Microsoft XP64 Bit Drivers, Beta and Availability . . .

[CaptnKirk]

harrkev -

1) My estimation is that it will be sometime after Holloween - but before Thanksgiving
as the commercial computer sales market prepares for the Christmas season sales.

2) 32 bit drivers work on the 32 bit side of the operating system, 64 bit drivers on the other.
In other words, you need a 'Dual Boot' system - I have made one with 2 hard drives & set
them up as hard drive dedicated on separate partritions on each drive.

When I start the system I have the choice of which one I want to start.
If I do not select the 32 bit to start, the 64 bit will auto-start in 30 seconds.

3) The 32 bit works wonderfully on the AMD systems - extremely fast and stable.
The processor is made (by default) to operate with a 32 bit operating system (XP Home or Pro)
When the 64 bit is officially released, there should be an additional performance gain.

4) If you set up a computer with 2 hard drives, & install the XP Home or Pro on the 'C' drive
partition, and use a second hard drive (40GB or larger) and install the 64 bit versibn on it
you will have the dual boot system & should be good to go. As you do find drivers you can
use the 32 bit side to download the driver to the harddrive that runs the 64 bit system (Save),
then you can restart into the 64 bit start-up & run the driver installation there.
Little labor intensive, but it will slowly but slowly replace the functionality of the 32 bit side
as you obtain the drivers that correctly support the 64 bit capability - it's just a mater if time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the 'Anchor' to this thread there is a link to Microsoft that will get you a free copy of
the 64 bit operating system (without dedicated drivers) you only have to pay the shipping.
Then you can pick around within this thread and download the drivers that have been posted.
There are new releases every day or so, and many people have contributed their expertise
from trial and error, to bring us additional information - Join the party, you can help too.

 

[jkresh]

Wow, downloading now, estimate is less then 6 minutes, slightly over 1meg a second, pretty solid connection. Used to have msdn universal (let it lapse until the next solid release of visual studio), downloading xp when it first came out through msdn took quite a bit longer (same connection), guess there servers have improved (or nobody else is downloading now.)

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Pulled from PlanetAMD64

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello everyone!
Here is a posting, from the product manager for Windows XP64, Brian Marr, in the
microsoft.private.windowsserver_64bit newsgroup:


Hi Everyone -

My name is Brian Marr and I work in the Windows Client Product Management
Team - I am the product manager for Windows XP64, which means that I am
responsible for making the decisions that will affect how you get your hands
on the product (along with a few other things).

I've been reading these threads and wanted to clarify some things about
availability. Below is a summary of what we have planned. I hope this will
answer your questions.

BETA PROGRAMSz
Today we have a customer preview program, which it sounds as though most of
you have taken advantage of. I realize that we have a very old build out
there and I'm working with our release management team to get an update out
asap. I think you are going to be impressed by how much work our
development team has put into the OS since Beta 1 and look forward to
hearing your feedback on it.

There is also a technical beta program - my understanding is that we'll open
this back up again after XP SP2 ships. This is a great way to get builds
more often, but there are some requirements around filing bugs etc that
you'll be responsible for.

FINAL RELEASE
Now to the big question - what happens when this product releases? Here is
what we have planned:

1. The OS will be available on some new OEM PCs. No surprise there .
The OEMs are responsible for deciding which systems they want to support it
on.

2. The OS will be part of MSDN

3. The OS will be part of Software Assurance

4. The OS will be sold through System Builders and Distributors.
You can either purchase it pre-installed on a system builder PC or just
purchase the OS with some piece of hardware. As Darrell mentioned on
another thread, this can really be anything (a cable, for example). If your
system builder of choice wants to only sell it with high-end components, I'd
suggest finding a new place to buy your equipment.

5. There will not be a retail fully-packaged product.
I've read some interesting posts here where some of you sound angry because
we're not doing a retail box. This really surprises me - SB/Disti is the
easiest and least expensive way to get your new OS, especially if you build
your own PCs.

"EXISTING 64-BIT SYSTEMS..."
Finally - I am working on something that would let you trade your 32-bit XP
Pro license for 64-bit. Nothing final here... no details... but the point
is that we want to take care of the people who go out and buy or build x64
systems before we ship.

At the end of the day my colleagues and I work on this project for a
reason - we (you and I) are the people driving the transition into the next
phase in computing. Our job isn't to squeeze money from your pockets or
make this hard for you - we want to make it *very* easy.

Hopefully consolidating some of this info will help. If you have any other
questions about our plans, feel free to ask. If I can answer them, I will.
Have fun with the OS... I'm looking forward to organizing a friendly game of
64-bit UT04 pre-release with anyone interested sometime soon .

Brian
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[CaptnKirk]

Great bit of into - Thanks !

