Migration of 32 bit application to 64 bit

[ChitraCK]

Hi all,

We are in the process of making the code to be compatible for 64 Bit windows
OS. We have dlls/exes are built on Smalltalk and Vc++ ( versions 6.0, 2002,
2003). Is it enough to do a system test on 64 Bit OS? or is it required to
build the code to detect the portability issues for 64 Bit processor, fix all
of them and test? I tried in VS 2002 with the option "Detect 64 bit
portablity issues" set in the solution properties. I could see some warnings
with respect to data type casting and corrected them. Is it ideal to fix up
those warnings or we can go ahead for release if the system testing goes
through fine?

Suggestions please.

Thanks in Advance

 

[David Lowndes]

We are in the process of making the code to be compatible for 64 Bit windows

OS. We have dlls/exes are built on Smalltalk and Vc++ ( versions 6.0, 2002,
2003). Is it enough to do a system test on 64 Bit OS? or is it required to
build the code to detect the portability issues for 64 Bit processor, fix all
of them and test?

If your existing 32-bit code works fine on x64 OS's, and there's no
pressing need to run natively on x64 OS's (such as needing very large
amounts of memory, or needing to be a shell extension) then there's
little reason to port your 32-bit code to 64-bit.

Dave

 

[ChitraCK]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you meant to say just a system testing is suffice? Doesn't it cause any
critical issues if the warnings are not eliminated?

Thanks in Advance

 

[David Lowndes]

Do you meant to say just a system testing is suffice?

Yes - and note that you always have to test it on a OS to be sure.

Doesn't it cause any
critical issues if the warnings are not eliminated?

Warnings such as what?

.... if your tests on your program prove that it works correctly on an
OS, then ... it works!

Dave

 

[David Wilkinson]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you meant to say just a system testing is suffice? Doesn't it cause any
critical issues if the warnings are not eliminated?

ChittraCK:

64-bit warnings indicate that there will be problems compiling a 64-bit
executable, not running a 32-bit executable on a 64-bit OS.

The vast majority of 32-bit applications will run correctly on 64-bit OS.