE 32-bit)?

    1. Re:windows update in win xp 64 by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      There is no content on WU for XP x64 at the moment. (because there are no patches needed)

      The error you are getting is misleading, don't worry about it. The current live site didn't support x64 when we released RC1, so it didn't have all the correct error messages in it. The pages that do support x64 will be live soon (if they aren't already).

  108. That's, "Buttfor" by Commander+Trollco · · Score: 0

    You ignoramus

    --
    http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
  109. The worlds most stable and advanced OS.... by BillGatesTheSecond · · Score: 1

    just got better, Bill Gates Owns Our Asses.

  110. You might as well tell us about IE. by twitter · · Score: 1, Troll
    My Windows Server 2003 desktop ... is perfectly stable.

    Know anything about 64bit M$, other than Alpha? Tell me what you mean by stable when you talk about a system that has a four minute half life when attached to a network. How would you compare the UI to modern multidesktop environments such as KDE or Gnome? Why on Earth would I want to cripple a nice 64 bit computer with Windoze?

    What you say has been said of every Microsoft Windows. The new one is always better than the old one, they say but the quality never changes. Expectations are so low that Steve Balmer can promise "insane" uptimes of 30 days with a straight face.

    I've never seen the difference from one Windoze to another. Windows 2000 pro, which is still reputed to be more stable than XP home or pro, never lasted more than 3 days for me. That's despite excellent support by in house staff at both a fortune 500 company and at a computer wholesaler. XP is just as buggy as Windows 3.1 was and does not do a whole lot more.

    Free software does everything Microsoft can and does it better.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:You might as well tell us about IE. by dedazo · · Score: 1, Flamebait
      LOL! Why are you posting the exact same thing again? Because someone modded you (rightly so) as a troll?

      What did you expect, with that ridiculous demeanor? You attack someone for saying they have no problem using "Windoze" and then you turn around and make an equivalent proclamation about free software being the end-all of computing.

      I doubt you've even ever used Windows after 1996. 2000, XP and 2003 are perfectly stable and secure if you patch them and don't do stupid things with them. No different than Linux or FreeBSD, all of which I run every day.

      I swear I'd enjoy using free software even more if it wasn't for people like you.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    2. Re:You might as well tell us about IE. by mixmasta · · Score: 1

      huh? I use XP on x86, and I have used 2k3 on Itanium and they all worked fine. Stable and powerful.

      They have to set up behind a NAT and patched, and most services shut down, mozilla installed, but no biggie. They are stable as a rock. Your support staff don't know what they are doing... it's not uncommon.

      I also use gentoo on my laptop. It's stable too. I'd say it is less integrated than Windows, but still I am gradually trying to migrate to it permanently.

      But my reasons have much more to do with EULA's than stability.

      --
      #6495ED - cornflower blue
    3. Re:You might as well tell us about IE. by x-caiver · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      If you weren't just trolling you could have done a web search and found plenty of data that shows the stability of Windows does, in fact, increase with every release. You should use terms such as "availability" "uptime" "reliability" "five nines" and "99." to help you find this.

      If you buy junk hardware or have horrible management practices then you aren't going to be able to achieve the high availability numbers. If you buy good hardware, make wise decisions on the application vendors you support, and have solid maintenance & change management procedures in place you could find yourself in the "five nines" club.

      (If I remember correctly: 99.999% uptime means only 5 minutes of downtime a year, and jumping up to 6 nines reduces that to only 20 seconds of downtime per year.)

    4. Re:You might as well tell us about IE. by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      To whoever moderated that message as 'flamebait': Uhh, what? There was nothing inflammatory in there. It was entirely serious.

      Windows 2003 systems have achieved incredibly high availability numbers, and 2003 SP1 is on track to be even better.

      High quality hardware is not going to have the same amount of problems as low quality hardware. When hardware dies you lose uptime (unless it is a hot swappable component, but then that implies you bought a good base system to begin with). Cheap power supplies fail, knock off RAM fails, and all of this is known even to the Linux crowd it isn't some "Microsoft spin." Check any of the dozens of good hardware review sites out there - that is what they are there for.

