Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Borg Vomit
  • Start date Start date
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

On Apr 7, 4:18 pm, Borg Vomit <not_phrynic...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> As far as pain, how would you compare your experience (or hearsay)
> with Vista 64 to XP64?

Drivers are the only rough part. Not many laptop vendors have an XP64
section. For pretty much everything on my two laptops I had to poke
around and Google most of the drivers. Mind you they are all recent,
functional drivers, so it's not like I got subpar stuff. I just
picked up the latest beta nVidia drivers for XP64 recently, for
example.

> So what is your opinion of Vista?  If you had a big budget and your
> goal was to build game box (just for the sake of argument) or a turn
> key media center for your dad (something that you wouldn't have to fix
> all the time), what OS would you invest in, here in 2008?

It was a noble effort, but I think they lost focus. The interface is
almost cool, the glassy windows are nice and it does feel 2007ish.
However, the huge amount of resources it takes compared to XP64 is
just unforgivable. 800MB RAM used at idle (superfetch disabled)?
Ultimate takes about 14GB of disk space? This is completely
unacceptable. The lack of any noticeable way to remove components
completely off the machine means I'm stuck with freakin' Purble Place
whether I want it or not. I do have some issues with the GUI too,
specifically how inefficient and wasteful parts of it are. If Vista
was just a more secure XP with Aero, I'd use it, simple as that. But
they did something horrific under the hood that I can't rationalize
and I refuse to accept it.

Unfortunately Vista seems to be inevitable, with MS's big push to get
it on every possible new PC regardless of it actually being usable on
them. I'm lucky in that I have a fairly narrow application set, and I
can live without DX10. I do some virtualization stuff, and the
resources Vista 64 uses over XP64 is equal to one less VM I can run.
That won't work.

I did arrange one alternate bailout.. I tinkered with OSx86, Mac OS X
on non-Apple hardware. After a decent but not perfect experience with
that, I broke down and bought a Mac. If Windows manages to become
such a cluster that even *I* get sick of it, I can always just boot up
Leopard and forget about it.
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

Oh yes, it's still a 32bit program but the tricky bits have been put in a
64bit *.DLL as far as I can tell. That's all it takes and Avast was among
the very first to use the method, I think. No need to rewrite the whole app,
specifically not with something as lean and unobtrusive as Avast..

My Firewall requirements are modest, perhaps, I use Windows Firewall in
combination with the built-in FW in my Switch/Hub. I've had no issues, and I
want nothing more for the moment.

I was hanging on to the Vista public trials for as long as that was running
but I found too much change that didn't do any good - and the 'Cool' stuff
it 'pioneered' was too-little-too-late and allready far, far cooler on
Linux. So I thought that I was simply too old to jump on to that train and I
skipped the conversion entirely.

Statistics say that the next Windows version will appeal to me - as it
stands, Vista is Windows ME all over, but I may not be widely supported here
for that specific remark, many are growing fond of it!


Tony. . .


"Borg Vomit" <not_phrynicous@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1ff36d79-aa8b-4a3c-b68f-e1db1f59d1ee@r9g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
> Hi Tony,
>
> > For anti-virus, I use Avast. The Home version is free
> > and very, very good - the Pro version has extended capabilities and did
cost
> > 40 bucks (not ducks) the last time I checked.
>
> You use Avast for 64bit? What do you use for a (64bit) firewall?
>
> I've got one last PC that still has Vista on it, I was saving it to
> test the first Vista service pack, but I think I've heard enough good
> things to go ahead with an XP64 test! It doesn't sound as if it'll be
> as bogus as trying to get Vista 64 to work.
>
> Tks guys
>
>
> Borg Vomit
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy



"Borg Vomit" wrote:

> On Apr 7, 5:57 pm, "Zootal" <msn...@zootal.nospam.com> wrote:
> > > XP64, like Vista64, cannot run 16-bit apps. No DOS or crazy Win3.1
> > > apps allowed!
> >
> > 16 bit apps can be easily ran in either a virtual machine, or if it's a DOS
> > app by using DosBox or a similar product. I was about to trash XP64 and go
> > back to XP32 when I discovered how easy it is to use a virtual machine for
> > 16 bit stuff.
>
>
> BINGO!
>
> Yeah, VPC's are most definitely going to play a big role in making
> this work. I just wish they had USB support.
>
> Borg Vomit
>
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

On Apr 7, 4:34 pm, Borg Vomit <not_phrynic...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah,  VPC's are most definitely going to play a big role in making
> this work.  I just wish they had USB support.

