software compatibility with 64 bit windows vista

[Former captain of the Enterprise]

I have not used 64 bit yet...

apart from the drivers that should be a problem....
(Can a 32bit driver work with 64 bit or is it totally impossible?)

what other problems with application compatibility will arise?

For example can photoshop and corel 32 bit run normally?
And if they do, will they take advantage of all the ram in the system even
if its
+ 4 Gigs?

Bill Gates said in a video that its a good idea to switch to 64 bit,
because programs that are 32 bit can run on them....

so what is your vista on this matter?

 

[Alun Harford]

I have not used 64 bit yet...

apart from the drivers that should be a problem....
(Can a 32bit driver work with 64 bit or is it totally impossible?)

Impossible. Getting drivers is hard.

what other problems with application compatibility will arise?

For example can photoshop and corel 32 bit run normally?
And if they do, will they take advantage of all the ram in the system even
if its
+ 4 Gigs?

No. They can't access any more on 64-bit windows than they can on 32-bit
windows (unless they're compiled to take advantage of the extra address
space).

Alun Harford

 

[cvp]

(Can a 32bit driver work with 64 bit or is it totally impossible?)

Impossible. Getting drivers is hard.

Apart from the possibility of (sometimes) running XP (32-bit) drivers in
Vista, I haven't found that to be true. Nearly every provider of Vista
drivers supplies both 64-bit and 32-bit. The only exception I can think of
at the moment is Canon with some of their printers.

 

[LaRoux]

apart from the drivers that should be a problem....
(Can a 32bit driver work with 64 bit or is it totally impossible?)

Won't work.

what other problems with application compatibility will arise?

First, I'm not a gamer. Running mainstream apps on mainstream hardware, I
have personally had very few x64 issues. Way less than most here would lead
you to believe even though most of them have never tried it.

And if they do, will they take advantage of all the ram in the system even
if its + 4 Gigs?

Each 32-bit app can use it's own 4GB. So while you may not get much more
total RAM available for any single application, you will be able to run
multiples of them at the same time.

so what is your vista on this matter?

I use x64 primarily because I run multiple virtual machines for development
and testing. Being able to have more than 3GB or so available to split
between them helps with this tremendously.

 

[Former captain of the Enterprise]

Each 32-bit app can use it's own 4GB.

This page says it breaks the 4 gig barrier. I don't know if it means what
you mean.. the description is a little vague.

(If an application is designed as a true 32-bit application, it will work
well on x64 Vista and in many cases, work even better than on x86 or 32-bit
editions of Windows. That's because Vista x64 breaks the 4GB memory
limitation x86 systems face and grants more resources in general to
applications.)

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=198800462

 

[LaRoux]

This is in reference to the 4GB total barrier. Because of the way that
32-bit applications run on x64, each 32-bit application will still have its
own individual 4gb barrier. Still much greater than before.