If you have an AMD 64-bit ready PC, you now have the option to receive trial software for Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems via CD or download for free.
Download Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for AMD Athlon64/Opteron
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Here’s the http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/… … directly from Microsoft.
I see the notes say that windows media player is not supported. Doesn’t that kinda fly in the face of MS’s position that they have to include IE and windows media player? Or is this unbundling a sign of things to come?
I’m probably just looking too deeply into things… as this version also doesn’t include directmusic support, and I’m pretty sure they’ll continue to bundle that once they get it working. same with netmeeting.
I think what it means is that those apps were poorly developed and won’t compile on the 64 bit version.
Wait. This list seems to be for the IA64 version of Windows XP. It doesn’t mean that the AMD64 version will have them. I’m definitely sure that XP for AMD64 will have WPA.
“I’m definitely sure that XP for AMD64 will have WPA.”
Why… because you want it to?
Well, I didn’t raised that point because I want it. I raised that point because I’m not sure if that list is valid for the AMD64 version. WPA is an anti-piracy (and privacy, depending on how you look at it) tool and it makes sense that it’s not included for the IA64 version as it was exclusively an OEM product for Itaniums, a product that you can’t buy at your favorite store. In contrast, the Athlon64 is a “mainstream” product that you can buy pretty much everywhere and MS will probably do everything to protect their product. That’s why I suspect that this list might not be valid OR up-to-date.
I just checked that linked file a bit more and I see this:
“Windows XP 64-Bit Edition supports the latest class of Intel Itanium processors designed for users who need to create and manipulate large amounts of complex data. The high performance of the Intel Itanium processor is targeted toward high-end workstation applications such as large database management, data mining, computer-aided engineering, digital content creation, and scientific and engineering computing. Itanium-based computers running Windows XP 64-Bit Edition can support up to 16 terabytes of virtual memory and up to 16 gigabytes (GB) of physical memory.”
that file is for the itanium version. not the new amd64 version.
Why… because you want it to?
No, because unlike the Itanic, the Athlon64/Opteron can run 32bit and 64bit software simultaneously completely in hardware. Additionally, the Itanic has to emulate support for MMX2, SSE2, etc. to my knowledge, while the Athlon64/Opteron does it all natively.
Additionally, a very telling thing about this edition of Windows is Microsoft’s statement that:
Important: Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems is only compatible with 64-bit AMD Opteron– or Athlon 64-based computers. It cannot be successfully installed on 64-bit Intel Itanium–based systems.
Which tells me since the Itanic is excluded that there’s a far better chance of Media Player being supported.
Microsoft has also been very careful to call them 64-bit extended system, implying that this version will never run on pure 64-bit architectures.
Additionally, the EULA for Windows XP 64-bit Extended includes an agreement for Windows Media Player, which would seem useless unless it included it. But, why not download the ISO and find out for yourself?
Until we see a version of Windows for AMD64, this may be the closest thing we have suggesting which features are supported and which ones are not.
>> Anonymous (IP: 12.105.181.—): Until we see a version of Windows for AMD64, this may be the closest thing we have suggesting which features are supported and which ones are not.
You would start making assumptions about what features the AMD64 version of Windows XP even though: 1) the customer base is totally different (how many people with Itanium workstations need WMP as a must-have feature?), 2) the technical difficulties involved in portinig are totally different (porting to a totally new platform is different than porting to the same platform with some 64-bit extensions), and 3) Microsoft has made no official announcement about which features they plan to support?
I would rather wait for the initial announcement than just assume something to spite Microsoft. Quit trying to pass off IA64 docs as AMD64 docs! You and others do this all the time, but all it does is mislead people.
“how many people with Itanium workstations need WMP as a must-have feature?”
None. It shouldn’t be bundled with the OS.
“the technical difficulties involved in portinig are totally different (porting to a totally new platform is different than porting to the same platform with some 64-bit extensions)”
The key word is *different*… not less dificult and not more developer-friendly. AMD64 runs 32bit code (supposedly without a performace penalty unlike IA64). That’s about it.
“Microsoft has made no official announcement about which features they plan to support?”
Because the aforementioned link has been shown to be relatively all-encompassing, its safe to assume (assuming that this list could change over time though) that these are the features (or better said… lack of features) to expect from AMD64.
“I would rather wait for the initial announcement than just assume something to spite Microsoft.”
First of all, this link is the most official reference we have which encompases “Windows XP 64-Bit Edition”… as it appears all-encompassing. Second of all, I’m not trying to spite Microsoft at all. I’m simply stating facts as they are presented and making obvious conjecture based on these facts.
“Quit trying to pass off IA64 docs as AMD64 docs!”
So far they don’t appear to be solely specific to IA64 as they are referenced from the AMD64 page as well.
“You and others do this all the time, but all it does is mislead people.”
