So XP-64 has finally headed off to manufacturing (along with Windows 2003 Server SP-1) and will hit store shelves in about three weeks (aka: late April.) But what does that mean?
The good news is that you won't have to throw away your exisiting software. Windows XP-64 uses an emulator called Windows on Windows (or WOW for short). Hint to the naive: Anything called WOW is not going to wow you. So now Windows has a DOS emulator, I believe a 16 bit emulator, and now a 32 bit version. Wonder what that means for performance?
"Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition provide customers with "increased performance, reliability and security while providing the versatility to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, enabling them to move to 64-bit computing at their own pace," Microsoft said in a statement. According to the manufacturer, users will see performance improvements of up to 35 percent with native 64-bit applications, if compared to their 32-bit versions. 32-bit software running under Windows x64 are likely to see no speed increase." Source: Tom's Hardware Guide
I've just recently installed Release Candidate 2 of Windows XP Professional 64-bit on my Athlon 64 and there are a few things I've noticed:
1) It's quicker running than Windows XP 32-bit (probably due to better memory management).
2) Driver support is absolutely horrible and unacceptable. If you don't mind not being able to use your printer, possibly your sound card, and maybe other less-ubiquitous hardware like your wireless network adapter this may not be a problem, but for regular desktop use it's definitely not ready from prime-time.
3) There is hardly any 64-bit software (a 64-bit version of IE doesn't really impress me much), though 32-bit software runs at the same speed as XP-32.
That's about it. I do really like the OS, I just think that it's currently plagued by the same problems Linux has with hardware support. Hopefully companies will release drivers for XP-64 now that it's so close to coming out.
Early adopters almost always get burned. Remember people, this isn't an "upgrade" it's a whole new OS! OK, 1/2 new OS. I see no compelling reasons for people to run out and buy this, unless they're running a server, but then, they'd be smarter to use Linux.
I just wish that Linux supported software RAID solutions like my nForce4 RAID controller. I'd definitely be running both if it did, but as of now it's more important for me to have the faster hard driver performance in Windows (and yes, I know you can do software RAID in Linux but I don't want to bother trying to figure that out).
So XP-64 has finally headed off to manufacturing (along with Windows 2003 Server SP-1) and will hit store shelves in about three weeks (aka: late April.) But what does that mean?