Will all Vista versions be 64 bit?

[sillyeagle]

And will 64bit Vista be the new standard as far as driver releases and such, or will they still lag behind 32 bit?

[jAkUp]

Vista will be x32 and x64

[bknblk]

I was under the impression that it would be an all in one DVD that installed the correct package by virtue of the key. I mean everything including MCE. There was an article on the new packaging posted here not too long ago. I do not have time to search it, but it was deinitely posted here.

[Son Goku]

I doubt we'd see as much of a lag as we had with winXP-64... Keep in mind that when XP-64 was released, winXP itself was already several years old, and manufacturers had already worked out their drivers. They weren't necessarily much of a mind to go back and redo it for a new version of XP after the fact, and well other things would have taken priority.

However, with Vista 64, both versions are comming out at the same time, and manufacturers are going to need to make Vista drivers either way. In fact if one article of moving the gfx (actually back, as NT 3.51 had them there) back into user mode to reduce BSODs, then they're going to have to redo these drivers. Not sure, if this is true, that Vista would then take a winXP kernel mode gfx driver all that nicely... I guess we'll know when it releases.

Given that Vista drivers are going to take a priority, would they really save by only developing Vista-32 drivers, and save the 64-bit one's till latter? Or would they save by just developing it for both versions of Vista, so they'll have something on Vista's launch? There's also the matter of Conroe, and that AMD won't be the only x86 manufacturer to release xi6-64 procs. People would want their support for their brand spanking new Conroe systems no less then A64 users would want :D

[jolle]

I was under the impression that it would be an all in one DVD that installed the correct package by virtue of the key. I mean everything including MCE. There was an article on the new packaging posted here not too long ago. I do not have time to search it, but it was deinitely posted here.
Im not sure, but I think the 32 and 64bit versions are on different discs, but these discs can install any version of the OS (enterprise, Ultimate etc) depending on the key used.

I read somewhere they were looking into scrapping the 32bit version alltogether, like a few years back, but then decided not to, I spose the 64bit transition has been too slow on the hardware side of things.. specially on the laptop, and mainly Intel side of things.

[fps_dean]

They should let you pick x32 or x64 upon install with the same key. That would be a very good idea!!!!

[supra]

They should let you pick x32 or x64 upon install with the same key. That would be a very good idea!!!!

thats a pretty good idea. then people upgrading to x64 dont need to buy 2 copies of windows

[fps_dean]

thats a pretty good idea. then people upgrading to x64 dont need to buy 2 copies of windows
My thoughts exactly, and we can decide which we like better from that!

I'm not quite sure that I would call x64 an upgrade at the moment though ;)

[supra]

no i meant hardware wise. people upgrading to 64bit cpus.

[Rakeesh]

They should let you pick x32 or x64 upon install with the same key. That would be a very good idea!!!!

They would essentially have to keep two totally different versions of windows on the same disc if that were the case. The home, pro, enterprise, etc versions are all pretty much identical, save for subtle differences here and there (the biggest difference is actually in a specific configuration file.)

But having an IA32 and IA64 on the same disc would require two completely different sets of binaries. The only consolidation that could be done would be the default configuration files, graphics, sound, and multimedia libs, etc. Come to think of it though, those libs probably make up the bulk of the cruft thats in windows.

[saweetnesstrev]

Alpha i dont like your signature. No wonder your from southwest ^^

[fps_dean]

They would essentially have to keep two totally different versions of windows on the same disc if that were the case. The home, pro, enterprise, etc versions are all pretty much identical, save for subtle differences here and there (the biggest difference is actually in a specific configuration file.)

But having an IA32 and IA64 on the same disc would require two completely different sets of binaries. The only consolidation that could be done would be the default configuration files, graphics, sound, and multimedia libs, etc. Come to think of it though, those libs probably make up the bulk of the cruft thats in windows.
Yup that's right... or we would need two discs.

Remember NT4? They had an x86 version and a sparc version on the same disc, so it very well could be done with a 32 bit and 64 bit version as well. And Gentoo immediately comes to mind here as well ;)