      Along with good hardware goes good software. Quality hardware vendors are more likely to have rock solid drivers & utilities than some random provider. Same with applications. If you are setting up a mission critical server with a goal of huge uptime, then you need to research the applications you buy. Buy an app that has known memory leaks, known crashing bugs, etc and you are more likely to have problems.

      Maintenance and change management procedures play a large role in keeping your system's uptime high as well. If you don't ever check to make sure the hardware is still working good (hard drives can warn you before they fail for example), that you back systems are functional, that your event logs aren't filled with errors warning of hardware problems, then you will not be able to resolve the problem until your machine goes down - and at that point your uptime is toast. Same goes with software maintenance. If you don't have a solid plan in place for determining the validity of software changes (from a 'simple' settings tweak to a full service pack install) you can lose uptime. If you install every single random patch as it is released, rather than only picking the ones you need and applying them in a batch, you will lose uptime. If you decide to upgrade some application to the latest whiz-bang version when you either don't really need it, or haven't tested it, you run the risk of losing uptime.

      These aren't things that only affect Microsoft either. Linux, Mac OS X, and all the others are susceptible to these various problems as well. Best practices for high uptime/availability has nothing to do with a "pro-MS, anti-FOSS" argument.

  111. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by Chemical · · Score: 1
    Microsoft is probably trying to phase out support for DOS and Win 3.x stuff. What's the problem with that? Neither has been in development for like 10 years. Time to let go. I'd say it's a good thing, as Microsoft's previous obsession with backwards compatability is one of the things holding them back.

    If you REALLY want to Run your DOS stuff, you can always use DOSBox (a DOS emulator) or Wine for Windows (Windows "emulator").

  112. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by demon · · Score: 1

    Windows isn't as portable as all that, really. One thing of note about _every_ processor architecture that Windows was ported to back in the 3.1/3.5x/4.0 days either was, or could be switched to, little endian mode. MIPS, PPC, and Alpha (which was used in 32-bit mode) - all of the above either came in a little-endian variant (MIPS), or could be switched into a little-endian mode on the fly (Alpha and PPC).

    Linux, on the other hand, uses the native ordering mode on Alpha and PPC, and has builds for both little-endian and big-endian MIPS processors. It's not dependent on 32-bit mode, byte ordering, or other x86-alike properties to port it to other arches. What's the point of porting to another architecture if you're going to enable a bunch of compatibility hacks to make it behave as much as possible like an old, broken one? I don't think that's portability, really.

    --

    Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
    Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
  113. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's be annoying... windose is the right spelling for British English. Windoze is for yanks :P

  114. Re:cool by Abreu · · Score: 1

    Be aware that, for a color magazine, you have to form pages in groups of 8, so every "image" (image and text composites) is 8 times the size of the standard magazine page...

    So, color images, text, font information, etc., multiplied by 8... it can easily become a monster file my friend

    --
    No sig for the moment.
  115. 32-bit cmd.exe by xswl0931 · · Score: 1

    You do realize you can start a 32-bit cmd.exe by using Start->Run->%windir%\sys_wow64\cmd.exe

    1. Re:32-bit cmd.exe by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      Yes, of course I know, but Cygwin doesn't know that. Cygwin will not work on an out-of-box install because it tries to launch the XP64 CMD.exe, and this is something that needs to be fixed one way or another.

  116. Stable My But by MrArmyAnt · · Score: 1

    I ran the second version for quite a while, and it has some severe glitches everynow and then. Driver support sux, and sometimes certain websites will cause it to randomly turn off.

    1. Re:Stable My But by x-caiver · · Score: 1

      If you have the address of a site that can turn your x64 off please share, and I will happily forward it on to the appropriate people.

    2. Re:Stable My But by MrArmyAnt · · Score: 1

      limewire did. nly one i can remember right now. I believbe it was in firefox too.

  117. Re:Alpha NT Was 32-Bit I Think by TAZ6416 · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure that NT for the Alpha Chip actually ran in 32 Bit mode. We still have an old Digital AlphaServer 1000A upstairs running as a simple NT4 file/print server for that floor, it's a solid old workhorse.

    Jonathan

  118. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by eraserewind · · Score: 1

    No applications for a minority architecture of an OS is bad enough, what is amazing is that there were no appliactions for |D|I|G|I|T|A|L| Unix on Alpha boxes either. Even compiling open source often meant trying to hack the build system for a vaguely similar platform.

