Is there a point to have 64 bit?

[2wiced]

Hey guys, a friend ordered 64 bit windows vista..... is there a point to having it right now? any advantages? im clueless about 64 bit, but people tell me its hell....


did he just waist 100 bucks?

[Greatone123]

Depends really...I have Vista Ultimate x64


There are still some driver support problems I'm sure... I haven't had any...

a few games support x64... crysis.. hellgate london(HUGE Improvement over 32-bit)... I'm sure there are more

Max amount of Ram... does your friend plan on going much over 3GB? if not then doesn't really need x64...

I've never used any 32-bit versions of Vista.. so I'm not sure if there is much of a difference either way...

I'll be switching to Server 2003 if I get a chance...

[bbz_Ghost]

Because you can. What other reason does one truly need?

[Kowan]

Exactly. 32bit apps and 64bit work on it. :)

[2wiced]

well i canceled the order for 64 bit while i could, i am going to see if i can get it through school for cheaper. I also changed his CPU to a 2160 (gonna overclock).


He has xp, so he doesnt need a new OS.

he will have 3-4gb of ram, but his windows professional should see most of it. He doenst do anything but play WOW and CS, he will play BF2 and possibly Crysis.

something about 64 just doesnt convince me to buy it just yet.

[ring.of.steel]

I'll be switching to Server 2003 if I get a chance...

Server 2003 is not for gaming. Makes a good workstation if you tweak it right :p

[bbz_Ghost]

Actually, Server 2003 is outstanding for gaming since it's better than XP by a mile and twice on Sundays. Framerates are typically 5-10% higher on 2K3 than on XP, and that's 32 bit. Slap on 2K3 x64 and it just gets better.

The old "it's a server OS" means nothing, it never really has, it's just a way to charge more for the OS to get more support as required from Microsoft. But how many of us actually do that? How many [H]ard people have ever called a Microsoft 800 number or any number at all? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? :p

[Kowan]

They have a 800 number? :p

[Sean]

Actually, Server 2003 is outstanding for gaming since it's better than XP by a mile and twice on Sundays. Framerates are typically 5-10% higher on 2K3 than on XP, and that's 32 bit. Slap on 2K3 x64 and it just gets better.

The old "it's a server OS" means nothing, it never really has, it's just a way to charge more for the OS to get more support as required from Microsoft. But how many of us actually do that? How many [H]ard people have ever called a Microsoft 800 number or any number at all? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? :p

Ya the only problem is the cost of it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116233

LOL. Unless you can get it from MSDN ;)

[l3ender]

Most people go x64 because of the ability for more RAM.

[Sean]

Most people go x64 because of the ability for more RAM.

MEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[nukleuz]

About to install vista ultimate 64 bit in an hour or so with 4gb ram on a Dell XPS M1330!!

[Mithent]

Slap on 2K3 x64 and it just gets better.

Isn't that basically XP x64?

64-bit also gives a few fringe benefits on Windows, such as address space randomisation to make exploits harder and Kernel PatchGuard (I'm very glad to keep those anti-virus companies out of my kernel, too!). There's no real reason why these couldn't be on 32-bit as far as I know, but they're not right now.

[Finn]

Unless you do some professional level video/photoediting, rendering or the sorts specialities you have no need to use more than 3 gigs of ram currently. 32-bit apps are not designed to go past 2 gigs anyway so for gaming 32-bits is more than enough. XP being faster than Vista (and more reliable) its a very sensible and applaudable decision to stick with it.

[DeaconFrost]

but people tell me its hell....
Do these people also tell you the Earth is square? Why is it, so many people "hear" that x64 OSes are bad or pointless, rather than do some actual reading to find out the facts?

Once you go x64, you won't go back. Plain and simple. If he's familiar with XP and doesn't want Vista, but plans on running a recent processor with 3+ GB of memory, get him XP x64. If he wants to run Vista, get hime Vista x64.

[UberGeek427]

LOL. Unless you can get it from MSDN ;)

thank god I have MSDN through work AND school. :p

[Sean]

thank god I have MSDN through work AND school. :p
Same through work. :)

[TheNuker]

Actually, Server 2003 is outstanding for gaming since it's better than XP by a mile and twice on Sundays. Framerates are typically 5-10% higher on 2K3 than on XP, and that's 32 bit. Slap on 2K3 x64 and it just gets better.

The old "it's a server OS" means nothing, it never really has, it's just a way to charge more for the OS to get more support as required from Microsoft. But how many of us actually do that? How many [H]ard people have ever called a Microsoft 800 number or any number at all? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? :p

Agreed.

