Windows XP-64 Pro?

[Guuts]

I'm upgrading my system soon, and will at least do a reformat of my Win XP drive, but I'm not sure about which Windows OS to use.

I'd like to go to a 64-bit Window OS to use 4GB (or more) of memory. I already have a copy of WinXP Pro 64-bit that I haven't used yet... is anyone using that? I remember when it was released there were a lot of problems with driver support, and then Vista was going to be released and it sounded like the hardware makers were thinking of just skipping XP64 driver support.

There aren't a whole lot of features in Vista that are compelling enough for me to spend the money on it, but if XP64 is too much of a hassle, I don't have anything AGAINST Vista, either (as some seem to).

Suggestions? Thoughts on XP64 as it is currently?

Thanks.

 

[rudder]

There is no development for XP64... although Nvidia keeps the drivers updated (not sure about ATI). I ran it before I went to server 2008. It is a great OS provided you can find drivers for all your devices. In my case I was able to... although my HP printer drivers were beta, but they worked fine.

I primarily ran it so I could make use of 8GB for running photoshop. And although photoshop is 32bit app, the extra ram made the system more responsive overall.

I had no issues with any games. There were a couple of nuisances such as no quicktime for windows.. but a 3rd party app works better anyway. And my favorite ftp client, filezilla, does not like 64 bit at the moment, but smart FTP took up the slack.

 

[Schadenfroh]

not sure about ATI

ATI releases driver updates monthly to their video cards for XP Pro 64-bit.

 

[Buffalolake]

I've been running XP Pro x64 for just under two years now. I've never had a serious issue with finding drivers, although I have had to resort to beta drivers several times. The only problem that I have had is that there is a lot of software out there that won't run in ANY 64 bit environment.

Vista would have better driver support, but the software problems will affect Vista and XP Pro equally.