Don't be afraid of Vista x64

[Absolution]

The only problems I've had were induced by myself (some iddiotic user profiles crap where I added a new hard drive and changed its drive letter and messed up some crap, just deleted the profile and works fine now). So far I haven't had any problems with 32bit programs. Performance is about the same meh thinks, I haven't ran any benchmarks. The OS itself feels faster now that I can use 4gb of ram.

I'll just have to stay away from unsigned drivers and work out some codec issues that I'm sure will prop up (hardly worked on vistax86 for me).

[Lazaredz]

I also am doing very well with Vista 64 on my first notebook. Fast, responsive. Just needed to tell it to let go of a few "helpful" things it was trying to do for me, and off I went.

BTW I am using the unofficial laptopvideo2go 169.09 drivers on my 7950Go with no problems at all.

[Mr Bigman]

Working better than anything in my house.

Runs games much better than XP cuz of the resource management.

[RAY16]

I'd be tempted to switch to it, but the driver signing crap stops me. I won't be able to use my Controller-S 'cause the drivers aren't signed, and I'm not going to do the F8 option every single time I boot up my computer.

[nekrosoft13]

works great for me too

[toxikneedle]

worked great for me as well until i got an ipod touch which apple made incompatible with vista 64

[nekrosoft13]

worked great for me as well until i got an ipod touch which apple made incompatible with vista 64

can't blame MS for that one, makes me glad that i got rid of both my ipods

[crainger]

My 3rdGen iPod works fine with Vista 64. :)

[XP_GUN]

Yep no problems yet with Vista 64 :D

[Rakeesh]

There should be no problems with vista x64 vs vista 32-bit. The reason why is because pretty much any and all drivers made available for vista 32-bit are also available for 64-bit, this is due to microsofts requirement that in order to obtain a whqcl driver, they must make both a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

The drivers are all that matters to make your hardware work with vista x64, so that problem is solved completely.

Software compatibility is not an issue due to the way AMD designed the 64-bit architecture. All 32-bit software will run on a 64-bit OS.

The days of scrounging endlessly for 64-bit drivers like you had to do with windows XP are over with vista.

Also don't worry about the driver signing issue: ANYBODY can obtain a driver certificate to sign their own drivers to work with vista x64. This is only a security measure and nothing else. Notice that freeware projects like daemon-tools and atitool all have their own signed vista x64 drivers.

If somebody signs e.g. a trojan, then microsoft will update the root certificates via windows update to revoke their signing certificate, and they'll never be given another one again. Because of this, there is no such thing as a vista x64 rootkit.

[stefan9]

I have switched to vista x64 a week ago and so far it has been a pleasure. Have had a lot less crashes with the witcher compared to 32bit. The only slight complaint has been that coretempt doesn't have a signed driver so I have been using nvmonitor instead of it.

All my other programs/games work just as well if not better under x64. I am glad I finally made the jump to 64 bit computing.

[Dragunov]

There should be no problems with vista x64 vs vista 32-bit. The reason why is because pretty much any and all drivers made available for vista 32-bit are also available for 64-bit, this is due to microsofts requirement that in order to obtain a whqcl driver, they must make both a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

The drivers are all that matters to make your hardware work with vista x64, so that problem is solved completely.

Software compatibility is not an issue due to the way AMD designed the 64-bit architecture. All 32-bit software will run on a 64-bit OS.

The days of scrounging endlessly for 64-bit drivers like you had to do with windows XP are over with vista.

Also don't worry about the driver signing issue: ANYBODY can obtain a driver certificate to sign their own drivers to work with vista x64. This is only a security measure and nothing else. Notice that freeware projects like daemon-tools and atitool all have their own signed vista x64 drivers.

If somebody signs e.g. a trojan, then microsoft will update the root certificates via windows update to revoke their signing certificate, and they'll never be given another one again. Because of this, there is no such thing as a vista x64 rootkit.

The only difference between drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit, are those for 64-bit need a digital signature ...

[Rakeesh]

The only difference between drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit, are those for 64-bit need a digital signature ...

Uhh...no...its not. Just like with regular software, there is a big difference between 32-bit drivers and 64-bit drivers. The difference between regular programs and drivers, is that drivers are programs that run in the kernel space. However, and this should go very much without saying unless you really don't know much about computers at all, you can't load 32-bit code into the same virtual memory space as 64-bit code, thus your kernel is going to run either 32-bit or 64-bit.

Likewise the drivers are going to have to match whatever the kernel is. Remember that a driver is essentially code that runs alongside the kernel; it is basically a kernel "patch," but rather than patching the binary it patches the virtual memory space that the kernel resides in. And 64-bit code can't run under a 32-bit kernel either, so 64-bit drivers aren't going to run on a 32-bit kernel as you also imply.

If you don't believe this, lets see just how successful you are at loading a 64-bit driver into vista x32, or how successful you are at loading a 32-bit driver into vista x64 with signature checking disabled.

To permanently disable driver signature checking, right click on the command prompt icon in your start menu, click run as administrator, then type this:

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

Or go to the ms connect site and register for a driver cert to sign your own driver (it's free.)

[Lfctony]

To permanently disable driver signature checking, right click on the command prompt icon in your start menu, click run as administrator, then type this:

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS


This doesn't work anymore. It was rendered useless by a quite necessary system update.