I've used server 2k3 as my gaming OS for quite some time and it's ages faster than XP for everything. XP64 is as fast as 2k3 server for everything I've used and also has the benefits of x64 architecture. Using 7-zip x64 makes a hell of a lot of difference for compressing/decompressing stuff.

I've used 2k3x64 as well and it offers nothing over XP64 in terms of performance, they are technically identical. All it has are server oriented services like DNS/DHCP and a lot of other stuff that I don't see normal people using at a workstation/gaming machine. Of course, it doesn't have all the fancy stuff xp64 does, but it's easy to get rid of those things.

[bbz_Ghost]

You people slay me sometimes. What could possibly be better than free?

Win2K3 Trial Edition (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb430831.aspx)

XP x64 Trial Edition (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/trial.mspx)

I mean, how cool is that? You could find yourself requiring extensive and long-term testing of those trial editions, I suppose. ;)

[2wiced]

wow thanks!!! thats awsome that they let you use it for 120 days, i mean i reformat every 3-4 months lol. sometimes.

[vsrdan]

Hey guys, a friend ordered 64 bit windows vista..... is there a point to having it right now? any advantages? im clueless about 64 bit, but people tell me its hell...

You need quite a lot of patience to get used to 64 bit Vista. Not all 32 bit applications are 64 bit Vista compatible. There are few annoying bugs you need to work around yourself (because MS knowledgebase have no records of them). Depending on the system's age, you may (or may not) need a BIOS update.

I personally use 32 bit XP Pro, 64 bit XP Pro, and 64 bit Vista Enterprise. In my opinion, 64 bit XP Pro is the best yet. Things may change after XP SP3 and Vista SP1 I guess. Both XP and Vista 64 bit OS's are faster than their 32 bit counterparts (with the same hardware).

[bbz_Ghost]

Not all 32 bit applications are 64 bit Vista compatible. There are few annoying bugs you need to work around yourself (because MS knowledgebase have no records of them).

Would you be so kind as to clarify precisely which 32 bit applications aren't compatible, and precisely which few annoying bugs you're referring to? I'd love to finally have someone show me something that doesn't work with Vista and which "bugs" exist in the 64 bit edition(s) that don't in the 32 bit ones.

Thanks...

[ring.of.steel]

Windows 2003 is not compatible with all games by itself, thats why i didnt reccomend it for gaming, although it is faster.

[MC FLMJIG]

Interesting thread... I also reformat frequently as well. hmmmm

[Mithent]

Would you be so kind as to clarify precisely which 32 bit applications aren't compatible

The only ones I've found are things that use drivers or driver-level hooks: Intel Thermal Analysis Tool doesn't run at all, and CoreTemp and RivaTuner need workarounds. Come to think of it, Taskbar Shuffle doesn't work either (needs to hook 64-bit Explorer), but I found a replacement, Taskix. There are a few more incompatibilities and problems I've had but they've been Vista, not 64-bit-specific, and they've now pretty much been dealt with after some tweaking and finding a hotfix (for the strange problem of USB microphones not working properly on machines with 4GB+ RAM).

[Met-AL]

The only pain in the butt I had with running 2K3 as my gaming machine was finding a free AV client that would install on 2K3. There is the policy of server OS means you need to pay for a server version of AV with most AV vendors.

[ring.of.steel]

The only ones I've found are things that use drivers or driver-level hooks: Intel Thermal Analysis Tool doesn't run at all, and CoreTemp and RivaTuner need workarounds. Come to think of it, Taskbar Shuffle doesn't work either (needs to hook 64-bit Explorer), but I found a replacement, Taskix. There are a few more incompatibilities and problems I've had but they've been Vista, not 64-bit-specific, and they've now pretty much been dealt with after some tweaking and finding a hotfix (for the strange problem of USB microphones not working properly on machines with 4GB+ RAM).

Iv found a few games that wont work, can only think of these 2 at the moment.

Doom 3
Quake 4

To above poster, i just installed avg free :)

[vsrdan]

Would you be so kind as to clarify precisely which 32 bit applications aren't compatible, and precisely which few annoying bugs you're referring to? I'd love to finally have someone show me something that doesn't work with Vista and which "bugs" exist in the 64 bit edition(s) that don't in the 32 bit ones.

Thanks...

There are so many driver issues, even if you found "officially" Vista 64bit supported drivers, there may be few problems.