  119. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Zanthrox · · Score: 1

    I think one thing that really didn't help with NT on Alpha application availability was there was no affordable compiler. They simply didn't offer the "Professional" edition (that was ~$100 for VC++ on X86 at the time) -- you had to get the Enterprise edition for a few hundred more.

    A few years back I would have happily run NT on Alpha, but there was no way I was going to pay $300+ just for the compiler when I was in college..

    Now..if they included the RISC versions of the tools on the X86 CDs for no extra cost, we could have actually at least seen a few more unsupported Alpha builds of apps. The barrier to entry of building RISC NT apps was way too high..

  120. oh boy.. by eekrano · · Score: 1

    "Microsoft", "Windows", and "Stable OS" in the same paragraph? I hope there's an edit for this in the near future.

    --
    -- Eekrano
  121. And Slashdot busts on Sun and Solaris so much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But the 64-bit UltraSparc with 64-bit Solaris was released in what? 1995?

  122. this is not MS sympathy by xmp_phrack · · Score: 1

    we are slashdotting microsoft.com

  123. Riight... It was sarcasm... by Svartalf · · Score: 1

    I was pointing out how damned silly it was the way he went on about it and then people modded him up.

    He was as guilty of the thing he was complaining about as the orginal poster- if what he was talking about was really valid.

    But then, I guess that's really what's wrong with Slashdot- people are so clueless that they think a whiner is insightful and the person pointing it out is "classy" in the sarcastic manner and trolling...

    --
    I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
  124. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a mistake ; it's |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| in lower caps, to give the feeling of being an ol'timer fellow of DEC. Otherwise, it's just snobish.

  125. Its called "IRC" people! COME ON!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Geez, bittorrent is around for 5 minutes and you forget everything you ever learned.

    Go to irc.winbeta.org and be enlightened.

  126. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by rsmith-mac · · Score: 2, Informative
    Credit to Microsoft for finally taking the plunge and not supporting obsolete code. Nobody *has* to use 64-bit Windows, and frankly, using a 64-bit box to run 16-bit software is... a waste. Legacy support has bitten Microsoft in the ass more than a few times when it came to security problems with Windows. Besides, if you need to, you can always run old code using a product like VMware, as well.

    If I may, there's something that should be pointed out to you and the OP: the AMD64 specification does not include a 16bit mode when running in 64bit mode. The two 64bit modes available are "pure"(which is literally pure 64bit mode) and "compatibility" which lets the processor run in 64bit mode while being able to run specific threads in 32bit mode, hence allowing 32bit programs to run with almost no performance hit, save some DLL Hell from needing the 32bit DLLs. Compatibility mode doesn't support 16bit threads however(you must be running pure 32bit mode to run 16bit threads), so there are two points I'd like to make: 1) It's not MS's fault that there isn't 16bit support, this is a hardware limitation, as they'd need a full emulator to get any sort of 16 bit support. And 2) AMD deserves the credit for killing 16bit, not MS.

  127. Here's how to get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Geez, bittorrent is around for 5 minutes and you people forget everything you ever learned.

    Go to irc.winbeta.org and get the ISO.

    Find the file "unattend.txt" on the CD and it has a CD key in it. You can't activate Windows with this key, but you have 30 days to evaluate it. By then, the CPP will be out.

  128. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by MtViewGuy · · Score: 1

    Given that almost all hardware manufacturers target Windows, I doubt this will be a problem for long for currently-supported hardware.

    I think Microsoft has delayed releasing the x86-64 compatible version of Windows XP for two reasons:

    1) Driver compatibility issues. Microsoft wants to make sure that the vast majority of hardware manufacturers will have 64-bit Windows device drivers available when this new version of Windows XP finally ships.

    2) Making sure it works on both AMD and Intel CPU's. I believe that Microsoft--in a political move--waited for Intel to finally "catch up" with x86-64 support on Intel's own CPU's before this new version of Windows XP becomes commercially available.

    I expect Windows XP 64-bit editions to ship around the March-April 2005 time frame.

