WIN XP PRO 64 BIT

[Fishead]

I'm in the process of building an AMD Phenom II x4 with 6GBs of DDR3 RAM.
I currently have a copy of WIN XP PRO full retail ver.I would like to migrate to WIN XP PRO 64 bit vers.
Do I have to buy a full version of the 64 bit OS? And if I need full 64 bit version I'm' looking around alot of sites that advertise it and the prices vary all over the place from $30 to over $100 plus and they all state they are full versions.
Whats up with that?

 

[Nothinman]

Why are you looking at buying a new copy of a 8yr old OS that's been superceded almost twice now?

 

[Fishead]

Be cause I'm old school and I 'd got back to DOS if It supported games like it use to.
I don't do any mission critical stuff and I don't like being kind of forced to move on.
WIN XP works fine for me and it will be around for a while yet.
I really don't hear much about anything I really need in VISTA or WIN-7.It seems more like they want to emulate MAC OS's more then anything else.
Is it important for you to move up or are you worried that it won't be supported very much longer?
They said they were going to stop supporting it but I think with all the problems with VISTA they extended that quiet a bit the last I heard .Am I wrong in assuming that?

 

[abaez]

There are no "problems" with vista. It's a fine OS and in this case, probably much better supported than xp 64 is.

 

[Nothinman]

Being up to date is very important to me, however since I run Debian I don't have to worry about any pricing or availability. =)

I believe XP has extended support until 2014, but that's security fixes only. No new development will be happening and all of MS' stuff will be targeted at Vista and Win7 which means so will most other developers too. I also believe that with Vista your key works with both 32-bit and 64-bit installers and Win7 comes with both discs in the same box but with XP you need a new key.

I would say all of the places with prices under $100 are either used or pirated copies, but I could be wrong. I guess it depends on how much you trust the seller.

And good luck with finding XP64 drivers for all of your new hardware.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: abaez
There are no "problems" with vista. It's a fine OS and in this case, probably much better supported than xp 64 is.

Yeah, whatever. I've been running it since it November and wiped it with Windows 7 this month. What a terrible operating system. It's clunky and buggy. It is no wonder why Microsoft released Windows 7 as soon as they did.

 

[Absolution75]

Windows 7 and Vista are largely the same thing with visual tweaks - the they share a common code base.

You're drinking green koolaide.

 

[Fishead]

Well like I said I don't really need what VISTA or WIN 7 has to offer.Maybe you had good luck with VISTA but it took a while for them to make a lot of fixes and I heard a lot of people complain about it so I never upgraded.
I'm hearing good things about WIN 7 .Aren't they going to take time to get 64 bit drivers out for that.I think there are a lot more 64 drivers available for WIN XP then WIN 7 ,or does WIN 7 support 64 bit natively?

I understand where your coming from but I don't think I really want either at this point.I think WIN XP will be supported for at least 4 more years and thats ok with me.When the time comes and I have to upgrade I will but until then I'll stay with WIN XP.
Thanks for your replies and thoughts about upgrading.
Richard

 

[Nothinman]

Well like I said I don't really need what VISTA or WIN 7 has to offer.Maybe you had good luck with VISTA but it took a while for them to make a lot of fixes and I heard a lot of people complain about it so I never upgraded.

The same was set of XP when it came out, the only reason Win7 is getting decent reviews is because it's so similar to Vista and people still like to bitch about Vista for some reason.

I'm hearing good things about WIN 7 .Aren't they going to take time to get 64 bit drivers out for that.I think there are a lot more 64 drivers available for WIN XP then WIN 7 ,or does WIN 7 support 64 bit natively?

Win7 should be able to use any Vista driver so they don't have to do anything. And there's no way there's more 64-bit drivers for XP than there are for Vista and Win7. Most hardware manufacturers don't care about XP64 because it was a more of a proof of concept or placeholder until Vista64 was released than anything else.

I understand where your coming from but I don't think I really want either at this point.I think WIN XP will be supported for at least 4 more years and thats ok with me.

Supported is a vague term. MS isn't doing any new development on XP and most 3rd party developers are looking at Vista and Win7 now too.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: Absolution75
Windows 7 and Vista are largely the same thing with visual tweaks - the they share a common code base.

You're drinking green koolaide.

No, Windows 7 is a much needed refined verison of Vista and fixed the bugs that made Vista a nightmare for me. Things like adding a wireless network printer, a file manager that isn't cluttered and remembers the views I specify, an OS where everything is integrated with eachother and fits nicely, not having explorer.exe crash for no reason, and not having my network connection forget what it is connected to. Microsoft made too many changes with one OS which caused all the problems Vista had.

 

[Fishead]

Am I right that WIN 7 can't be upgrade form WIN XP only from VISTA?
That would mean I couldn't go right to WIN 7 .I would have to get VISTA then upgrade to WIN 7?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

No it can be upgradeed from XP.

 

[Athena]

You can't do an "in-place" upgrade from WinXP to Windows 7 -- you have to do a "new" install, which means the installer puts everything on the disk a "Windows.old" folder then installs a fresh OS.

