The Current State of Windows XP x64?

[shableep]

Just about to put together a computer with 4gigs of ram and wanted to squeeze out use of all 4gigs. Also want to make use of 64-bit use of large files. The last time I tried out x64, it seemed like a slapped together side project that didn't get much attention from developers (that was around 2005).

I've looked around the net for a pretty good, up to date analysis of the state of x64 these days and couldn't really find anything. So, I'm wondering... are any of you guys running a pretty successful install of x64? Any pros and cons?

Thanks for any info/help!

 

[BeakerUK]

It's fine, all major hardware and software will work with it, except Creative seem to be incapable of writing a driver that isn't gash. That can be fixed with a little googling.

I Use XP64 on my desktop and laptop, both rather different hardware as well. Never had any issues, but in 2005 you would have had MAJOR issues.

 

[Ijack]

I'll second that. I've been running XP64 for years with no problems other than the occasional bit of hardware or software that it doesn't like. (Mainly old hardware that probably wouldn't work in Vista either; the problematic software is generally low-level stuff and it's never too difficult to find alternatives.)

Having said that, if I was starting from scratch now I'd probably go for Vista 64-bit and follow the various suggestions for cutting the fat out of it. Only because I doubt that people are taking too much trouble to write XP64 drivers for new hardware. From what I read the problems with Vista are not really the OS itself but the bloat that comes with it. You can make a very fine system using Server 2008, which is the same basic core OS, but it's an expensive solution.

 

[shableep]

Awesome. Thanks for the info, guys. Sounds like I'm gonna go with XP64.

I did actually run into the Server 2008 option when I was searching around. But, exactly... pretty expensive solution. As far as Vista, if I run into too many problems with XP64, I'll probably reluctantly try Vista64.

Looks like as long as I don't use USB Wifi, I should be alright.

Thanks again.