  129. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by cnettel · · Score: 1

    Nice to see an explanation that good old V86 is not available anymore. What I begin to wonder is if vmware or other virtualization-without-emulation software will be able to run 16-bit code under these conditions? Will the only way really be a bochs-like emulation? Naturally, there are many other packages with better performance than bochs, but it's still far more than vmware or its siblings.

  130. Re:cool by Your+Average+Joe · · Score: 0, Troll

    You need Windows XP, 5GIG of RAM and PAE in the boot.ini, you can do this today without the beta 64 bit os.

    --
    Your Average Joe
  131. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by scheme · · Score: 1
    It seems that there is no NTVDM (WOW) for running DOS or Windows 3.x applications. Is it possible install 16-bit subsystem manually using files from 32-bit Windows XP?

    Neither of the 64 bit modes on the AMD64 or EMT64 processors support running 16bit processes. It's a hardware limitation which probably saved a bit of transistors and helped clean up the design a bit.

    If you want to run 16bit programs in 64bit mode, you'll need to emulate the cpu or due some heavy duty virtulaziation.

    --
    "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
  132. Mod parent flamebait +1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    XP is stable already.

  133. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel has already sold 10x the number of x86-64 parts. AMD needs to "catch up".

  134. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by drsmithy · · Score: 1
    Windows isn't as portable as all that, really. One thing of note about _every_ processor architecture that Windows was ported to back in the 3.1/3.5x/4.0 days either was, or could be switched to, little endian mode. MIPS, PPC, and Alpha (which was used in 32-bit mode) - all of the above either came in a little-endian variant (MIPS), or could be switched into a little-endian mode on the fly (Alpha and PPC).

    Except for the version of NT that's running on the new XBox2 using PPC970/"G5" CPUs, that only run big-endian (same reason it took so long to have an OS X on G5 version of Virtual PC).

  135. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by drsmithy · · Score: 1
    Therefore MS have given up on WindowsNT on PPC even though the OS might be easily portable in itself.

    It wasn't lack of software that killed NT/PPC, it was lack of hardware. When Apple didn't come to the table with a CHRP or PReP Mac, there wasn't anywhere to buy a remotely-affordable PPC machine to run Windows on.

  136. My new sig says it all. by SunFan · · Score: 1


    I tried the early access version of Solaris 10 with JDS recently, and it blew me away. Anyone with broadband who can download the ISOs, I highly recommend giving it a spin.

    Microsoft is being eaten at by IBM, Sun, Red Hat, Novell, Ximian--basically everyone who isn't Microsoft. The next few years are going to be extremely interesting.

    --
    -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  137. Yeah Right... by BillGatesTheSecond · · Score: 0, Flamebait


    Solaris 10 is a f*cking joke in every means possible and MacOS X? well if you want to waste your money on overpriced hardware from Apple only to join the cult of mac, please do so, but your computing experience will not elevate by doing so.

    Contrary to popular mac-taliban opinion, MacOS X is not the holy graal of computing.

    With Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and the coming Longhorn, Microsoft shows the way yet again for all others to follow.

  138. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Don't forget the Micro$$$haft

  139. Re:cool by SunFan · · Score: 1

    "To infinity and beyond!"

    --
    -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  140. 16-bit programs do not run by wintermute1974 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    From the article:
    Anyone who still uses older 16-bit programs can forget about running them under 64-bit Windows. However, some 32-bit applications use 16-bit code during installation, which means that these programs cannot be installed.
    Well, this is disappointing. For the first time ever Microsoft is dropping support for binaries that ran in earlier versions of Windows.

    Does Microsoft no longer value older software? Do they presuppose that users no longer want backward compatibility?

    Is it too hard to extend the NT Virtual DOS Machine to the 64-bit architecture? Or is the expectation that I only run the new, 64-bit, XP editions of Microsoft Spiffy from now on?

    Really, I thought Microsoft's big ace was the mountains of old, existing binaries that just worked without needing the source to recompile on their new OSes. Apparently this does not matter any more.
    1. Re:16-bit programs do not run by dabraun · · Score: 1

      There were plenty of DOS apps that required you to effectively exit Win9X to run them, and that don't work at all on XP or any flavor of NT. DOS AutoCAD comes to mind (and many many DOS games) ... there comes a time when something is old enough that supporting it is more of a liability than an asset.

