Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
So, what OS does it look like now?