Windows Photo Gallery have SO MANY bugs. In my case it refused to display images (of any kind). Turned out to be a color profile problem - Vista dosen't like the monitor-specific color profile although Vista itself downloaded and installed it during updating. The error message Vista gave me was "not enough memory available to display the image" (or something like that. 3GB DDR2 800 is "insufficient"?? huh...)

Try installing "Windows - All versions" compatible freeware (sepcially pdf creators) with Vista 64bit. At least half of them won't work (I mean all the features, in some cases some features would work).

Depending on your monitor, the font dpi settings may have to be manually configured. In my case, default was too small, and next available setting (125) was too large (this didn't happen to me with XP).

I don't know much about gaming issues. I am not a gamer.

[DeaconFrost]

I've tried several free PDF creation softwares and they've all worked for me. CutePDF is what I use on each system though, along side of the snap-in for Office 2007.

I'm just venturing a guess here, but both of your other issues seem related to your specific monitor and not Vista. The font dpi issues sounds more like the need to customize a setting, rather than an actual problem with the OS.

[svet-am]

I use 64-bit XP for a few reasons. First is so I can access the larger memory space. My machine has 4GB currently and I'm thinking of upping that to 8GB. Some of the native 64-bit apps that I use include 7Zip (this makes unzipping LARGE files much much faster and takes a lot less memory to do it - I routinely work with ZIP and 7z files in excess of 5GB) as well as the Xilinx ISE tools. I'm a Xilinx engineer and 64-bit (with 4-16GB of RAM) is the only way to do designs based on Virtex-5 since the Virtex-5 is such a large device. I also like how the games I play which have native 64-bit binaries run (UT2004 is a really good example of this).

While 32-bit apps can only access a single 4GB segment of memory, I find that having multiple large applications (for example, a large PhotoShop project as well as a large AfterEffects or Encore project) all at the same time behave more responsively on 64-bit than on 32-bit since the OS is more capable of handling the memory space.

I also use 64-bit Linux as a dual-boot but the differences in application performance are not as marked under Linux as they are under Windows.

[Met-AL]

To above poster, i just installed avg free :)

Yep, very minor problem.

[milkweg]

Server 2003 is not for gaming. Makes a good workstation if you tweak it right :p

Isn't Vista based on Server2003? I think it is.

[CrazyRob]

Iv found a few games that wont work, can only think of these 2 at the moment.

Doom 3
Quake 4

To above poster, i just installed avg free :)

I have not had any problems with either of those games in both Vista Ultimate x64 and XP64. I'm guessing he might be running into a general openGL snafu or something similar that's holding up those games. Not accusing, just my .02.

The only real dealbreaker I've seen lately is that aparently apple doesn't support the syncing of Iphones in vista 64 (and i'm assuming xp64) however it's been over a month since I looked into it, so that could have changed as well.

[bbz_Ghost]

Isn't Vista based on Server2003? I think it is.

Uhmmm... no. Vista was what originally came to be known as codename Longhorn but the entire Longhorn program was basically tossed in a drawer (so to speak) and revamped almost from scratch to become Vista.

Windows Server 2003 was never related to Vista in any way. Blackcomb and Longhorn (codenames, obviously) were supposed to be the next big things from Microsoft: Longhorn died before birth and was reborn as Vista; Blackcomb is still kinda sorta not quite yet dead but has some roots in Windows Server 2008, just about to be released as a final product here in a few weeks.

[Atech]

Most people go x64 because of the ability for more RAM.

And most don't actually use those +4GB RAM, the majority of people I have heard, have gone this route because "Ram is so cheap now"...unused RAM it the most expensive RAM that you can own ;)

[MrWizard6600]

They have a 800 number? :p

only found in the deepest darkest most dangerous and destructive parts of hell.... --er I mean Microsoft.com

And most don't actually use those +4GB RAM, the majority of people I have heard, have gone this route because "Ram is so cheap now"...unused RAM it the most expensive RAM that you can own ;)

the sig when idling is rummaging through 2 of the 4 gigs available to it, granted when its "idling" its not idling most of the time, its doin a virus scan or defraggin itself.

4 gigs an't that excessive these days folks, welcome to the world of quad core and 4 gigs, aka 2008.

[Atech]

the sig when idling is rummaging through 2 of the 4 gigs available to it, granted when its "idling" its not idling most of the time, its doin a virus scan or defraggin itself.

4 gigs an't that excessive these days folks, welcome to the world of quad core and 4 gigs, aka 2008.

