"Rob" <landrobert@gmail.com> wrote ...
>I am being told by some experts that there is no 64-bit
> OS that works as advertised, Vista chief among them. The processor
> manufacturers are actually out in front of the software developers here.
> Can someone confirm this ?

Hey Rob,

I doubt anyone can "confirm" this, because it's largely a matter of opinion;
rather than right/wrong fact. Get ready for a storm of unsubstantiated
opinions in the replies :-)

FWIW, I've been running 64-bit Vista on my main desktop machine since the
Vista beta programme, 12+ months ago. I am very happy with 64-bit Vista, it
works well. All my devices have drivers, and all my apps all work fine. But,
I'm a reasonably proficient user; and willing to absorb some pain to be on
the bleeding edge. I also happen to have a 32-bit laptop permanently within
reach, for those few occassions when only 32-bits will do (eg, running old
16-bit DOS and Win3.x apps).

Hardware has *always* been somewhat in advance of software; that's just the
nature of the beast. As a period of transition, today closely resembles the
move from 16-bits to 32-bits, circa 1992 (when 32 bit OS/2 2.0 shipped) to
1996 (when Windows 95 overtook Windows 3.x in sales). The first Intel 32-bit
80386 CPU was introduced in 1986, before even Windows 2.03 shipped, let
alone 32-bit Windows NT or 95. Lots of folks continued to happily run 16-bit
Windows 3.x on 386 CPUs for many years, until Windows 95 made 32-bit Windows
desktops near-universal, and 8086/80286 machines vanished from the shelves.
Today, it's almost impossible to buy a new computer with a 32-bit CPU;
they're nearly all 64-bit capable. It's just a matter of time for 64 bit
Windows (and Mac OS X, and Linux, and Solaris) to become standard across the
board. There will be a bumpy transitition period for a couple of years,
then we'll look back and laugh about when we all ran 32-bit computers.

Plenty of mainframe users today run 31-bit OS/390 on 64-bit zSeries
architecture, and fret about the transition to 64 bit z/OS. The problem is
not unique to the PC world!

The main thing is: 64-bit isn't intrinsically "good", in and of itself. It's
only "good" to the extent that it makes the computer a useful tool. If a
user's situation is such they are better off running 32-bit Windows, then
that's absolutely what they should be using. Hell, there are plenty of
machines running DOS even today, tucked away in dark corners, quietly
running apps that have been useful since 1987. With the general move to rich
multimedia data handling on PCs and the enormous objects this involves, plus
cheap massive storage (1 Terbyte hard disks are now a consumer item), and
cheap memory (4GB RAM is becoming common) there will be many opportunities
for 64-bit applications to be truly useful in the coming years.

That's my 2 cents ... :-)
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au