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Microsoft to Launch 64-bit Windows on Monday

maotx writes "Several news outlets are reporting that Microsoft will officially roll out 64-bit versions of its Windows operating systems on Monday. As compared with existing 32-bit versions: 64-bit Windows will handle 16 terabytes of virtual memory, as compared to 4 GB for 32-bit Windows. System cache size jumps from 1 GB to 1 TB, and paging-file size increases from 16 TB to 512 TB."

13 of 484 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are there any 32-bit-only OSes left worth menti by taskforce · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mmm... well sort of. AFAIK, Tiger isn't fully 64bit. The only thing that is 64 bit in Tiger is its support for 64 memory for POSIX based apps...(Command line apps; server daemons and such) Tigers kernel will reside in 32 bit address space so that it can still run on the G3 and G4. XPx64 is fully 64 and as such can only run on the x64 architecture and is by no mean a patch up job.

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  2. Re:Are there any 32-bit-only OSes left worth menti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    This isn't the first version of 64-bit Windows; it's the first x86 64-bit version.

    64-bit Windows has been available for Itanium for several years now.

  3. Not 64-bit, just x64 editions by cyberjessy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The submission is absolutely misleading.

    Windows Server 2003 has supported 64-bits (Enterprise Edition and Datacenter edition) since its launch on IA64(Itanium). Before that, they also had 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 Server.

    Windows XP Professional also had a 64-bit version since 2003, again running on the Itanium. However, XP on Itanium was discontinued as no one was using it outside MS testing labs.

    Whats gonna be launched are x64 editions of XP and 2003 Server.

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  4. Re:32-bit Windows != 4 GB memory by Ann+Elk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, I believe that's why the summary states "64-bit Windows will handle 16 terabytes of virtual memory, as compared to 4 GB for 32-bit Windows."

  5. Re:still a 32-bit file system? by BlacBaron · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't know what you're problem is but I have Windows 2000, and using NTFS i've got some files that are over 8gb.

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  6. Re:It has been out in beta for a while by NetNifty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ignore other post without paragraphs.

    I'm not the original poster, but I'm running XP x64 RC2 and have had problems with Nero (asks for enterprise key just to run, then it works fine), printer drivers for Canon IP2000 (although driver problems are expected, and the built in BJC-8000 drivers work fine for printing, have to hook it up to 32-bit Windows machine to do head cleaning etc), ZoneAlarm doesn't install (although Tiny has a 64-bit Windows firewall available now), a few motherboard utils for my A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard won't run (but 64 bit versions seem to be appearing), Doom 3 and some other software complains when installing - but editing the MSI file, or running in Windows XP compatiblity mode to get around this usually lets it install and run fine. Had a problem with GetRight crashing so switched to Free Download Manager (shared internet connection so really need the speed capping), haven't tried any BitTorrent apps (hacked together an app which passes torrents to my laptop) but presumably will have same problem as 32-bit SP2 - initialising socket caps.

    Apart from my printer, all my hardware works fine (A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, NVIDIA 6600GT PCI-Express graphics card, 1GB Crucial PC4000 RAM, 200GB Maxtor Diamondmax 10 SATA HD, 120GB Maxtor Diamondmax 9 ATA133 HD, NFORCE4 onboard sound, NEC ND-3500 DVD burner, and some other generic 8x DVD reader), although it can be a big sluggish when copying large files from/to HD I think that's down to drivers rather than anything else.

    Using Firefox 1.0.3 for browsing, Media Player Classic 6.4.8.2 for video, Winamp 5 for music and never had any problems with them, so don't know what poster above is talking about unless is using a very early build (used 1218 previously and only had same issues as I do now - only difference I noticed was upgraded Windows apps - IE got SP2'd with popup blocker, Solitair is 64-bit etc).

  7. Re:Third party apps by pershino · · Score: 4, Informative

    I run gentoo on AMD64 which has 32-bit compatibility modules which allow running 32-bit apps without the need to chroot. Gentoo's portage also provides 32-bit binary versions of Firefox, Flash player and OpenOffice, amongst others. All works perfectly. Surely other distros do the same?

  8. Re:still a 32-bit file system? by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 5, Informative

    Uhh.. NTFS has always been a 64 bit filesystem. FAT is 32 bit and only supports 2GB files.

    Also, many C based apps only use a 32 bit file pointer, so that could be your problem as well.

  9. Fat Binaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not true. The system is based on Fat Binaries. These allow an executable package to contain code for multiple platforms. Theoretically, you could put versions of the same application for NextStep MC68K, OpenStep, OSX 32, OSX 64, Darwin x86 and several others in the same package and have it look like one program. Too big for you? Run lipo to remove versions you don't need. The whole system is based around this concept, allowing the OS to be fully 64bit on 64bit systems and fully 32bit on 32bit systems. Even XCode allows people on 32bit machines to design and compile applications for both platforms and release the compiled application in fat binary format.

  10. Re:Are there any 32-bit-only OSes left worth menti by Queer+Boy · · Score: 3, Informative
    Mmm... well sort of. AFAIK, Tiger isn't fully 64bit. The only thing that is 64 bit in Tiger is its support for 64 memory for POSIX based apps...

    The only real advantage 64-bit has over 32-bit for anyone outside of the supercomputing realm is the memory it can access. ALL applications in Tiger can access 64-bit memory if they are written for it meaning the backend is not written for Cocoa but for Darwin. BTW, Darwin is different than POSIX.

    The true genius of Apple is that the data model for Tiger is LP64 which means source for Linux, SGI and Sun is easy to port to the G5 with Tiger.

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  11. Re:what, only 16TB? by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... arrg I was gonna mod in this discussion... but ...

    "long long" is eight bytes on __x86_64__ platforms [e.g. AMD64 with GCC].

    long long is also C99 compatible and has been available in GCC and most unix cc's for a very long time.

    Tom

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  12. Re:Third party apps by jdmuir · · Score: 4, Informative
    • I miss things a lot of the little things (like the flash plugin) that were never compiled for a 64 bit system.

    Run the 32-bit version of Firefox all of your plugins will start working again.

  13. Re:what, only 16TB? by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 4, Informative
    Well, if you need an int of a particular size, you need to typedef yourself a compiler/platform specific one anyway; this has always been that way.
    For C99-compliant compilers (and gcc), there is <stdint.h> which defines:
    int{N}_t uint{N}_t
    int_least{N}_t uint_least{N}_t
    int_fast{N}_t uint_fast{N}_t
    intptr_t uintptr_t
    intmax_t uintmax_t
    INT{N}_MIN INT{N}_MAX UINT{N}_MAX
    INT_LEAST{N}_MIN INT_LEAST{N}_MAX
    UINT_LEAST{N}_MAX
    INT_FAST{N}_MIN INT_FAST{N}_MAX UINT_FAST{N}_MAX
    INTPTR_MIN INTPTR_MAX UINTPTR_MAX
    INTMAX_MIN INTMAX_MAX UINTMAX_MAX
    PTRDIFF_MIN PTRDIFF_MAX
    SIG_ATOMIC_MIN SIG_ATOMIC_MAX
    SIZE_MAX WCHAR_MIN WCHAR_MAX WINT_MIN WINT_MAX
    INT{N}_C(value) UINT{N}_C(value)
    INTMAX_C(value) UINTMAX_C(value)
    Where {N} can be 8, 16, 32, and, if supported, 64

    As somebody else noted, c99 also supports long long. Of course older compilers don't have stdint.h. I don't think Microsoft C does either, although I don't have the latest version.