    2. Re:16-bit programs do not run by cortana · · Score: 1

      Why on earth to 32-bit programs have their installers written as DOS programs? I can't think of any.

      Reminds me, are all the DLLs with '32' in their names renamed to '64' on Amd64? Or will our children and our children's children wonder, in times far in the future, what piece of bad designed caused ADVAPI32.DLL to be named so, even on a 64 bit platform?

  141. W64XP faster than Windows3.11? HAHAHAHA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Impossible!

  142. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fedora Core 3, 64 bit edition, is available at http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/3/x86_64/iso/

    Grab the 4 iso disks, burn them to cd, boot from the first. It's stable, has been available for 3 months, and being the 3rd major version of Fedora/64 has been tweeked and updated a lot. Fedora gets updated quite frequently (not patches but add-ons and improvements). Run up2date or get gyum and update the base install with yum/gyum. Every patch/update available will be automagically installed within about 1 hour (there should be 250MB of improvements so downloading will take a bit of time).

  143. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by x-caiver · · Score: 1

    No, 16-bit applications are not supported on the 64-bit operating system for technical reasons. Some of those are probably described on the internet already, I don't want to attempt that right now, I wouldn't want to get a bit wrong going off the top of my head. (think address space, pointers, bit shuttling, overhead, etc)

    In general this won't be a problem, but there are still some current apps (modern 32-bit apps) that use 16-bit installers. There are a number of things being done to mitigate this issue, including working directly with the application vendors to make sure they understand the issue.

  144. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by dtjohnson · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry but this wasn't a troll although I admit it does sound that way. The problem is that Microsoft did not support running any 16-bit software on the x86-64 machines even though the hardware is physically capable of running 16-bit software in a 16-bit compatibility submode while in the 'long' mode. Microsoft did support the 32-bit compatibility sub-mode but even that is not real good. Emulators that access the hardware (for performance reasons) such as VPC will not be able to use the 16-bit capability because it has not been supported by Microsoft. To run 16-bit software, the Microsoft Virtual PC would have to emulate the 16-bit capability in software and it does not have that ability. Unless Microsoft adds 16-bit emulation to Virtual PC or adds 16-bit support to their 64-bit OS, there will be no DOS, Win9x, or Win ME running under Virtual PC on 64-bit Windows since all of those offer 16-bit support as a part of the OS. Linux and BeOS, however, do support running 16-bit software on the 64-bit software when it is in long mode so perhaps a future linux 64-bit virtual pc will be able to support running Windows 9x. Now *that* would be ironic.

    Why does this even matter? Well, there is a lot of 32-bit Windows software that uses 16-bit installers, for one example. Obviously none of that will install on 64-bit Windows. More importantly, enterprise sites use a lot of legacy software developed over many years that they will not just drop. Linux actually offers a better migration path to move to 64-bit while supporting legacy software than Windows does.

    The driver situation is also a problem. Yes, new hardware will have 64-bit drivers but most existing hardware will not, especially peripherals.

  145. Re:cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you are running a version of Microsoft's Windows that supports it and have 4GB of ram, try the /3GB switch in Boot.ini, your app can then access 3 gig of ram and the kernel is limited to only 1 GB.

  146. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean "english". Whatever the yanks have certainly ain't "english". I recall Al Bundy saying that he speaks "american".

  147. Re:cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you do realize that photoshop is completely the wrong app for layout like that, right? and a gig file in photoshop i can't even fathom what you would be working on. retouching satelite photos of the entire earth maybe? I think the original poster needs to seriously reconsider his working methods. You should never even approach 1 gig files. In all likelihood, he is using the wrong app. He needs illustrator or pagemaker or some such.

    and since when do people layout magazine typography as a bitmap in photoshop? seriously.. learn at least a little about graphic design methods.

  148. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by evilviper · · Score: 1
    There were and are no third party apps compiled for NT4Alpha.

    You're overstating it. While there was only a fraction as much 3rd party software available as AXP binaries compared to x86, there was still quite a bit. You might not be able to find programs like Bonzai Buddy for Alpha, but any company that made enterprise-level software (database, antivirus, network management, etc) had AXP versions of their software for sale along side their x86 binaries.

