I’m somewhat of an early adopter. I like being in on the beginning stages of new technology, if for no other reason, then to prepare for people asking me about it. It can sometimes be good to have things just not work quite right. Sometimes. Usually, it’s just frustrating. That’s why about a year ago, I decided to install Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, which was just getting a preview release.

Back then, it was not exactly polished code. It was the first preview release they offered, and the fact that it didn’t have a Release Candidate tag on it was a clear sign that it wasn’t ready. Installing Windows XP 64 back then was an exercise in futility. Not surprisingly, that was an exercise that lasted a grand total of maybe three hours: install, fight with drivers, get it running, find nothing works, cry, and reformat. I know that doesn’t sound much different from the standard Windows install, but picture it being even more frustrating. I always feel better after a good cry, but even after getting all the hardware installed properly, getting software to work was impossible. I had an OS that could run all sorts of 64 bit programs that didn’t exist, but couldn’t run all of the 32 bit programs that did. It felt kind of like having the first fax machine. Back to good old fashioned 32-bit Windows I ran, like a horse into a burning barn.

With the announcement that Microsoft was planning on releasing this beast in the first half of 2005, I decided to give their first release candidate (RC1) a try. (Yes, I know that members of the preview program can check out RC2. I am a member of no such program.) How’s it compare? Does it feel like it’s getting ready for prime time?

First, I needed a reference system, and as new hardware is the flavor of the day, and perhaps the best end user experience, I opted for building a new system:

This PC isn’t at the very top of the line, but it’s not at the bottom either. Let’s see how it does.

Installation

To install, I just popped in the Windows XP 64-Bit Edition RC1 CD, and turned on the computer. No hitting a key to add third party RAID drivers necessary. I just turned it on, and the standard Windows installer began. If you’ve done the Windows install process before, you’re more than familiar enough with the standard light blue screen of ennui that accompanies the base Windows install. Partitioned drive? Check. Copied files over? Check. Rebooted computer? Check. Done this 46 times too often? Check.

After reboot, the standard login screen comes up. On logging in, I found I had no Internet access, because it hadn’t picked up my network card. Not a problem; I just located the appropriate question marked device, set it to use “nVidia nForce Networking Controller”; this allowed me to go to nVidia’s web site to download the 64 bit chipset drivers for nForce 4. Yay! Let’s not forget hitting up ATI’s web site for their 64 bit graphic drivers. After that, Device Manager was happy. No question marks. No exclamations. Just devices working happily. Fantastic. I contrast this with Windows 2000, which never quite got the hardware quite right.

Despite my use of relatively new hardware, Windows XP 64 RC1 is picking it up pretty well. This may be perhaps the best collection of hardware drivers released from Microsoft to date. (Then again, this might just be because they’re only focusing on higher end hardware which is likely to support 64-bit processors.) Installation doesn’t work flawlessly for me yet, but as drivers are still rolling in from manufacturers and XP 64’s release date is still months away, a cleanup will no doubt occur. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I could pop in the release version of XP, run the installer, and be up and running with no issues using this hardware.

Usage

Because the UI is pretty much the same as it always was, there’s not much to say in the way of user experience improvement. Knowing Microsoft, this will change in the coming months, but as of right now, users of XP would be quite comfortable in switching to XP 64.

The real news, however, is in applications. Does Nero install? Yep. How about Microsoft Office 2003 Basic? No problem. Doom 3? Sure, why not. People who’ve used Windows for a while are familiar with the Program Files folder. Well, now there’s another folder: Program Files (x86). (I cringe at the parentheses too.) This is where the old school 32-bit applications all live — the 64-bit ones go in the standard location. Apparently the sleepless developers out in Redmond have been spending time kludging in 32-bit support for us folks reluctant to give up on the hundreds or thousands of dollars invested in software libraries.

That’s the real beauty of this release. You can have your cake and eat it too. Programs run. I won’t say they run perfectly in 32-bit mode yet, but they do in fact run, and not too badly. I have noticed some things had issues (for example, a kernel crash when exiting Doom 3, and 3DMark wouldn’t run with the 64-bit hardware drivers), but the schizophrenic OS actually seemed to be working. Office seemed to work without issues. The 32-bit emulation works way better than I would have imagined, and short of ironing out some hardware bugs, I think it’s pretty solid. Plus, as soon as developers start releasing 64-bit versions of their software (which you can bet are in development!), you’ll get to reap the benefits right away.

64-bit IE is an interesting pickle in and of itself, though. It works…mostly. However, try getting Flash 7 installed. They packaged 32-bit IE with the OS, which is fortunate, since Windows Update doesn’t even work with 64-bit IE. Nonetheless, as far as browsers go, IE is solid in this release, albeit with the strange choice of either 32 or 64-bit versions.

I was expecting to see it in much rougher shape than it was, but was pleasantly surprised. As of right now, the OS works well enough for me to use as an every day OS, and that’s saying a lot.

Conclusion

Yep, it’s true: Microsoft is looking good for its eventual release of Windows XP 64-bit Edition. The hardware support is there, the backwards compatibility is in good shape, and developers the world around are salivating (or perspiring) at the prospect of getting their apps into the 64-bit world. In short, it’s good to be Microsoft right now. But when is 64-bit Half Life 2 coming down the pipe? I can hardly wait.