There are 64-bit versions of many of Stardock's most popular programs including WindowBlinds.

Here's my twopennies worth on the subject... I've been using 64bit since MS released XP Professional x64 and was lucky enough to beta-test Vista from Beta2 though to release and I, for one, wouldn't dream of going back to a 32bit OS, (seems a bit like buying a ZX Spectrum and hoping it'll run the new generation of apps and games), sure, Vista in both x32 and x64 got some deserved bad press from a premature release, but Vista now bears no resemblance (under the bonnet) to the "ugly stick" that was released back in January 2007. 64bit apps and games are becoming more mainstream which shows that after a slow start, the major software producers have now adopted the platform and seen it as the way forward. Autodesk, Corel, Ahead, Eset, McAfee amd most of the major players now have either native 64bit support in the latest version of their software or a 64bit version of their software available. All this, and remember, the majority of 32bit software will still run on Vista.

"The King is Dead. Long live the King!"

Regards to all, Peter

I'd never go back to 32-bit, I have a 9800 GX2 that has 1GB of memory along with 4GB of system memory. If I go to 32-bit my OS will only use a total of 3GB out of 4GB. Not to mention I run a Quad-Core system which isn't fully taken advantage of in 32-bit.

Yup and im lovin it. I dont know the full list tho, where can we find one? Also is there a list of those not currently 64 bit, that will be brought in to 64 bit compatibilty?

I was under the impression that the latest service pack for Vista 32 allowed the OS to fully utilise my 4GB of RAM, I am wrong I take it?

That's incorrect, MS simply made the OS show the amount of memory the computers BIOS reports it has. It may say 4GB but it's not using any more memory than it did prior to Service Pack 1.

Point being that for an OS to be considered worthy, usage of minimal memory for the most efficient conditions can only mean better overall performance for everything else that MUST tag remaining system resources.

It's not the quantity of active memory, it's how the quality (or what principles, swap comes to mind) gets distributed amongst the bazillion of configurations possible.

I'm waiting for my next computer build to go to 64-bit.  By then I'm hoping most things are compatible - and I'll be actually wanting DDR3 RAM instead of wworrying about the latency issues with it.

I only have 2gb of RAM - but it's running at some insanely high speed I've Oc'd it to, and a quad-core processor (all four cores at 3ghz) so I can't complain about anything.  My only issue is DX10 being locked to Vista, but that's not my computer's fault, is it. >_>

I do have access to XP64, but I don't really feel like dealing with that support mess. So for now, I'll stick to XP32 and gladly stomach the loss of 512MB out of my 4GB to my video card's allocation. My old machine only had 1GB anyway 

End of quote

The ram isn't the issue at ALL, people keep on talking about ram, that is a straw man... the ram in 64bit is only an issue if you need 6 or 8GB of ram. Not 4GB.

The REAL benefit of 64bit is the vastly improved speed of computation. Certain hash calculations are OVER 300% (300% = 4 times faster) faster in 64bit! And I benchmarked a 7z compression to be 27% faster in 64bit compared to 32bit. (same machine, installed 32 and 64bit versions, compressed the same files with same settings with each one and timed it).

I've been running Vista Ultimate x64 for about 6 months.

I absolutely love it! Will never turn back.

Well it looks like we are ready for the end of the 32 bit age and moving forward to the 1st full release of a only 64 bit windows version in the makings!!!

Yes it is in the makings and I hope it will be ready for testing soon. I believe the world is going to more secure using such softwares and/or OS types of systems. Besides all the problems with people not liking it for the reason of drivers not being written as such yet. Lately this has been changing and things are getting  ready to be very different soon.

64 Bit has so many possibles... the numbers are endless and with a lot of looking at what is to be and not considering what it is now. We are about to look into the new future of computing with this in mind. Just the taste of the 64 bit system is a good thing. 6 years in the makings and we will have what is coming. A system without crashing - easily recovered and backed up completely. Even play those video games we like and work at the sametime too. Like I said endless are the ways you can do things with more at work for you.

I await for the newest ideas for the next OS Windows beyond Windows 7 ...  "Windows 8"!

Er ... incorrect. 64-bit has 2 advantages which are not dependant on the OS: You have twice the registers, and you can (in some cases) do 2 mathematical operations at once, compared to 32-bit. Because of the way modern CPUs are designed, single operations on very large numbers dont really go any faster than before, because the bottleneck there tends to be IO, and that hasnt changed much.

The only problem is, there arent very many applications where this is actually possible. Only specific types of computations really take advantage of this ability to run 2 mathematical operations on different numbers at the same time, and that's mostly the various types of Digital Signal Processing - audio/video (de)compression - and other DSP-like tasks, namely data (de)compression and encryption/decryption, and these are higly dependant on the algorythm used.