    Remember, in the early days, it looked like DEC Alpha could possibly overtake Intel x86 as THE computer platform, so just about every company was providing AXP versions of their products to be ready, just in case DEC quickly took over the world :-)

    Even today, there are still versions of Diskeeper for NT4 on Alpha (and PPC!). And programs like Putty and InfoZip have up-to-date AXP binaries available.
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  149. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny. I didn't even think Intel had a 64-bit (amd64 compatable) chip for sale yet ... where can you get a system like this (and why would you bother paying more for something that might be amd64 compatable?)

  150. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by andreyw · · Score: 1

    Interesting trivia...

    The northbridge-CPU bus used on the Athlon is the EV6 bus... hailing from the EV6 DEC Alpha CPU.

  151. I've been waiting two years... where is it? by bwoodring · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen a blue screen or stop error in Windows XP in the two years I've been running it.

  152. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by andreyw · · Score: 1

    Yeah.. Windows XP 32-bit edition has a "WINE" of sorts. Its called WoW. Yes, it works the same way as Wine. And they omitted it in XP 64-bit.

  153. Selling 64 bits is like selling the hydrogen car by expro · · Score: 1

    It has been some years ago, but I saw both WordPerfect and Corel Draw running well on NT on Alpha at CeBit in Hanover. So what?

    NT was a 32-bit operation, even on Alpha. VMS and Unix, on the other hand, supported real 64-bit applications, memory management, etc. at the time. Then and now, I couldn't care less about Windows running on the hardware because there was no discernable difference in the products for all the effort (at the time I still occasionally ran Windows so I might have cared, which I do not today).

    Selling 64 bits was/is like selling the hydrogen car. It is of significant value, but getting the masses to move requires considerable compatibility with the existing infrastructure, and most will judge it on criteria of not what it could be but how well it runs their existing apps.

  154. Looks aren't everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and actually looks like a stable OS.

    Looks aren't everything. A whore may be a beautiful woman but she's still a whore.

  155. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by MtViewGuy · · Score: 1

    Intel has already sold 10x the number of x86-64 parts. AMD needs to "catch up".

    Care to enlighten me which Intel CPU's run x86-64 instructions outside of a few Xeon models?

  156. What about viruses? by wannabgeek · · Score: 0

    Are they totally portable? Or will I have to write a separate 64-bit version? ;-)

    --
    I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
  157. Re:spelling it like that by sepluv · · Score: 1

    I agree with parent; and, if you want to make it clear that you are not talking about windows, use Microsoft Windows (or MSW for short) which is its official name.

    --
    Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
    [This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
  158. blame the user, eh? by twitter · · Score: 1
    If your XP and 2000 machines can't go past 3 days, that's sad. No really, I wonder what you do that makes them go under so fast.

    I did nothing to them. Really, nothing but my job and let the support staff at both companies deal with it. I did install Mozilla, which you would think helped. Other than that, zippo and they both got flaky.

    Now the funny thing is that, like you, at home my Linux runtimes are much better. Woody and Sarge last longer than my electricity. Even Experimental and unstable stay up for months if I don't swap out kernels. It works like that on boxes that I've cobbled together myself, sometimes litterally from other people's garbage. These machines perform all of my computing tasks, from compiling to spam filtering and they do it all with free software.

    And XP is NOT as buggy as Windows 3.1. I doubt you ever used 3.1 then if you can say THAT with a straight face.

    I administered Windows 3.1 as part of a job for two years. They were connedted directly to the internet and were no worse than any modern Microsoft junk. Windows 3.1 was on the second computer I owned personally. Dos, 3.1, 95, 98, XP and 2000, that makes four upgrade train steps I've seen. Since DOS, the overall quality and usefulness of Microsoft operating systems has remained constant. A Dell bought today will be bundled with software that does exactly the same thing as the 486 I bought from them in 1993, and it won't do it much faster. I still have a copy of that 1993 software on a not much newer computer, just for kicks. I'm working on running it in Bosch.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  159. Re:cool by Audacious · · Score: 1

    I know what you mean. When we worked on an IMAX film we had to break the images up into 4096x4096 parts in order to get the larger 19Kx19K sized images. We too, were limited by the OS's ability to ramp up past 2GBs in both memory as well as disk drive files.

