Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64 Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64BIT Edition 1 - OEM

For a while now I have know about Microsft releasing their 64bit verson but never really
read anything about it and or hird about it.

From the rateings and etc it seams like a reallly cool OS. And all of the reviews are really
good but what do you guys think?



Also does anyone have this OS? And if so do you guys like it? and do you use it as
a duel boot?



thanks,

I just installed it today after my old HD died on me. I like it so far, it seems a little bit more responsive than 32-bit, and this is on a slower hard drive (temporarily). It was a bit of a pain to get the catalyst 5.5s working on my mobility 9600, but after that, everything worked fine. Only the videocard and 56k were not detected out of the box (and I don't use the modem anyway). I'm going to install the realtek 64bit and synaptics touchpad 64bit drivers any second now.

My firefox worked perfectly after a little restart action (don't know why, but it took about 5 restarts for all of my plugins to all work correctly). Emule works, but I haven't been able to connect to kad yet. Codec packs worked, nero worked, Winrar worked, but needed some context menu tweaking (add to archive not visible yet), and gaim worked.

I might get norton corporate 10 to try before nod64 comes out, and I hear outpost firewall doesn't work either.

It looks just like xp32, but has 64 bit capability. There is also a very minor bug, when you delete IE favorites with the don't send deleted files to recyclye bin option on, they go to the recycle bin anyway. It was a pain when I removed the recycle bin from my desktop and realized that.

There are a lot of threads on Win64 already if you want more info.

Since Friday,I have a dual boot with WinXP Pro and Win XP 64bit. It works just fine, and setup works almost identically with WinXP.

32-bit software will install and run in Win 64.

You do need hardware drivers.

The first thing I installed was Far Cry for Win 64. It runs great. However, I really can't tell the difference in PQ. Although play performance was better.

I want to add another 1GB memory to see if there is a performance increase.

I think the tech review sites which have been doing the comparisons between Far Cry 32bit in Win 32 and Win 64, and Far Cry 64bit in Win 64 have gone about all wrong.

Win 64bit allegedly handles large amounts of memory better than Win 32bit. So, why are they comparing Far Cry in a setup with only 1GB memory?

I say, bump up the memory to the max that the motherboard can handle (4 GB for example), and then compare the performance of Far Cry in Win 32 with Win64.

It's not all about the memory however. The 64-bit capability also adds 8 all purpose registers which doubles the current count. This is where the main performance boost will come from. And if the reviewers did bump up the memory to 4GB. First, most people don't have that much, making it a bad real world test. And second, FarCry was designed to run on modern day computers. It should fit just fine on a 1GB of memory or 2GB of memory system.

Like the original poster, I'm interested in knowing if its worth the investment to upgrade. I used WXP 64bit RC1 for a while, but tossed it when there wasn't any support out of ATi for the vidcard drivers, etc. Since its out retail now, I'm wondering if its ready out of the box.

Some of the applications I use are:

Macromedia Suite 2004 (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, etc...)
Office 2003 Pro (I'm sure this is gonna be fine...)
Frontpage 2002
SwishMax
Nero 6 Suite
Sony Movie Studio + DVD

Of course I game as well - Far Cry, UT2004, BF1942 & Mods, HL2, Brothers in Arms, Etc...

If you guys know of any of this that will or *won't * work, then any input and feedback would be appreciated.

Ax

serbiaNem said:

It's not all about the memory however. The 64-bit capability also adds 8 all purpose registers which doubles the current count. This is where the main performance boost will come from. And if the reviewers did bump up the memory to 4GB. First, most people don't have that much, making it a bad real world test. And second, FarCry was designed to run on modern day computers. It should fit just fine on a 1GB of memory or 2GB of memory system.

Click to expand...

I agree that real world use does not involve 4GB memory. But, still I'd like to see if there would be a significant difference.

Who knows? By this time next year, 2GB memory may be typical in performance systems. Last year, 512MB was a lot of memory.

Besides, a lot of folks playing on the top edge might pony up for 4GB memory if it means a significant performance boost.

Has anyone here taken advantage of the MS Technology Advancement program, where you exchange your 32 bit version of Windows XP Pro for the 64 bit version? If so, was there a cost involved, or any other SNAFU's that the rest of us need to be aware of? I was very much thinking of doing this, but I'm unsure as there is no cost posted, yet the registration info page asks for credit card info.

Thanks in advance...

Ax

the trade in program costs $12 for shipping.
I have 8 in "pending" status still, 1.5 weeks

xp64 isn't a true 64-bit operating system. Microsoft decided they were going to try to change the 10 year old 64-bit industry standard data-types by keeping longs 32-bit as opposed to every other 64-bit operating system which uses 64-bit longs.

I just installed xp64... imho its slower than xp32, granted I am running it from a MUCH slower harddrive than my xp32, it feels slower when its not accessing the hard drive. IE does feel faster tho. Anyways only been running it for past 30min

Update:
Turned off disk compression, its quite a bit snappyer now, but xp32 is still faster, might just be DEP now (I disabled that in xp32 for a speedboost). 64bit firefox is just as fast as 64bit IE http://www.mozilla-x86-64.com/download.html