amd64 fun, Chapter 2

This is part 2 of my amd64 fun, this time on Windows XP Pro/amd64. The install was the same as a normal Windows XP install, and all the SP2 fun was rolled in, even though the build was marked as Service Pack 1. The system is a cut down version of Windows 2003, because of the fact the XP-SP2 stuff was in a SP1 build, and that the system version was Windows 5.2 (rather than 5.1 for XP)

I installed it on a separate partition to my Windows 2000 install, and they played along happily, and they were about even in speed... maybe XP/amd64 was slightly faster. I was suprised considering I regard XP as very slow and bloated. Maybe I’ve used one too many XP boxes with the “standard” 256MB of RAM, and I have four times that. :D I couldn’t install AVG Antivirus on the system, because there isn’t support for that yet. I couldn’t install my keyboard or mouse drivers, and I’ve submitted a support ticket to Logitech about it.

My verdict is at the moment, Windows on 64-bit environments is about one and a half years behind Linux. The issues with closed source drivers make hardware compatibility issues far worse. Props to Nvidia though for having their drivers out for amd64 since day one on Linux and Windows.

And my laptop will cost “about 190$” to get fixed up. Yay.