For most people who are building machines right now, it really makes more sense to get a 64-bit Vista Professional package with the Technology Guarantee coupon for Windows 7.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: WaitingForNehalem

Originally posted by: Absolution75
Windows 7 and Vista are largely the same thing with visual tweaks - the they share a common code base.

You're drinking green koolaide.

No, Windows 7 is a much needed refined verison of Vista and fixed the bugs that made Vista a nightmare for me. Things like adding a wireless network printer, a file manager that isn't cluttered and remembers the views I specify, an OS where everything is integrated with eachother and fits nicely, not having explorer.exe crash for no reason, and not having my network connection forget what it is connected to. Microsoft made too many changes with one OS which caused all the problems Vista had.

I have to disagree here nothing wrong with Vista in my books been using it for 2 years plus as beta games tester as well,never had to do a reinstall basically solid OS on ALL my PCs in all areas ,Win7 is Vista with a few tweaks and refinement in some areas as to networking well I can get my HP C6380 printer via wireless in Vista to work fine but not in Win7 RC, again its driver problem that HP representive as told me over the phone ie lack of Win7 drivers at the moment for the printer but that will change down the road after its official release so technically I can't blame Win7.
File manager view is fine,I believe that was fixed via SP2 for Vista so I heard, anyway no issues for me in that area.

explorer.exe crash for no reason, and not having my network connection

That can be caused by otherthings like drivers or third party software ,in my brothers case awhile back he had some Lenovo software installed (famous OEM bloat) on his Vista and it played havoc with his Explorer and Firefox until I told him to remove it , problem was then fixed and solved.

I'm in the process of building an AMD Phenom II x4 with 6GBs of DDR3 RAM.
I currently have a copy of WIN XP PRO full retail ver.I would like to migrate to WIN XP PRO 64 bit vers.
Do I have to buy a full version of the 64 bit OS? And if I need full 64 bit version I'm' looking around alot of sites that advertise it and the prices vary all over the place from $30 to over $100 plus and they all state they are full versions.
Whats up with that?

Seriously I think you should go Vista x64 or Win7 x64 I don't see why you don't since your hardware is more then capable,heard of DOSBox?..run old games in that for the most part,DOSBox link.

I wonder what FUD will appear when Win8 arrives

 

[Fishead]

I understand what most of you are saying but theres a pattern here and it gets kind of expensive to keep up .I'm not in a situation where money is that free any more and I do have to kind of budget everything at the moment,I'm on a fixed income( SSI Disability).It took me long enough to get the cash up for the new build and I have most of what I need from older build(case,power supply ,video card,etc).So I might stay at the moment with WIN XPPro 32 bit that I have and make a decission a bit later down the road when I can better afford it.
Thank you all for chiming in.It helps me think what I may do in the future.
I enjoy this forum on Anantech.

Richard

 

[Qbah]

Why not give the Win7 RC a spin? It's free and unless you're running some very exotic hardware, you will be more than good to go. And it's still good for a year or so. You might gather some cash during that year when Win7 RC is free and then decide on how to proceed. No drawbacks imo And you'll see what everybody is talking about For free

As for WinXP 64-bit. I had it running for a while. Drivers were really bad for it back then. But I just can't imagine going back to XP for whatever reason. Hell, apart from video-background not available, Win7 feels so much better to me (it's a feel thing ), I don't see myself going back to Vista

 

[Nothinman]

I understand what most of you are saying but theres a pattern here and it gets kind of expensive to keep up .

2 OSes in ~9 years is expensive? If you paid ~$150 for XP Pro that's less than $20/year.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Athena
You can't do an "in-place" upgrade from WinXP to Windows 7 -- you have to do a "new" install, which means the installer puts everything on the disk a "Windows.old" folder then installs a fresh OS.

For most people who are building machines right now, it really makes more sense to get a 64-bit Vista Professional package with the Technology Guarantee coupon for Windows 7.

I agree with you here.

I downloaded the RC1 of Win 7, installing on a test-machine. It shows promise, I suppose. But for a 64-bit OS, I don't see much yet in the way of advantage over VISTA-64 with minimum Service-Pack 1 and the available Service-Pack 2.

If I had to buy a legitimate license and OS for a new machine, I wouldn't reach back to an earlier OS version even if support extends to 2014. It seems to me that each new generation of OS addresses newer hardware and resolves problems and limitations of the earlier OS. If there is a learning-curve with the GUI, that's a minor issue. In fact, I think their GUI revisions tend to oversimplify -- addressing some guess about a lowest-common-denominator among computer users. But so far, the only annoying thing about VISTA 64 (and any version of VISTA for that matter) is the lack of realtime graphic information about ongoing disk defragmentation. Why hide status and progress?

Otherwise, I think VISTA 64 is just great, and I'll watch and see what develops with Win 7's release in the fall, or subsequent service-packs to it. As for XP-64, there is still likely a shortfall of reliable hardware drivers. Such is not the case with VISTA-64.