Vista 64 Bit

I've fairly certain that I'm going to go with the 64 bit version for the express upgrade I get with my Asis A8Js. But i've been wondering about a few things and can't seem to find th answers online from the usual sources. I know some of you have had the opportunity to get hold of the business release of Vista and may be able to answer a few questions.

1. Will Windows Media Player be a 64 application?
2. Will all of the other add-on programs that come with it be 64 bit applications?
3. Will Office 2007 be released as a 64 bit version?
4 What about anti-virus support?
5. How does it handle memory allocation for 32 bit programs? In particular, multimedia programs that eat lots of memory.

I know support and the learning curve will make running Vista X64 difficult but I will always have XP to boot into for production work. X64 will be a more of a hobby/learning experience.

Thanks to all of you early adopters for your help.

 

What do you mean. They're handled the same way as usual.

I can't answer the others though, but do you really need a 64-bit version of Office?

 

1. No, Windows Media player is a 32-bit app in Vista final. Some early betas used a 64-bit version, but that required all new 64-bit codecs to function.
2. Definitely not. Do you need 64-bit solitaire?
3. Office 2007 detects a 64-bit OS and installs certain 64-bit specific files on those systems.
4. Anti-virus support right now isn't phenomenal. I'm using Symantec Anti-virus Corporate under Vista x64 -- works great. Right now the choices are fairly limited.
5. Not sure what you mean. 32-bit apps can access the same amount of RAM they could under 32-bit Windows. They are (mostly) unaware of the 64-bit OS.

 

WRT program memory access, I understand that the same barrior will be there for 32 bit programs, but I guess I was wondering if the memory would be managed more efficiently, say allocate 4 gig of ram for each running 32 bit program (if you were on a computer with much more than 4 gig of ram).

WRT why would I need 64 bit office or solitare: Well, I can't say that I would, but I remember asking why the heck should I upgrade to a 386 processor. And I really remember the compatibility nightmares of trying to run 16 bit programs on the first 32 bit operating systems. 32 Bit windows wasn't even feasable for most folks until windows 2000. You used to have a choice of running a stable OS that caused programs to crash or run a buggy OS that crashed several times a day.

I say give me DOS 3.2, Wordperfect 4 and lotus 123 and I'm good to go. If I can just get the IRQs right on my com ports.........and what do I do with that RAM above 640K????.....Green or Yellow monitor???

 

Programs get as much memory allocated as they request. No more, no less. If a 32-bit app requests 2GB of memory, it will either get 2GB of memory, or crash.

And since no 32-bit program requests more memory than a 32-bit OS can give them, there's nothing to be gained by a 64-bit OS giving them more memory. They can't use it.

btw, the jump from 16 to 32 bit was very different, because on top of the "bit-ness" change, you also went from "no OS" to "a regular OS".
In 16-bit-mode, the CPU had no distinction between user and kernel mode, no virtual memory, no privileged instructions, none of the features that make an OS, and multitasking, possible. In DOS (or anything that ran under 16-bit), whatever process you were running had direct access to all hardware, and to the physical memory. Games often overwrote DOS itself, in order to maximise available memory.

Under an OS, you can't do that, because virtual memory ensures you don't go outside the memory allocated to you.

That also means 16-bit software was horrible quality. Constantly messing about with unallocated memory, reading out of bounds and doing everything an OS won't allow you to do. So when they had to run under an OS? Crashes everywhere... (Windows actually emulates a lot of these flaws on a per-application basis. The original SimCity has its own registry entry, allowing the OS to recognize it and keep the game from crashing)

But you won't have to worry about a similar situation going from 32 to 64 bit.

 

Jalf - All very good points. Thanks. When you think about it, why did it take 10 years for programmers and users to take 32 bit seriously? Hopefully the move to 64 bit will only take half as long.

 

Because any change that leave part of the userbase out in the cold takes ages to take effect. No one wanted to write 32-bit software when 50% of the market could only run 16 bit... And that's the same problem we have now. The vast majority are still running 32 bit OS'es, so where's the incitement for developers to switch to 64 bit?

But because the improvements from 32 to 64 bit are smaller, I suspect the transition might be slower, not faster... But we can always hope...