    The thing is - we now can do those huge films with ease because of the work done at IBM as well as at SGI. Their filing enhancements (and ext3) allow us to have huge files. The memory problem though - still exists.

    As others have pointed out - Windows XP should handle these problems (although the disk drive problem of not really removing the directory entries will bite you sooner or later [and for evreyone out there I will try to find the SGI white paper on the problems of Windows XP's disk drive NTFS methodology]).

    Anyway, gotta run!

    --
    Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke. :-)
  160. Re:I've been using it...try 64-bit POVRay by bungeejumper · · Score: 1

    Try the 64-bit version of POVRay and run the benchmark suite...compare the time with the 32-bit version of POVRay.

  161. Re:cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    actually, you can change the limit from 2gb to 3gb, the feature has been available to windows nt 4 and newer, see http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/serv er/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

  162. Re:Win XP 64-bits is a waste of your time and mone by Kymermosst · · Score: 1

    2) AMD deserves the credit for killing 16bit, not MS.

    Maybe some of the credit, but Microsoft still could have supported the code, as you pointed out, through full emulation. They are clearly willing to do this to support 32-bit software because they have implemented full emulation for 32-bit code in 64-bit Intel processors that don't include a 32-bit compatibility mode.

    Historically, M$ has bent over backwards to provide legacy support. This is a definite change for them. No matter, as I pointed out in another post, a full Pentium emulator is available to anyone who needs to run 16-bit code (or any 32-bit code that doesn't seem to work on AMD64).

    If there is truly a need to run software that old on AMD64, it can be done.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  163. Re:Useless - no 16-bit subsystem for DOS applicati by Kymermosst · · Score: 1

    Well, when you upgrade to 64-bit, it sounds like Bochs might be something you'll be interested in.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  164. Re:cool by convolvatron · · Score: 1

    um. do you realize how many bytes you can address with a 64 bit pointer? unless i screwed up my arithmetic, you can allocate a 8 byte quantity every nanosecond and still not run out of virtual address space for more than 70 years. good luck buying that much physical memory (a small number of exobytes)

  165. Have you tried a G5? (Re:cool) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I may be completely wrong here but couldn't you do your Photoshop work with a PowerMac G5? I believe the RAM limit is 8GB and Photoshop is available as a 64 bit aware Mac OSX app.

  166. Re:cool by ckaminski · · Score: 1

    I don't need that much memory. Just be able to use a fraction thereof. Once upon a time, 32bits was enough for me. But my computers now have 2GB of ram and 3 GBs of swap, and I routinely eat into my swap file.

    I'd be happy right now with process space around 4 GBs, but Windows and Linux reserve at least 1GB for themselves (Windows reserves 2GB - why the hell that decision was made still boggles my mind).

  167. Re:cool by ckaminski · · Score: 1

    It may indeed be, but I was forced into it quite by surprise and photoshop was indeed all I am familiar with. We do catalog layout, package design, and almost post-sized prints of our catalog pages.

    Then I tried using it as a layout tool for my patio stones. That's when I busted a GB. :-)

    Methods are methods. Like all things in business, sir, it's the end result that counts. Someday, maybe I'll learn Illustrator and Pagemaker.

  168. Re:Dual Booting Linux & Windows in 64bit by Dahan · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I know what it was meant to be... but using an ASCII representation of a company's logo in a piece of writing, rather than the company's name (Digital Equipment Corporation), or a commonly-used abbreviation (Digital or DEC), is silly. Not that there's anything wrong with being silly... but then when it's done wrong, that silliness turns into stupidity. The old DEC logo is lowercase. If IcarusMoth really had an Alpha, perhaps he could've looked at the logo on the case and gotten it right.

  169. Re:cool by Raunch · · Score: 1

    In other news, my drill works very poorly as a toothpick, and my hand makes a bad hammer.

    If the tool for doesn't work, it does not nessecarily follow that the tool needs to be redesigned. There are lots of good reasons to go to 64bit, but "the ability to layout my patio in photoshop" is *not* one of them.

    --
    George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
  170. Bitrot by cortana · · Score: 1

    > "actually looks like a stable OS."

    Surely you can't make that judgement without having it installed and in daily use for at least six months. The bit rot has not had time to set in, the reviewer's machine probably didn't even get to Cruft Factor 1.