So far, it appears that you are the one working towards misleading people.
>> null_pointer_us: “how many people with Itanium workstations need WMP as a must-have feature?”
>>
>> Anonymous (12.105.181.—): None. It shouldn’t be bundled with the OS.
Whether or not it should be bundled with the operating system is beside the point.
>> null_pointer_us: “the technical difficulties involved in portinig are totally different (porting to a totally new platform is different than porting to the same platform with some 64-bit extensions)”
>>
>> Anonymous (12.105.181.—): The key word is *different*… not less dificult and not more developer-friendly. AMD64 runs 32bit code (supposedly without a performace penalty unlike IA64). That’s about it.
Assumption: Since both platforms are 64-bit, porting to one must be as easy as porting to the other.
That is quite obviously false. AMD64 has no need of an emulation layer because AMD64 is basically a set of extensions to the existing architecture; in fact, if AMD required an emulation layer to run existing IA32 code, it is hard to understand how they would still be in business with such idiotic engineers. That would be like putting glueing a spoiler on a car and then saying that we need a whole new drivers license program to make sure that people know how to drive a car with a spoiler on it.
Itanium is a totally different beast. Not only does it adopt a new instruction set (IA64 which has nothing in common with IA32 (stupid marketing nomenclature!)), but it also uses a whole new set of design principles (VLIW vs. CISC), and it also has no hardware support for executing any IA32 code (meaning people have to develop an emulation layer for it), and finally there is no support for the extensions (MMX, SSE, SSE2) which are widely used in multimedia codecs (remember Windows Media Player?) and other parts of the system as optimizations. All told, IA32 code runs dog slow on an Itanium; it runs so slow, in fact, that even with the new enhancements that double emulation speed the thing still runs IA32 code like a Pentium II.
I do not really know what you mean by “developer friendly.” I think that it is quite an aid in porting to have a new platform that can natively execute the old platform’s code because that would dramatically reduce both the amount of code that Windows operating system developers need to write and also the amount of code that third party developers (driver support!) will have to rewrite. Anyone here who has even the most remote understanding of how the architectures work would agree that it is orders of magnitude easier to port an IA32 driver to AMD64 than to IA64.
>> null_pointer_us: “Microsoft has made no official announcement about which features they plan to support?”
>>
>> Anonymous (12.105.181.—): Because the aforementioned link has been shown to be relatively all-encompassing, its safe to assume (assuming that this list could change over time though) that these are the features (or better said… lack of features) to expect from AMD64.
Why do you make assumptions from your own ignorance?
>> null_pointer_us: “You and others do this all the time, but all it does is mislead people.”
>>
>> Anonymous (12.105.181.—): So far, it appears that you are the one working towards misleading people.
Not a chance. There have been much confusion on this website on this topic; even before the AMD64 public evaluation was even on Microsoft’s site we had people posting links to the Itanium edition (which had been out for over a year) and announcing that it was for AMD64.
Windows XP (all 32-bit varieties) == IA32 (x86)
Windows XP 64-bit Edition == IA64 (Itanium)
Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems == AMD64 (x86-64)
Note the subtle differences. If you will read the hardware requirements for Windows XP 64-bit Edition, you should see that it is only for Itanium. Also, whoever posted that there was a link to a “Windows XP 64-bit Edition Differences” article on the AMD64 edition page is wrong. You can navigate to that article with some effort, though, but then again you can also navigate to the MSDN with enough effort.
How can you even entertain the idea that WMP won’t be supported on x86-64 just because it is not supported on the Itanium?
Has you blind hate for Microsoft removed your ability for logic and reason?
Snap out of it.
Oops, missed one:
>> null_pointer_us: “I would rather wait for the initial announcement than just assume something to spite Microsoft.”
>>
>> First of all, this link is the most official reference we have which encompases “Windows XP 64-Bit Edition”…as it appears all-encompassing…
Windows XP 64-bit Edition is only for Itanium. When you navigate to the unsupported features page we’ve been talking about, hit your back button and click on the “Overview of Windows XP 64-bit Edition” link. Note: 1)the presence of the word “Itanium” throughout the article, 2) the absence of AMD64-related information, 3) the implicit assumptions about the Itanium, and 4) the opening paragraph which states “Windows XP 64-Bit Edition supports the latest class of Intel Itanium processors…Based on the Explicitly Parallel Instruction Set Computing (EPIC) design technology, the Intel Itanium processor can perform up to 20 operations simultaneously…Using an emulation layer, you can run 32-bit applications on Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. However, such applications run significantly slower on the 64-bit system than on the 32-bit system, because emulation requires additional resources…” Obviously, these docs were introduced for Windows XP 64-bit Edition and until Microsoft announces a supported feature set for Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems (note the difference), it makes no sense to imply that the feature sets between these two vastly different operating systems will be identical or even nearly so.
