Vista - 64-bit: More than just the RAM

Me, too!!

(Now I did I it right!!! I got the quote in the messge! I'm learning!!)

this one good

It is more than just RAM.
64bit computing is what you call fast because anything on a 32bit system is just plain slow The technology is not new to the marketplace. I remember when the first processor with 64bit support came out, the AMD64 3500+, the idea was approached but there was an lack of software. I should of switched when XP Professional 64 was available a couple years ago thus my knowledge would mature a little by now.

No, the technology is not "new"...nor is the idea. What IS relatively new is 64-bit computing as a consumer market product...and in this case, specifically to Windows. That's why this topic is discussed frequently these days in forum threads like this.

And there was 64-bit software for 64-bit computers for a long time. Just not what you would use as a consumer. Most of them were for specialty purposes and servers. And an overwhelming amount of software was custom made. As a matter of fact, software that is "available for purchase" is only a small percent of programs in the whole world if you want to talk about it in that way. Most software is made by programmers for specific purposes and is never seen by you and me (and often is secret). Some cost over a million dollars to develop and is only used by 1 "customer" in the whole world!

Hence OS's like XP 64 Professional was for "professional use" as it's title indicates. It doesn't have support for a wide range of consumer products (both software and hardware). Vista 64-bit Home Premium is for "home use". That's the difference.

I've also noticed there are not as many compatible programs for 64 bit computers at the moment. They all say "we are working on a program for that." Yeah right!

It's a pita to try to set up 64 bit software development environment, esp for low cost or free. The Visual Studio Express and other free compilers for Windows are only 32 bit. afaics all the new desktops over $500 are coming with Vista Home Premium 64 SP1 so it's only a matter of time before the 64 bit base provokes more development tools for 64 bit. Every time you transition like from 16 bit to 32 bit there's kind of a no man's land you have to get across until the higher bit base reaches "critical mass" or whatever jargon is popular at the moment to indicate it's worth the time to do stuff for the new platform.

Gimme a free 64 bit IDE that's easy to use and I'll churn out little gizmos no problemmo!! It would be esp. good if they provided a free tool that could compile stable shell extensions. They are a pita unless you have a wizard to spit out the skeleton code. I have such a wizard for VC++ 6 but that only churns out 32 bit dlls.

i havent come across any not working on 64bit...

Mostly I've found what won't work is 32 bit shell extensions to programs. Most of those will still work if you use them in 32 bit explorer windows.

This tutorial shows how to create a shortcut for Computer in 32 bit explorer:

Explorer32 Shortcut in Vista 64-bit

Thanks for posting that link to such a great article! It was a read, but it did answer a lot of questions.

I feel kinda noobish.

When choosing an OS for my PC I did the research between x86 and x64 and ultimately decided on x64. During that research I didn't see or even put it together that x64 is the cause for larger amounts memory.

Thanks for the link, it went a little more in depth than what I had researched.