I have yet to go over 2GB of RAM usage on my Quadcore when gaming, when virusscannning, when working, when updating...I guess I must be doing things more effeciently than you? :p

Untill I actually go OVER 2GB of RAM, I don't see the point...unused RAM is wasted RAM.

[MrWizard6600]

I have yet to go over 2GB of RAM usage on my Quadcore when gaming, when virusscannning, when working, when updating...I guess I must be doing things more effeciently than you? :p

Untill I actually go OVER 2GB of RAM, I don't see the point...unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Vista vs xp? I'll take some screenies when I get access to it.

[bbz_Ghost]

I have yet to go over 2GB of RAM usage on my Quadcore when gaming, when virusscannning, when working, when updating...I guess I must be doing things more effeciently than you? :p

Untill I actually go OVER 2GB of RAM, I don't see the point...unused RAM is wasted RAM.

That's why you get a lot of RAM, a RAMdisk, and you make that RAM work for you. Whatever you have right now in terms of hardware... it's slow, I assure you. If I could double your RAM and get a RAMdisk on it, your entire machine would be roughly 40% faster, if not even faster in day to day performance, and gaming would benefit somewhat as well.

People just have no idea how fast their machines can really be till you set the damned things up properly. Unused RAM... never heard of such a thing... :)

[Atech]

Vista vs xp? I'll take some screenies when I get access to it.

I run XP Pro SP2...that will soon be XP Pro SP3...the replacement will NOT be Vista, but Windows 7.
Only thing Vista offers me would be DX10..and as Hard have shown, DX10 gaming sucks at this time(poor preformance)..and when they pulled WinFS out of Vista it lost all appeal to me.

That Vista is a rescource hog is a bad excuse ;)

[Atech]

That's why you get a lot of RAM, a RAMdisk, and you make that RAM work for you. Whatever you have right now in terms of hardware... it's slow, I assure you. If I could double your RAM and get a RAMdisk on it, your entire machine would be roughly 40% faster, if not even faster in day to day performance, and gaming would benefit somewhat as well.

People just have no idea how fast their machines can really be till you set the damned things up properly. Unused RAM... never heard of such a thing... :)

I call sheens, provide documentation!

[bbz_Ghost]

RAM moves data at nanosecond timings; hard drives move data at millisecond timings.

What more documentation would you really need? :) Anyone that knows anything would tell you the same thing: properly configuring a RAMdisk on most any machine nowadays will make the whole box fly compared to not using a RAMdisk.

www.superspeed.com for more info if necessary.

[eeyrjmr]

exactly RAMDISK ftw (or mount tmpfs to a directory for linux ;) )

I use to use ramdisk back in win9x days (when windows shipped with the sys file needed) if you then got internet explorer to use that ramdisk for tmp file browsing was faster since it didn't have to get written to disk first


There was a reason the linux kernel had a patch a while back allowing logging to be done in ns even tho disk are written in the ms range and that was because of RAMdisks.

quite a few use ramdisks for their logs. Google have their search results all in RAM

[Atech]

RAM moves data at nanosecond timings; hard drives move data at millisecond timings.

What more documentation would you really need? :) Anyone that knows anything would tell you the same thing: properly configuring a RAMdisk on most any machine nowadays will make the whole box fly compared to not using a RAMdisk.

www.superspeed.com (http://www.superspeed.com) for more info if necessary.

Again, I have YET to go over 2GB of RAM, why don't you take that fact into account?!
Your post is useeles, sorry.

[Arainach]

Again, I have YET to go over 2GB of RAM, why don't you take that fact into account?!
Your post is useeles, sorry.You're not listening. In fact, you're being willfully ignorant.

He's discussing a RAMdisk. Preloading programs that are traditionally run off the Hard Disk completely out of RAM chips, which are several orders of magnitude faster. Not unlike Vista's Superfetch feature, but done to a higher degree.

You've never used more than 2GB of RAM because Windows XP's memory management SUCKS. Every empty bit of RAM is wasted time. Things should be preloaded, and thankfully Vista's headed in the right direction on that. One of the few things it actually does better than XP, but it does it rather nicely.

[Atech]

You're not listening. In fact, you're being willfully ignorant.

He's discussing a RAMdisk. Preloading programs that are traditionally run off the Hard Disk completely out of RAM chips, which are several orders of magnitude faster. Not unlike Vista's Superfetch feature, but done to a higher degree.

