RSSWindows XP x64 Edition Reaches RC2
By Nate Mook | Published February 9, 2005, 9:06 AM
Closing in on a scheduled April release, Microsoft has delivered to beta testers Release Candidate 2 of Windows XP x64 Edition, along with RC2 of Windows Server 2003 SP1. A new addition to the Windows family, x64 is designed to operate with the AMD Athlon 64 and Opteron processors, as well as the Intel processors with EM64T.
"This is our second major milestone and highest quality release to date for the beta," Microsoft beta coordinators wrote in an e-mail to testers. "However, please keep in mind that it is not final release quality and you should limit your installations to test machines."
Windows XP x64 Edition RC2, numbered build 1433, is available on WindowsBeta to registered testers. Non-testers, however, can download older RC1 build 1289 free of charge via Microsoft's consumer preview program.
For Windows Server 2003 SP1, which provides the underpinnings for the company's upcoming 64-bit Windows Server line, Microsoft has included a "Security Configuration Wizard" to protect systems from attacks.
RC2 includes a number of improvements to SCW such as a completely new firewall, automatic port detection, additional server role definitions, as well as complete command line support. SCW is installed separately from Windows Server 2003 SP1 through the Add\Remove Windows Components dialog.
Microsoft is expected to soon begin accepting hardware device submissions for its "Designed for Windows" logo program that cover x64 Editions of its operating systems.
The big advantage to 64-bit cpu and OS is being able to exceed 4-gigs of RAM.
Since most users have only a half-gig of RAM, and having a whole gig puts you in the top 3% of personal computer users, having a 64-bit machine capable of running >4-gigs is sort of pointless.
How many people are going to put over $1,000 of RAM into a PC which PC probably didn't cost them much more than $1,000 ?
The DataRat
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|Having support for large amounts of memory is big adventage, but not the only one. For example with Windows XP x64 you get access to twice as much (and twice as long) general registers on CPU (kind of like an extremely fast memory on CPU). So this can speed up all current apps. If you need a lot of math with long numbers this also helps. If the number is longer then 32 bits so it can't fit into registers and 32bit CPU can't work on such numbers in one step it slows this down. And with 64-bit CPU and long registers this can now be done in one step and so it is again faster. Microsoft has also improved memory management quite a bit in Windows XP x64. So as you see there are also q number of other advantages and there will be even more in the future especialy when 64-bit apps come out. If you don't believe take a look at some almost completely 64-bit Linux distribution. For example Gentoo Linux where you can compile the whole OS and almost all the apps in 64-bits and optimized for AMD64 CPUs.
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|coming from ms that releases beta level products as GA this means nothing. High quality to ms means that by and large the computer doesnt die in the 1st 15 minutes.
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|I tried out the xp 64-bit rc2. Unlike the last time I tried it it was easier to get drivers for everything this time around. However there's just one tiny catch. There is absolutely NO 16-bit support in the 64-bit OS. I can understand the reason to begin fasing out 16-bit applications, but there are still ALOT of setup programs using 16-bit exe files. Atleast they could have implemented some kind of emulation.
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|I'm runing Windows XP for AMD64 build 1289 for quite some time now on my AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and for most things it is as fast or even faster then 32bit version. One big exception are games which highly depend on good drivers (especialy for graphics) and this are currently still not ready performance wise. So if you have one of supported CPUs I highly recommend this, unless you are mostly playing games. Too bad there is not so many 64-bit Windows apps as there are for Linux (almost all Linux ones can be compiled in 64-bit thanks to open source code). But I guess this will change quickly when the final version of Windows XP for AMD64 gets out. And then we will get even more preformance which we can now only get if runing Linux.
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|Don't worry about the processor, just see what the 3rd party show for the 64-bit windows applications? I still could not get any 64-bit AP.
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|How do you go about finding if your processor is a 64 bit?
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|If you're not sure, I highly doubt you do. But, go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Performance And Maintenance -> System and it'll show you in the system properties which processor you're using.
Has anyone used this? I have the AMD 64 3200, and was wondering if there's any noticeable performance difference.
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|the latest 1289 for xp64 was a significant improvement over the previous, I believe 1218, so I guess this next one will be worthwhile...I run a amd 64 3400+ and compared to the 32bit xp it surely outperforms it so its all worth the wait...
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|What????? surely you brought the PC?
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|Not strictly true, in the case of Intel CPU's E stepping Prescott Pentium 4's are 32bit F stepping are 64bit. Use something like CPU-Z to find out the stepping and CPU capabilities..
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|generally you can go by the proccesor that you have. all amd 64's can do 64 bit. some xeons. it is extremely rare to find a 64 bit pentium at the moment they only come in ibm servers. if you have an amd xp,p4,p3,p2,p1,duron,sempron you cannot make use of 64 bit windows.
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