This is partly due to compilers (especially on windows, if youre using msvc++, since its fairly horrid and generally lags well behind ICC in compiler evolution), partly due to limitations in the CPUs logic, but mostly down to the reason that makes programming for parallel supercomputers so very hard - its really hard to parallelise serial mathematical tasks.

If you bench Max on a C2D, 32 and 64-bit are almost the same speed. On most things, its within statistical error limits. The gap on AMD processors is a bit larger because differences in architecture penalise 32-bit a little, but that's because of CPU design. Even having twice the registers makes almost no difference on most tasks.

So yes, 7zip will be 25% faster, and so will turning raw video into mpeg4, or compressing a cd into a lossy/lossless codec (though higly dependant on the codec). Everything else however, will be running at the same speed.

If you think this is disappointing, imagine how disappointing it is when you move from a target-compiled 32-bit linux installation to one in 64-bit.
Even though youve compiled all the OS, kernel, drivers and userland for that specific CPU, 99% of tasks will run at the exact same speed, and on top of that, things like flash dont work on 64-bit linux (or at least not easily)

Mac OS X uses a 32 bit kernel but can use much more than 4 GB of memory. (I think it works like Windows 95 did, with 32 bit routines running inside compatibility mode and called when needed.)

I don't have any computers with more than 3 GB of RAM.

I use Vista 64 on my iMac in a VM for compatibility reasons. (At work we use 64 bit servers.)

For me, it's all about the RAM. 8GB of RAM is a game changer.

Think how long many of you have been stuck at 2 or 3 gigs.

Quick personal time line:

1992: 8MB

1993: 16MB

1996: 128MB

1999: Windows NT: 256MB

2000: Windows 2000: 512MB

2001: Windows XP: 1GB

2003: Windows XP: 2GB

2008: Windows Vista: 3GB

32bit computing stopped me 5 years ago from expanding my memory. 

It's not just about loading up more "crap" into memory. It's also things like disk caching.  Disk caching used to represent 3/4ths of my memory use from a performance point of view.  On a 32bit machine, it's maybe half at best.

The lack of disk caching is the single biggest limitation in performance today IMO.  I would love to have 16GB right now with 12 of it being disk caching. Talk about a major performance boost, especially when combined with Vista's smart loading features.

I live in a rented flat. Therefor I buy laptops and iMacs rather than towers. Unfortunately Apple limit RAM on iMacs and MacBooks to 4 GB, despite the fact that ever since the G5 Mac OS could support much more memory. (This bugs me. Apple have this actual advantage of an OS that can use more than 4 GB of memory AND 32 bit drivers and they don't use it!)

Soor, I assure you my benchmarks are correct, and the also the ones with the hashes (not performed by me, but by reliabily benchmarking sites). 2x the registers plus 2x calculations at once = 4x THEORETICAL maximum performance benfit on a task that really REALLY benefits from those specific tasks.

So, just doubling the bit-path ends all crashes, etc?

What a dreamer.

What ignorance.

What stupidity.

I suppose you will be saying the same thing when the first 128-bit or 256-bit CPU/OS hits the market?

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. But your post shows that the wasting is in full swing.

A fiendly discussion of technology need not include attacks of a personal nature.

It most certainly DOES support 64bit, and has since v3 was released.  The link for the download is kind of "hidden" on the site, but again, it does support it.

Try here for starters.... http://www.eset.com/download/home-64bit.php

Moosetek13: He is probably refering to new stability improvements that made it into the x86_64 standard. 32bit for example had improvements that significantly improved stability compared to 16bit, it has nothing to do with doubling the bit path, but with architectural changes that are possible when you are already making something new.

I love the driver signing enforcement which 64-Bit has, and by love it I mean I love the fact that route kits are now GONE FOR GOOD when 32-bit dies off but at the same the the enforcement can be annoying with certain programs that require a signed driver when they dont seem to have them (used to be a big issue with Rivatuner which changed eventually).

I'm getting 64-bit vista with my new HP computer in less than a month, then off to max out Sins at high res with my new 9800 gt and 8 gb ram. Multi-tasking here I come!

Yup Vista 64 has been rock solid for me. The only thing I had to watch out for was using apps that are not 64 bit compatible e.g. for my antivirus I had to use AVG and Counterspy which work great.

Ah, thank-you

My bad, sorry.

I have been running vista 64bt since march this year, 8gb geil black dragon 800mhz - qad core 6600 - card  asus nvidia 280 psu 750 wtt the rig runs smooth sins maxed no lag yet even in largest star systems max fleets and vista has been a dream since day 1 I would recommend to anyone thinking of changing os 64 is theway to go give it the memory to breath and sit back and enjoy.