You've never used more than 2GB of RAM because Windows XP's memory management SUCKS. Every empty bit of RAM is wasted time. Things should be preloaded, and thankfully Vista's headed in the right direction on that. One of the few things it actually does better than XP, but it does it rather nicely.

And you didn't read, that his experinces dosn't matter to me..as I run XP...

[Gambit]

...but you can still use a ramdisk in XP...

[Finn]

Yeah and every byte preloaded is a byte wasted. I want my ram to contain the stuff I run, not a gigabyte full of crap that got loaded once upon a time.

Considering the problems people have been having with superfetch it's less impact to wait for the 2 seconds more when opening your apps. You don't need to open apps more than a few times a day anyway and if you do - the superfetch will be released in any case rendering the benefit to zero or negative as it has to fetch all that crap again. And if someone points out now that you should get double amount of ram in order to keep the crap in superfetch - if all you need it for, isn't that the ultimate wasted ram in the end?

[bbz_Ghost]

"What we have here... is a failure... to communicate..."

So... let's just move on, shall we? ;)

[MrGuvernment]

The old "it's a server OS" means nothing, it never really has, it's just a way to charge more for the OS to get more support as required from Microsoft. But how many of us actually do that? How many [H]ard people have ever called a Microsoft 800 number or any number at all? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? :p


:rolleyes:, the simple fact of the additional items that come with server 2003 that XP could never do (with out some 3rd party non MS items and in some cases not at all) is why they charge more for it, because it is tweaked to be a a SERVER OS for a server environment, lets see you run a domain controller on XP, Active directory on XP et cetera


you can cut down XP to make it the same as 2003 more or less by killing %90 of the services and it is just as stable

[Archer75]

I have both 64bit and 32bit. I prefer 64bit. To me it feels faster, handles Video a wee bit better and seems more stable.

Driver support isn't a problem. If there are 32bit drivers there are also 64bit drivers. They get released together. I haven't had any app/game compatibility issues either.

[Jailer]

Now if XP x64 wouldn't kill my USB mouse and keyboard at startup, I'd be sold. I did the searching and of course the problem seems to be with my motherboard (ASUS A8N32 SLI-Deluxe) and XP x64 not playing nice with each other. The fix seems to be disabling legacy USB support in the BIOS, but I need my keyboard at startup for OS selection (dual boot).

Oh well, it was a nice try anyway. I'd like to run XP x64, but leaving a PS2 mouse connected and re-installing the USB controller at each startup is not worth the hassle. :(

[TheNuker]

Now if XP x64 wouldn't kill my USB mouse and keyboard at startup, I'd be sold. I did the searching and of course the problem seems to be with my motherboard (ASUS A8N32 SLI-Deluxe) and XP x64 not playing nice with each other. The fix seems to be disabling legacy USB support in the BIOS, but I need my keyboard at startup for OS selection (dual boot).

Oh well, it was a nice try anyway. I'd like to run XP x64, but leaving a PS2 mouse connected and re-installing the USB controller at each startup is not worth the hassle. :(

I had the same mouse problem with my Asus A8N and simply changing to another USB port fixed it entirely. It happened under XP32 as well.

[diliff]

I had the same mouse problem with my Asus A8N and simply changing to another USB port fixed it entirely. It happened under XP32 as well.

Yeah, I can't see how the OS can affect whether the mouse and keyboard work BEFORE it even boots. Sounds like a hardware/bios issue.

[milkweg]

Uhmmm... no. Vista was what originally came to be known as codename Longhorn but the entire Longhorn program was basically tossed in a drawer (so to speak) and revamped almost from scratch to become Vista.

Windows Server 2003 was never related to Vista in any way. Blackcomb and Longhorn (codenames, obviously) were supposed to be the next big things from Microsoft: Longhorn died before birth and was reborn as Vista; Blackcomb is still kinda sorta not quite yet dead but has some roots in Windows Server 2008, just about to be released as a final product here in a few weeks.

You always make shit up as you go along?

http://itsvista.com/2007/07/is-vista-full-of-server-2003-bugs/

Future Windows versions are always be based on the most up-to-date Windows version at the time, and at the time that Microsoft reset Longhorn development and began work on what we now know as Windows Vista, that version was Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). When Windows Vista development originally started in 2001, however, it was then based on Windows XP. In mid-2004, Microsoft had to restart the core development of Windows Vista because it was too hard to go back and componentize the existing Windows Vista core code. So when it restarted Windows Vista development, Microsoft naturally used the Windows Server 2003 with SP1 code base instead of that of XP.

