Frequently asked questions about Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is designed to work with 64-bit processors from AMD and Intel that support the x64 extensions to the x86 architecture. These include the Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Mobile Athlon 64, Turion 64, and Opteron processors from AMD, and the Xeon with EM64T and Pentium 4 with EM64T from Intel.

No. The Itanium processor is a 64-bit processor that has a different architecture than the x64 processors. A version of Windows XP for the Itanium processor is no longer available. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition continues to support the Itanium processor.

No, the Pentium M series of processors used in Centrino laptops are not 64-bit processors and can not use the x64 Edition of Windows XP Professional. There are x64-compatible laptops currently shipping that are based on AMD processors.

These are closely related questions. The initial target audience for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is anyone who is running into performance and memory limits on their 32-bit systems, for example, developers, media artists, CAD/CAM, scientific workstations and enthusiasts who are running the most demanding applications, and who require the capabilities of the Professional Edition of Windows XP. Windows XP Home Edition is targeted at the home user and has fewer features. At this point, especially with the current limited driver support, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is not targeted at the casual home user.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition requires that all system drivers be rewritten as 64-bit drivers, 32-bit drivers will not work. The hardware manufacturers are the ones who need to write new drivers, and they're working on it, but it's a resource issue. Writing and certifying a driver takes time and lots and lots of testing. Resources are always constrained, so the manufacturer needs to make a business decision about which hardware has priority for new drivers. This generally means that the focus is on the newest equipment, and older drivers may take a while, or never be done.

The best place to get drivers for any device is the device manufacturer. However, if you have a lot of different devices, you may find it awkward to find and get all the drivers you need. The best collection of drivers I've seen to date is on http://www.planetamd64.com/. This will undoubtedly change over time, but at the time of this writing, that's where I go when I'm having driver issues and can't get the driver direct from the manufacturer.

First, and foremost, tell your printer manufacturer that you want a 64-bit driver. The more a company hears from their users that they want a driver for a particular model, the more likely they are to shift resources to make sure that driver gets written and tested.

The downloadable trial version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is an ISO image file, you can't just copy it to a CD, you need to actually burn the image to the CD. For an excellent description of the process with several different software programs, see How to write an ISO file to CD.

Many x64 computers use a combined RAID and SATA controller. These controllers do not have native drivers in the released version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, so you need to download a driver from your hardware manufacturer, or the manufacturer of the controller, or from one of the community sites that are providing driver agglomeration such as http://www.planetamd64.com/. When you have the driver, you'll need to copy the driver files to a floppy disk, and use the F6 option to install the drivers during initial setup.

This is a problem with SATA drives that don't have a correct driver loaded during initial installation. New drivers for x64 require correct "decorations" and while they may appear to be accepted during the text mode phase of installation, they will fail during the initial GUI boot. For more information, read changes for vendor-provided storage drivers loaded using F6.

This is a tough one until vendors catch up and make their utilities compatible with x64. Until then, your best workaround is to either set your computer up for dual booting, or create a special boot hard drive that runs 32-bit Windows XP. This is a great use for an old 4 to 10 GB hard drive that you have lying around. Open up your computer and carefully remove your Windows XP Professional x64 Edition hard drive. Plug in your spare drive, and install a 32-bit version of Windows XP on it. Or even a copy of Windows 98 if your BIOS update program will run from Windows 98. The key is, don't install anything else on this hard drive – just use it to update the BIOS, and then remove it and put the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition hard drive back in. And meanwhile, complain to your hardware manufacturer about the situation.

There are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Internet Explorer in Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The default browser is the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer 6. The 32-bit version is the default because many sites depend on components that haven't been ported to the 64-bit version.

The version of Outlook Express on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is a 64-bit version. But the spell checking in Outlook Express is dependent on Microsoft Office, which is still a 32-bit program. Since a 64-bit program can't call a 32-bit Dynamic Link Library (DLL), there won't be support for spell checking in Windows XP Professional x64 Edition until we have a 64-bit version of Microsoft Office.

The \Windows\SysWOW64 directory is where 32-bit system files are installed. 64-bit system files are in the \Windows\system32 directory for compatibility reasons.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition redirects the \Program Files directory for all programs that are 32-bit during the installation to the \Program Files(x86) directory. Programs that 64-bit are installed into the \Program Files directory.

Yes. If you have a processor that is dual core, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition will recognize it as two separate processors and give you the benefit of both cores.

Almost the same, but Windows is actually licensed per socket, not per core. So, even though Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is limited to only two processors, it will see the two dual core processors as two processors for licensing purposes, and four processors for running Windows.

Good question, I wish I had the answer. As of the time of writing this column, no one has reported receiving theirs yet. I know that Microsoft is committed to this program and hopefully you will be receiving your version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition soon.

While it is technically possible to upgrade, it is a bad idea and it will leave you with an unsupported configuration. It's especially important to completely clear off any beta versions of files from your machine before installing the released version.

Yes, you can.

No, you can't upgrade. You can use the Technology Advancement Program until the end of July, 2005, to exchange your copy of Windows XP Professional for the x64 Edition of Windows XP Professional, but doing so replaces your existing license with the new license. The actual installation of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is a fresh install, not an upgrade. All your programs will have to be reinstalled, and if you have data on the same drive as your operating system, it will be wiped out. Make a thorough backup of your important files before doing the installation.

No, you got the right version. Because the Intel and AMD processors are binary compatible, they use the same version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Since the original x64 processors were designed by AMD, they were called "amd64" processors, and that is reflected in the folders on the CD.

If you use Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or have Tablet PC, and you have a topic you'd like to see me cover in one of my columns, or just want to tell me about how the Tablet PC has changed computing for you, feel free to write me at: Charlie@mvps.org. I really want to hear what you think and what interesting ways you've found that a Tablet PC makes your work better.

Please understand that it is impossible for me to acknowledge or answer individual e-mail messages, nor can I provide individual technical support via e-mail. If you have a question or a problem, please ask it in the appropriate Microsoft public newsgroup or community where all can benefit from the discussion. I regularly participate in the Microsoft Windows 64-bit Newsgroup, Microsoft Tablet PC Newsgroup, Microsoft Security Home Users Newsgroup, and the Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX newsgroups, amongst others, and I look forward to seeing you there. Or stop by and read our new x64 blog.