[fivefeet8]

I would use Vista 64bit, but I needs me gameport working. ;) And of course my Belkin wireless usb stick still doesn't have Vista 64bit drivers. :thumbdwn:

[LycosV]

With RAM prices as low as they are now, I'm very tempted to buy a new motherboard, toss in 4-8gigs, and load up some 64bit. The only thing stopping me is my complete lack of money.

[RobCZMAN]

Have had a lot less crashes with the witcher compared to 32bit.

I have heard people say that but I have not had witcher crash on me even once and im a long long ways into that game.


Vista 64 here.

[stefan9]

I have heard people say that but I have not had witcher crash on me even once and im a long long ways into that game.


Vista 64 here.

I had lots of crashes in the trade quarter under vista 32 bit but didn't have one crash under 64 bit. The game has only crashed once in more than a week under vista x64 while it would crash atleast once every 5 hours under vista 32 bit.

I got a question for guys with ipods anybody know which ones are compatible with x64 and which ones I should stay clear off??

[Yaboze]

My system is in my sig below, think I'd have issues with Vista x64? My main concern is my X-Fi card. I'd also get 4g of ram before doing so.

I have the X-Fi with the external I/O box, I need that to work, does it work in x64?

I have a copy of Vista Ultimate 32/64 retail sitting here waiting.

[Absolution]

I couldn't tell you if your X-Fi works, I've heard of some issues with popping sound. However, my audigy2 ZS works perfectly.

Before in x86, I had a strange freeze that would lock up everything, video would pause, sound would sound like it was about to bluescreen (the repeating sound buffer thing). This is gone with x64.

There was a problem with copying files though. It would say "There is not enough memory to complete this operation". Even when there clearly was (I was only copying like 5kb files too), hundreds of MB worth of ram free along with hundreds of GB of HD free. I'd have to restart to fix it.

My proccessor score actually went up a tenth of a point. 5.3->5.4 with the upgrade.

[RobCZMAN]

My system is in my sig below, think I'd have issues with Vista x64? My main concern is my X-Fi card. I'd also get 4g of ram before doing so.

I have the X-Fi with the external I/O box, I need that to work, does it work in x64?

I have a copy of Vista Ultimate 32/64 retail sitting here waiting.


Hi, I have an XFI-Extreme gamer card along with 4gbs of ram all running on Vista 64 flawlessly. No pops or crackels at all.

Works and sounds awesome!

[Rakeesh]

Just watch, in about a year to a year and a half from now, most people who have a newer computer will be running vista x64, namely due to the 32-bit address limit issues. AMD's move to 64-bit computing at the time that they chose was a good idea, namely because of the rate at which the market is advancing. It gave the industry a perfect amount of time to prepare for the switch that is about to come soon. Not too early, not too late.

All of the naysayers in that were clearly wrong.

This doesn't work anymore. It was rendered useless by a quite necessary system update.

I would see why they would do this too. All it would take is for you to download a trojan, click yes on the UAC prompt, and it could in theory install any kind of rootkit that it wants.

This isn't needed anyways. As I have pointed out numerous times already, you can sign your own drivers for free if you needed to.

[Absolution]

Just watch, in about a year to a year and a half from now, most people who have a newer computer will be running vista x64, namely due to the 32-bit address limit issues. AMD's move to 64-bit computing at the time that they chose was a good idea, namely because of the rate at which the market is advancing. It gave the industry a perfect amount of time to prepare for the switch that is about to come soon. Not too early, not too late.

All of the naysayers in that were clearly wrong.



I would see why they would do this too. All it would take is for you to download a trojan, click yes on the UAC prompt, and it could in theory install any kind of rootkit that it wants.

This isn't needed anyways. As I have pointed out numerous times already, you can sign your own drivers for free if you needed to.

I kinda laugh at the face that people upgraded to a 64bit proccessor just for the "futureproofing" even though it may have been more expensive. I bet those people are already upgraded once or twice since then. MS should have pushed 64bit a lot sooner though, Intel was a bit behind though.


Also, I thought you needed a license from MS to sign your own drivers? Got a link, this is an interesting subject for me.

[Rakeesh]

Also, I thought you needed a license from MS to sign your own drivers? Got a link, this is an interesting subject for me.

No, not unless you intend to publish them. And even then, you don't need a license from microsoft per se, rather you need to obtain a cross-certificate from one of the certificate authorities:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/drvsign/crosscert.mspx

Keep in mind the difference between WHQL signing, which does need approval directly from microsoft, and an ordinary driver that just has a signature from a trusted source. I don't know how much it costs for the latter, but there is more than one place that can give you such a cert, so I imagine it can be pretty cheap, possibly even free.

If it is for your own private use, you can use this tool to make your own certificate, which is definitely free:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bfsktky3(VS.80).aspx

Normally you download root certificates from windows update, but you can just add your own, and you can make them using that tool.

Then you need to sign your driver using your new certificate, with this tool:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8s9b9yaz(VS.80).aspx

After that you can install and run your driver.

Both of those tools can be found in the windows driver kit.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/WDK/WDKpkg.mspx

[mythy]

I had no idea we could do that! Very helpful! :)