(he's known as 'YODA' back on his planet)

 

[ViRGE]

CapnKirk, a couple of things. First, you should probably remove your link to WinXP "updates", as it's basically pointless, since all the updates listed are for the Itanium version of WinXP; none of them can be installed on the AMD64 version. Secondly, for your experimental section, I hacked together a LAN driver for the KV8, which doesn't like the default 3c940 driver. It can be found here.

 

[dheffer]

Just installed winxp 64 bit
A lot easier than I thought on an sata hard drive
Got drivers for everything on my kv8, except for the built in audio, but ill prolly pick up an audigy
anyone know about those drivers?

anywho, easy install, just get drivers first, especially lan

 

[imported_nitrus]

awesome post, 64 bit for everyone~!

 

[Tal]

How is WinXP 64-bit working for those of you who got in on the new AMD 3200 / Asus deal through AMD? I installed and it seemed to work ok. Driver support for me was dissapointing as the Asus driver CD that came with the motherboard did not have a valid NIC or Sound driver to use. Any insight on how I should go about setting this up? My ATI FireGL was recognized and installed fine with the default XP drivers. (32-bit XP pro does not have these drivers) Thanks in advance. -Tal

 

[Kilrsat]

I just wanted to add a little note.

For anyone with an IBM e325 server (the 1U, dual-opteron), the Server 2003 64-bit install cd comes with a driver for every device.

There are updated network card drivers on the broadcom site, but other than that it is a very painless install. Although it isn't ready for primetime yet, it looked nice on my test bench since I hope no one would ever consider using a beta release in a production environment.

For now our server will surive on the standard Windows Server 2003, I just hope MS gets around to a final 64-bit version sometime soon.

 

[AlmostInsane]

You need to download the 64bit drivers from Nvidia for your chipset and/or video card. ATI has 64bit beta drivers for the Radeon series, and Creative has beta drivers for their sound cards.

 

[spyordie007]

Just wanted to say thanks for continuing to update this; even with the sticky questions continue to get asked. I'm sure once it goes RTM the questions will come even quicker.

 

[ViRGE]

Hey, does anyone know what the deal is with the ATI beta driver and the X800 Pro? It keeps BSODing due to the ati2mtag.sys driver.

 

[kcbaltz]

I'm confused about how to download the 64-bit version. Clicking on the Download link on the microsoft.com page takes me to a site that gives me the impression I'm ordering the CD in the mail. I went through that process up to the point it showed me an order total which had a cost for shipping. I didn't want to click the Complete Order button for fear that'd commit me to buying the CD. Is the download no longer available?

Edit: Doh! Nevermind. I swear it wasn't there before, but there's a message on the first page saying the Download won't be available again until mid-August. Apologies for wasting anyone's time.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: kcbaltz
there's a message on the first page saying the Download won't be available again until mid-August. Apologies for wasting anyone's time.

Interesting, MS must be readying a new beta.

 

[drkclw]

Nevermind. virge answered my question

 

[CaptnKirk]

Microsoft 64 Bit re-development underway.
(Hope there are Drivers in the new package release)

New CD available on August 30th - Still taking orders

Download will be reinstated in Mid-August

 

[Brody8877]

When will Intel come out with its own 64bit processor?

 

[Brody8877]

When will Intel come out with its own 64bit processor?

I meant: Only AMD can use the XP64, that really limit my choices.

 

[ViRGE]

Intel's server 64bit chips are shipping now, the consumer line is "real soon now." This beta upgrade is being done in part so that there is a release out there that can use Intel's 64bit parts.

 

[CVSiN]

Was gonna post same thing about the Dload and new CDs coming..
I really hope this version does have more drivers... too bad we dont have any 64 bit native apps to test within XP 64...
id really like to see my what my 64 is really capible of.

 

[ViRGE]

As predicted, a new build has been released to the public, build 1218 which was released to testers last month. The full details are on the AnandTech news page.

 

[trake1]

Gamepc.com has a wonderful write-up on the latest XP 64
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=xp641218

 

[Woodie]

Nice article, thanks trake1.

Anyone know the progress of J2SE - 64-bit for WinXP? I know Sun committed to it...but when?
(Yes, they do have a 64-bit Linux version for AMD-64. See System Configurations)

 

[cptCuervo]

Any one have input on driver support built into the newest build released this week? I am preparing to install Windows XP Pro x64 and want to make sure I have all my driver bases covered before I dive in.

I have found a few dirvers for some of my hardware, but some of them are betas from Feburary (such as the Fasttrack 378 Raid drivers).

Any gamers out there using Win x64? I would love some insight on performance and/or hardware issues.

Thanks

 

[ViRGE]

Drivers don't seem to have changed in the current build; it still seems to include the same drivers the earlier public release had.

PS Woodie, if you hit up the actual Java 5 Beta 2 download page, there is a version availible for Windows 64bit edition