WindowsXP 64-bit edition

[TheAngryIntern]

Ok, so now that 64bit edition is out, who's gonna jump on it and give us a review???? I tried the downloadable beta version a couple of months ago, shortly after i got an AMD64 system. There were pretty much no drivers available, i.e. I couldn't use the onboard raid on my mobo cuz i couldn't find 64bit drivers. most 32bit drivers did work though, or just installing the server2k3 drivers seemed to be ok. One thing i did notice was that windows loaded up SUPER fast, the fastest boot from cold i've seen to date from a window operating system. I have an OEM copy of XP pro and i think i might try to do the technology advancement offer M$ is having where you trade in your old license and for $12 s/h they send you a new copy of 64bit edition. Hopefully there will be some drivers available.

[stupot42]

I may give it a go. :D I'll have to look into it when I've got a bit more time.

[arogan]

drivers:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
http://preview.creativelabs.com/default.aspx

That should cover the basics for audio and video. Also, nvidia has a stand alone nforce4 x64 driver package.

free anti virus that is x64 compatible:
http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html

Installed it on a 2nd hard drive on my new rig.
FINAL x64 RTM.
- install went just fine. Since it couldn't see my raid drives it made my secondary stand alone drive as c: and the unkown raid drives as d:. To boot x64 I just hit escape during post and it brings up a boot menu. I just select the maxtor drive and away I go. It's very convenient.
- This is on an ancient 80gb maxtor 5400 rpm drive using a SATA adapter.
- Installed beta drivers for everything: ati, audigy 2zs, nforce 4.
ATI was a pain to install. Running setup would cause a BSOD every time. I ended up just letting it auto detect the HW and point to the inf file. After it installed drivers that way I was able to run setup and get the control panel to install.
- Installed far cry and the two x64 patches. It ran ok with 2 lockups in a 3 hour period. hardocp reported two lockups while testing with the ati card. They believe it has something to do with the nforce 4 beta drivers because one of the known issues is random lockups.
- 3dmark01: 27000. This is actually faster than regular windows xp.

Overall, interesting to play around with, drivers are WAY too immature to make it your primary os.

[Mazaev]

Installed x64 on a computer I was building for someone last week. No problems during install. No problems installing nForce or ATI drivers either except that the network card didn't work initially so I had to burn a CD with the drivers.

None of the utilities that came on the motherboard CD (Gygabyte) worked. Some very old Windows apps have me an error about "the setup.exe file is valid but is not for this operating system" when trying to install.

Used ClamAV for antivirus and had no problems either.

Otherwise, it runs like a champ. No support calls yet.