Since the three days of pain in going quad, I've rather enjoyed using Vista x64 thus far. UAC hasn't been as much of a pain as it might and HP even had drivers for my old Deskjet. But beyond my initial impressions, there are definitely a few more 64bit switch issues that aren't going to go away.

• There's no flash player plug-in for any 64 bit browser. And no sign of Adobe writing one soon either. YouTube is now but a copy hyperlink, open IE x86, paste and watch away. Joy. At least SlickRun makes this slightly bearable.
• OneNote 2007 installs a 'send to onenote' button in IE x86, but not in IE x64.
• Microsoft File Transfer manager will not install in IE x64
• Ultramon doesn't work very well in Vista. In Vista x64, it also BSoDs from time to time after waking from sleep.

Ultramon I understand, but Microsoft and Adobe? Sheesh.

Five days in with life on Vista x64 after the hardships of going quad and I'm trying to get used to working the Vista way but a few things are jarring.

• Media Player plugins don't work on x64. My last.fm account will remain static now.
• I really dislike the vista start menu, but can't not use the search function on it. Its the only way I've found of getting to it. To wit, everything I use is now run through SlickRun. Thank heavens for that.
• I'm a developer. I don't need a Saved Games folder that I can't delete. Could I please lose it? Can I just move c:\users\dan to d:\dan and leave it at that.
• Windows Explorer for Vista will definitely annoy me. For some reason, the menu bar is stuck on no matter how many times I tell it to go away. I'd really like the shortcuts to my user folder and the public folder to go away as well, but will they? Oh no. And will Explorer remember the view I told it to remember for any folder I want to view? Nope. It's oh so tempting to look at alternate file explorers. Fancy multi-sized icons I can do without.
• How do you get programs other than those installed with Windows into the default programs control panel then?
• Anti-virus for Vista x64. Either inadequate or not written yet.
• FIrewall for Vista x64. You can switch on outbound rules and then curse as you write every single outbound rule manually and - inevitably - forget a few. Or wait for agnitum to finish outpost.
• UAC - annoying so far only in that because I didn't write anything to my external hard drive from my standard user account before installing Vista over XP, I need to elevate permissions every time I want to do something with the files on it.

The transition between Windows 98 and 2000, 2000 and XP & XP and Vista always have these quirks but the hardest thing as ever is to accept that you can't retrain the new O\S to act like the old one. I think Chris tried for a few weeks to get XP working like 2000 and I fear the attempt was in vain. The blogosphere is much larger now than it was 2001 when XP was launched so all the answers to my questions will be there somewhere if I can be arsed to find them. Can anyone recommend me a good book on power-using Vista instead?

Jason Haley style, a rough guide to creating a development and blogging suite on Windows XP Professional x64.

• PDF File (604KB)
• docx file (21KB)
• doc file (53KB)

Interesting how some apps have the x64 tag appended to them but are just 32 bit apps which will run on XP x64. Also how some apps seem to be 32-bit but then generate a 64-bit process (well that’s at least how Process Explorer appears to work) and my AV program runs as both 32-bit and 64-bit at the same time.

You know that cliché of the empty street in a western outpost just before a climactic shoot out where a solitary bell rings high noon and a slow wind blows a ball of tangleweed and dust around the near-cavernous seeming road? That’s what Microsoft Update reminds me of for Windows XP x64. Install XP x86 with SP2 fresh on a box and there are some 70 or so critical updates to download and watch tick by. For x64, there are five. It’s spooky. The main reason would seem to be XP x64 Service Pack 2 which came out last week on March 13.

I seem to have lucked out on XP64. Aside from the reasonably few updates, I read in SP2’s release notes that

The x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition are based on the Windows Server 2003 code tree. Service and support activities for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition use the Windows Server 2003 tree and do not use the Windows XP client tree.

Sure enough, this means I’ve got IIS 6.0 running on my machine which is priceless for me. I’m curious exactly how user roles are split now though. I’m running as administrator for the time being while installing everything, but does the admin vs standard user separation work the same way as in Vista but without UAC butting in? Or rather, is it worth the effort to use only a standard user account here in XP 64 or will I end up running as admin every five minutes anyway? Anyone use this who knows?

I decided to re-pave my main box this weekend and as Asus aren’t supporting the A8V Deluxe motherboard in Vista, I thought I'd switch to working 64bit anyway and installed Windows XP x64 instead. Which, having had the benefit of being out for a good couple of years in now reasonably supported - well, almost. The advantage XP64 has is that it does support much newer motherboards by itself and indeed half the drivers I would have installed from the CD that came with the mobo were installed by default anyway. And so what if there is no x64 driver for AMD Cool n Quiet? I’ll live. nVidia is also very good with drivers as well. Forceware v93.71 works just fab and groovy.

Of course, it hasn’t been all wine and roses. The mobo’s wireless LAN card and Sound Blaster X-Fi also needed drivers and ASUS don't even acknowledge the LAN card’s existence on their site. Fortunately, the forums at start64.com and planetamd64.com helped out and pointed me at the RalinkTech site - the guys who made the card before ASUS actually branded it. A godsend; they even have Vista x86\x64 drivers as well so why ASUS couldn’t be bothered to advertise this fact is beyond me.

Last but not least, Creative. A proud owner of an x-Fi ExtremeMusic card, it’s a shame that while the x64 driver is on their site, it may take a couple of goes to find it. Go to the main download page and you’re asked to select your product. Click X-Fi, then SoundBlaster and ExtremeMusic doesn’t appear. Oh no, you have to click SoundBlaster first, and then X-Fi and there she is. Exactly how this particular piece of nonsensical user interface was allowed into the wild I don’t know but it definitely is a stumper. Trying to install the wrong driver doesn’t help either. You just get a message saying it’s the wrong driver, rather than what the driver being installed is actually for. Wake up, Creative. We are dumb and crave sensible UI and helpful error messages.