[Archer75]

You always make shit up as you go along?

http://itsvista.com/2007/07/is-vista-full-of-server-2003-bugs/

Future Windows versions are always be based on the most up-to-date Windows version at the time, and at the time that Microsoft reset Longhorn development and began work on what we now know as Windows Vista, that version was Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). When Windows Vista development originally started in 2001, however, it was then based on Windows XP. In mid-2004, Microsoft had to restart the core development of Windows Vista because it was too hard to go back and componentize the existing Windows Vista core code. So when it restarted Windows Vista development, Microsoft naturally used the Windows Server 2003 with SP1 code base instead of that of XP.

He is correct.

[milkweg]

Really? He is saying Vista is based on no other existing Windows OS. BS. It is based on Server2003 just as Paul Thurrot says in the article I posted. Geez, even Microsoft is on record saying the same. Seeing as original Vista was scrapped there is no way they built Vista from the ground up in just a few years time. Which part of the below don't you understand?

"In mid-2004, Microsoft had to restart the core development of Windows Vista because it was too hard to go back and componentize the existing Windows Vista core code. So when it restarted Windows Vista development, Microsoft naturally used the Windows Server 2003 with SP1 code base instead of that of XP."

[E.R]

The only ones I've found are things that use drivers or driver-level hooks: Intel Thermal Analysis Tool doesn't run at all, and CoreTemp and RivaTuner need workarounds. Come to think of it, Taskbar Shuffle doesn't work either (needs to hook 64-bit Explorer), but I found a replacement, Taskix. There are a few more incompatibilities and problems I've had but they've been Vista, not 64-bit-specific, and they've now pretty much been dealt with after some tweaking and finding a hotfix (for the strange problem of USB microphones not working properly on machines with 4GB+ RAM).
Rivatuner don´t need any workaround, the driver is signed.

[Archer75]

Really? He is saying Vista is based on no other existing Windows OS. BS. It is based on Server2003 just as Paul Thurrot says in the article I posted. Geez, even Microsoft is on record saying the same. Seeing as original Vista was scrapped there is no way they built Vista from the ground up in just a few years time. Which part of the below don't you understand?

"In mid-2004, Microsoft had to restart the core development of Windows Vista because it was too hard to go back and componentize the existing Windows Vista core code. So when it restarted Windows Vista development, Microsoft naturally used the Windows Server 2003 with SP1 code base instead of that of XP."

By "he" I mean you. I'm saying you are correct. Otherwise I would have quoted his post.

[RushFan]

Don't know where you got the "Longhorn is dead" from...

We've been testing a Longhorn server for several months now. MS was going to call it MS Server 2007 but it slipped, now it's named Server 2008. Google "microsoft server 2008 longhorn" and see what you get.

[milkweg]

By "he" I mean you. I'm saying you are correct. Otherwise I would have quoted his post.


Oops. sorry. Reading comprehension problem on my part.

[eeyrjmr]

longhorn & vienna are just working titles.

some would go as far as spin machines

[ryan_975]

Uhmmm... no. Vista was what originally came to be known as codename Longhorn but the entire Longhorn program was basically tossed in a drawer (so to speak) and revamped almost from scratch to become Vista.

Windows Server 2003 was never related to Vista in any way. Blackcomb and Longhorn (codenames, obviously) were supposed to be the next big things from Microsoft: Longhorn died before birth and was reborn as Vista; Blackcomb is still kinda sorta not quite yet dead but has some roots in Windows Server 2008, just about to be released as a final product here in a few weeks.

Might wanna relook at your Vista history books again. Longhorn was conceived as an update to XP (aka Windows 5.3 5.6 ... whatever it would have been). As more and more features were thrown in it took the full blown major OS release status (6.0). It was however still based on XP's (5.1) kernel. As development of the OS and it's features continued it became too cumbersome and bloated (even more than it is now) and every change made the OS slower and less stable. So MS decided to go hush hush and reset the codebase. After the code reset they started from scratch and the current Vista is now based on the Server2k3's kernel (5.2). They still planned on including the promised features, but the more complete they became, the more they started running into the same performance problems as before. But this time Vista was modular, so they could just rip out the bad parts and keep going.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

The only pain in the butt I had with running 2K3 as my gaming machine was finding a free AV client that would install on 2K3. There is the policy of server OS means you need to pay for a server version of AV with most AV vendors.


lol I changed the server to a workstation, installed the av program and then chaned the os back to a server (it's a reg hack)