FYI - Virtualbox (www.virtualbox.org) supports USB for guests.
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

Hi,
My former answer didn't get through and matches the one from S.SubZero.
The freeware Virtual PC program Virtualbox (www.virtualbox) runs x86 guests
on XP x64 hosts, with USB support.
Carlos

"Borg Vomit" wrote:

> On Apr 7, 5:57 pm, "Zootal" <msn...@zootal.nospam.com> wrote:
> > > XP64, like Vista64, cannot run 16-bit apps. No DOS or crazy Win3.1
> > > apps allowed!
> >
> > 16 bit apps can be easily ran in either a virtual machine, or if it's a DOS
> > app by using DosBox or a similar product. I was about to trash XP64 and go
> > back to XP32 when I discovered how easy it is to use a virtual machine for
> > 16 bit stuff.
>
>
> BINGO!
>
> Yeah, VPC's are most definitely going to play a big role in making
> this work. I just wish they had USB support.
>
> Borg Vomit
>
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 19:45:41 -0700 (PDT), Borg Vomit
<not_phrynicous@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Read here for more information:http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
>
> > > I gave up trying to understand and optimize my page file the
> > > same time I gave up on hard drive block sizes.  But I love the idea of
> > > a ram drive--still a viable option for ephemeral 'scratch' disks and
> > > page files.
> >
> > It makes no sense to use a RAM drive for the page file.
>
> What about for things like the Photoshop scratch file?


As far as I know, that operates similarly to the page file, and
wouldn't make sense for that either. But I'm not a Photoshop user
myself, so I can't be sure.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

These are interesting thoughts. Putting the System Pagefile on a RAM disc in
order to release the full performance potential, would ideally use more RAM
than is installed. Add in potential caching conflicts and it soon becomes
one project you do not want to investigate!

I too, do not have any experience from PS, but conceptually, such swap space
would be application controlled and could be a fraction of your RAM size and
so, boost performance considerably - under the assumption that you know what
you are doing and can be certain that the RAM space can be safely used for
the purpose?

Personally, I have not been using RAM Disks since executing *.BAT files
under DOS, my gut feeling today is that the modern OS wouldn't benefit as
much as DOS did allthough the raw executing speed difference might be the
same. The OS and all the sub-systems working together has got to be the
Grand Equalizer, I very much suspect. But the application controlled swap
space is probably a different kettle of fish all together!


Tony. . .


"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:2hlnv3tdhdb9a18k0vcs6cun1sha8rqfsu@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 19:45:41 -0700 (PDT), Borg Vomit
> <not_phrynicous@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Read here for more information:http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
> >
> > > > I gave up trying to understand and optimize my page file the
> > > > same time I gave up on hard drive block sizes. But I love the idea
of
> > > > a ram drive--still a viable option for ephemeral 'scratch' disks and
> > > > page files.
> > >
> > > It makes no sense to use a RAM drive for the page file.
> >
> > What about for things like the Photoshop scratch file?
>
>
> As far as I know, that operates similarly to the page file, and
> wouldn't make sense for that either. But I'm not a Photoshop user
> myself, so I can't be sure.
>
>
> --
> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
> Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 
Re: Is XP 64 safe? Will it make me happy

<snip>
>
> Statistics say that the next Windows version will appeal to me - as it
> stands, Vista is Windows ME all over, but I may not be widely supported
> here
> for that specific remark, many are growing fond of it!
>
>
> Tony. . .

With maybe one difference - we bought WinME because we were so sick and
tired Win98 and we were desperate for a stable operating system. WinME
turned out to be worse then Win98. I have two copies of WinME on a shelf
somewhere collecting dust, I think I ran it for all or 2-3 weeks before
going back to Win98.

Vista came out and we looked at it and said, "so what?". For the first time
in Microsofts history, they had made a good stable working consumer
operating system (XP), and we have no reason to upgrade to Vista. I own a
copy of Vista, but I have no plans on installing it. It does nothing that I
need that XP won't do.
 
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