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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."
Seems kind of funny after the whole NT on Alpha death microsoft induced. Now this should be the final blow (thankfully) for the UnObtanium.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
Live web cams
Er, I meant pictures.
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.
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?
"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
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.
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...
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*
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For great justice move sig
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.
MS Buys /.!
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.
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.
Two pro-MS summaries on /. in one day?
Satan is putting the snow chains on his SUV as we speak.
Of course it doesn't.
You need to spell it Windoze.
The 'z' makes you really credible.
... 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.
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.
.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).
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
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!
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!
Boxing Equipment Reviews
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.
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.
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".
"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".
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.
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.
And now the Alpha is dead.
Post tenebras lux. Post fenestras tux.
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.
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)
So, what OS does it look like now?
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.
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.
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.