>> Second of all, I’m not trying to spite Microsoft at all.
People post FUD as a follow-up to every article on a given subject are usually doing it to spite the company or the individual behind the subject matter. I apologize if your intentions were honorable.
>> I’m simply stating facts as they are presented and making obvious conjecture based on these facts.
No, you are stating your unsupported conclusions as if they were fact.
So are you guys going to just fight about it or is it supported or not?
Why doesn’t someone download the ISO and let us know?
GJ
>> How can you even entertain the idea that WMP won’t be supported on x86-64 just because it is not supported on the Itanium?
>>
>>Has you blind hate for Microsoft removed your ability for logic and reason?
>>
>>Snap out of it.
At first I thought that people were posting it because they hated Microsoft, but now I am not sure. Looking back it seems a bit foolish to expect everyone to have followed the development of the two 64-bit architectures and to have understood the differences between them. The stupid marketing terms do not help, either.
Everyone, put on your marketing hats for a moment. You now exist in a world where the creation of new terminology has little or no relation to the idea of conveying practical information; instead, terminology is created based purely on the kinds of reactions they invoke in laymen. The fact that Intel’s new 64-bit architecture has nothing in common from a design standpoint with the old 32-bit architecture is unimportant; what matters is the feeling of stability it evokes in the minds of laymen. They see the similarity between the terms IA32 and IA64 which then makes them see AMD64 as some kind of unofficial outsider.
*shudder*
It must be horrible to be in marketing. I couldn’t stand intentionally drafting terminology just to mislead people.
Can these names possibly be any more confusing? Do we really need to have the part about 64-bit Extended Systems communicated in the name itself?
>Windows XP (all 32-bit varieties) == IA32 (x86)
>Windows XP 64-bit Edition == IA64 (Itanium)
>Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems == AMD64 (x86-64)
How about?:
Windows XP
Windows XP IA64
Windows XP AMD64
or maybe “Windows IA64” could be “Windows XP Itanium” (since there are no IA64 chips that aren’t Itaniums). But then, I don’t imagine anyone buying an Itanium will be the type to not do their research and be unable to figure out which is the right one. And perhaps MS doesn’t want to have AMD64 in the name in case Intel releases their own x86-64 processor (assuming it uses the same instruction set). If that’s the case, how about shortening Windows XP AMD64 to just plain old Windows XP 64? (I think the Itanium crowd will still be able to figure out which one they need) Either way, hopefully they can do something to straighten this out – reminds me of some of the long product names IBM used to be in favor of (ex – OS/2 Warp Server for eBusiness).
Just a thought…
I’ve installed it 10minutes ago and here are the things i noticed right away
Well there are some pros and cons…. like everything i guess..
the major pro here is that my processor now goes blazing fast… it boots up in like less than 5 seconds
now the con…. I don’t have any sound!!!!!!
there is windows media player but since i have no sound i cannot test
Sorry i meant to type 15 seconds
Well, I installed it too. Athlon 64 3200+ on Asus K8V Deluxe. Working good, but no sound. Thanks for the link!
– Got the nVidia 64-bit drivers
– Got the VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers
Unfortunately, my board doesn’t use VIA audio or LAN, so I had to add a NIC to type this message. Also the Creative CT4810 card I threw in wasn’t detected with a driver either… No sound.
i will be installing this today, i have a creaive audigy card with my opteron sk8v board so ill let u know how good it really is, and i dot mean by saying boots up in 15 secs, ill see how fast it is during normal use etc..
Snake
I just installed it on my Work PC: Athlon 64 3200+, MSI K8T Neo. Almost none of my hardware was detected (Realtek Gig Ether, Matrox R450, Via ac’97 Sound) I was able to get the Ethernet to Work by selecting a Windows driver that was included. I found a driver for the Dual head R450 at Matrox for XP 64, and got my dual displays up. Via’s Sound would not work.
I found that a lot of the Programs that I previously had loaded in W2k would not load. I would get an error “This software is for use with earlier versions of Windows”.
I switched by boot.ini to default into W2k, and I won’t be going back until I can use my Software and use the sound card.
Hey at least this version is more supported and stable then a $139 copy of SUSE. Shame on you Linux !! LOL
can you use normal 32bit driver on this system or must they be 64bit ?
only 64bit drivers work.
ps. Who was the numbskull who reported the previous post for abuse??? I think its getting a little out of hand.
thnx for the reply nivenh
shame its gona be ages till they release 64bit drivers for everything
Snake
intel may introduce amd64 compliant x86 cpu. intel and amd have cross-licensing agreements, intel has license to produce chips based on 86-64, and M$ would not be happy to support a third and incompatible 64-bit extension (the first two being itanium and amd64).
i would suggest
Windows XP86-64