64-Bit XP or Wait For Windows 7 Support?

[crokett]

So last night I put the work XP image on the new laptop, then migrated most of the data over. Spent today ininstalling some non-standard stuff I use, tweaking XP for the way I like it, etc. Then at one point I was adjusting the path variable and noticed XP only sees 3GB of RAM. I have 4 installed. turns out the standard image is 32-bit Windows. So now I am wondering if I should install 64-bit from scratch and go through the migration all over again, or wait till work supports Win7 later this year.

[pelligrini]

I'd wait for the Win7 support. We had one rig at the office that came with windows-64. It was great for Autocad and related apps, but we had some problems with some other programs, mainly Adobe Acrobat. I can't remember all the particulars, it was a couple years ago. We finally purchased another regular 32bit XP license for it.

Do you really need the 64-bit support or the full addressing of the RAM?

[Kristofor]

I'd probably wait for Win7...

I have run Vista 64 and now Win7-64 on my main home machine for a few years now with little trouble. However XP-64 was more trouble at work (never used it at home) as the 64-bit driver support wasn't so great back then. Today 64 bit drivers are common for Vista/Win7 but I haven't checked to see if there's much support for XP-64 included...

[dbhost]

Unless you are doing CAD, large scale scientific models such as well logs, video editing, or similar memory intensive work, there really isn't any need to address the full 4gb or RAM. Stick with XP 32 bit until the Win7 64 support is in full production...

I gotta ask though. if you are doing the work load on the work laptop, aren't you the support for this? Do you have anything in your enterprise environment that would require an earlier version of windows? Say for example legacy servers such as NT-4 still in the environment, or heavy reliance in WINS...

[cabinetman]

Unless you are doing CAD, large scale scientific models such as well logs, video editing, or similar memory intensive work, there really isn't any need to address the full 4gb or RAM. Stick with XP 32 bit until the Win7 64 support is in full production...

This makes a lot of sense.
.

[crokett]

Nope. I support other people's networks not my company's. I am after the full memory addressing. I use a couple trace analysis programs that will take as much memory as I give them, but that begs the question - the apps are 32-bit. Assuming I were to put a 64-bit OS on, will they take advantage of the extra memory?

I gotta ask though. if you are doing the work load on the work laptop, aren't you the support for this? Do you have anything in your enterprise environment that would require an earlier version of windows? Say for example legacy servers such as NT-4 still in the environment, or heavy reliance in WINS...

[cgallery]

the apps are 32-bit. Assuming I were to put a 64-bit OS on, will they take advantage of the extra memory?

Not at all.

But I suppose you could run simultaneous instances of them.

[JSUPreston]

I can't remember all the specifics (do more network and phone than computer support these days), but IIRC, most 32bit apps will only use up to 2GB memory. I want to say this is a limitation of the OS, but it may also just have to do with 32bit memory addressing.

I'm with the others, I've heard that XP64 was a dog. I'm running Win7 x64 Pro at work, and the main problem I have is with Adobe Flash and Acrobat 9 crashing.