Mark Russinovich (one of the old SysInternals team, now part of Microsoft) has posted an extremely interesting article about memory usage on windows systems.  It goes very deep into the details of how Windows allocates and accesses memory, and explains more about how the 4GB limit works on 32 bit systems.

Go and check it out here.

I currently use 32 bit (x86) Windows Vista for my home machine, and I've been wary of using a 64 bit OS for a while because of driver issues, and software incompatibility problems.  However I've been using 64 bit (x64) Windows Vista for my work machine since I started at Straylight Studios (which I must blog about soon), and I believe that it is coming time for me to make the jump at home, certainly for my next computer which I'm saving up for.

The main issue with a 64 bit version of windows is driver compatibility.  Older hardware may not have 64 bit drivers which makes them unusable, however pretty much any new hardware which is built in the Vista era should have 64 bit drivers.

Internet Explorer Issues

Also, in the past I've had the perception that there is problems with 32 bit software compatibility on 64 bit Windows.  I say perception because I'm slowly learning that there are not that many problems.  I'm quite fond of the IE7Pro plugin for Internet Explorer and for quite a while I had real issues installing it.  I kept installing it but the icon didn't appear in the bottom right corner of the browser window and none of the functionality worked.  It took me quite some time to figure out that it had actually installed okay, but I didn't realise that Vista x64 has two separate copies of the Program Files folder; one for 32 bit apps, and one for 64 bit apps.  It also has two copies of Internet Explorer; one 32 bit version and one 64 bit version.  I had installed the 64 bit version of IE7Pro, and was defaulted to running the 32 bit version of Internet Explorer.

So the solution was to either default to the 64 bit version of Internet Explorer, or to install the 32 bit version of IE7Pro.  I tried running the 64 bit version of Internet Explorer but I soon gave that up because a lot of the IE plugins such as Shockwave Flash (which is required for a large percentage of video sites on the internet) don't like running on that version.  I then installed the 32 bit version of IE7Pro (you can install both versions side by side, so long as you use a different install folder for each) and now I have it working perfectly well.  There is a minor issue with the crash recovery functionality of IE7Pro on this configuration, but the development team are aware of it and are currently working on a fix.

Windows Explorer Issues

The only other outstanding problem that I've been having with Vista x64 is with Windows Explorer plugins.  More to the point, the plugins and programs work just fine, but some installers don't seem to be able to set up the context menu items for files and folders.  I believe (although I may be wrong) that this is purely an installer issue.

For instance the Agent Ransack file search program that I use does not correctly set up a right click context menu, however the application works perfectly fine.  If it becomes a major annoyance for me then I'll just set up a context menu by hand in the registry editor, but for now I'm happy with it.

On the other hand the TreeSize application (for showing you how big each folder is hierarchically) installs a right click context menu just fine, as does the Bulk Rename Utility (BRU) (an application for bulk renaming large amounts of files in a folder).

Critical mass

I believe that there is also a certain amount of critical mass required for 64 bit.  Once more and more people start using it, more and more developers will start developing for it.  So lets start using it everyone.

 

I'd love to hear your comments on your experiences with 64 bit Windows, both good and bad.