Where do I find 64-bit drivers for MS stuff...

[Ruskin]

Jeepers, MS develops a 64-bit OS yet you can't find drivers for any of their hardware...

You've got to wonder about a company that produces a 64-bit OS but does not have 64-bit drivers for their own hardware. You also have to wonder, why they haven't released any office or development tools for 64-bit. Has anyone heard of MS-Office 64-bit or MS Visual Studio 64-bit....

Ok, so that's my ravings for now. What I'm actually after, is 64-bit drivers for the MS Optical Desktop Pro 3.0 bundle.

I can't find the drivers anywhere on the MS website and want to "downgrade" from Win XP pro to Win XP 64, but am reluctant to do that, unless I know my keyboard and mouse are going to work.

I have 64-bit drivers for all my other major stuff (video card, DVD rom, etc), so where are the 64-bit drivers for my keyboard and mouse? I would have thought the MS website would have them, but noooooo.....

 

[M11]

If its not on the HCL, check with the manufacturer. Otherwise, you're out of luck. All my machines are running 64 bit versions of XP/2003, and I understand how frustrating it can be. Most larger manufacturers have released at least betas, or have 64 bit drivers in active development. 64 bit hardware support is getting there, and is only a few months away from no longer being a headache for the masses.

And, just for the record, the company that produces the 64 bit OS (Microsoft), has nothing to do with manufacturing hardware, or producing 64 bit drivers.

 

[jjmcwill]

The Windows Server 2003 Platform SDK (works under XP and 2000 also) includes a version of the C/C++ compiler and linker to generate X64 binaries. Visual Studio 2005 Beta also directly supports X64 targets. I've been using it to port our software here at Altair Engineering since May of this year. In both cases, the compiler is version 8.X, with the VS 2005 version being a later build than the one in the Platform SDK.

Intel's C/C++ and Fortran compilers can also target X64/EM64T. We compile several Fortran math libraries using their compiler and link them into our C/C++ code.

Though I haven't tried, I suspect you might also be able to use the Cygwin gcc tools to create 64-bit Windows binaries, but I'm not totally sure on that one. I use Cygwin daily, but it's the 32-bit version on 64-bit XP Pro and Windows Server 2003.

As for 64-bit Office. Do you really need a 64-bit version of Microsoft Word? Are you planning on creating or opening a Word document or Excel spreadsheet that uses more than 2G of RAM? Thinks like office productivity apps just don't gain that much from being 64-bit.

Jeff