Vista 64 experience

Since Leapfrog so graciously (and pro bono!) made it easy to mix 32 and 64 bit windows in snapshots with their latest release of FDISR, I decided to give Vista 64bit another try.
I have long time hesitated coz I´ve heard that it wont be compatible with most of the hardware out there.
I thought I have learnt my lesson and not listen to all the negative people out there. I believed them about the Limited User Account "horror" for years, but when I actually tried it a new world opened up

Seems like it is the same with the 64bit complaints, for me at least.
I had no problems what so ever to find 64bit drivers for all my hardware. All my essential software works just fine even if they are not 64bit enhanced.
True is that many of the security software out there needs to be 64bit versions. For example there are not many firewalls or antiviruses vendors have bothered to develop the 64bit versions yet. But I read that the 64bit version of Vista is more secure than the 32bit by design. And that suites me fine since I dont like to bloat my security setup more than nessecary.

Anyways. Installation went almost fine. I say almost because if I wouldnt have had two network cards where the other were recognized by Vista 64 I would have to had download he drivers before I started the install. So, sure I was lucky in that sence, but the drivers were available (Atheros Gigabit ethernet network card)

After that I could download all the 64bit drivers and software I needed. Rising firewall, which is my prefered FW, doesnt exist in a 64bit version but luckily I still have my Look´n´stop license so there was no firewall issue.
The rest of my essential software installed as easy as in 32bit.
Games, I have only tried World of Warcraft but it worked just fine (didnt even have to install it, just ran the .exe from wow folder on a another drive)
When I decide to migrate to 64bit I know that shadowprotect will work there.
I dont use HIPS, but i guess none of them will work anyways. So the HIPS dependant people will have a hard time if they ever want to use 64bit.

Vista 64 is a bit faster in program starts. Firefox for example starts within 2 seconds, compared to atleast 5 seconds in 32bit. Same goes for other software, there are a slight improvement in performance ime. The system feels more fast overall.
I can say that (i´ve only used it for 2 weeks though) since I got 64 with my 32bit version of Vista I see no reason to go back to 32bit.

Conclusions:
pro:
A bit safer by default than 32bit (and after adding SRP the security enhanced further)
a bit faster and it can utilize all my 4GB of RAM. Now I have 1GB RAM drive and if I install VMware I can assign more RAM to the VM´s.
Well, thats the pro´s I could think of now.

Con:

I understand that there will be less [driver dependent] freeware to MS 64bit since it costs money to get drivers approved by Microsoft. That is really, really bad imo, even though I dont use much freeware but I guess it will slow down software development and give even more power to MS.
Not many Antiviruses and Firewalls are compatible with 64bit, and that is the main reason for most of the people not to migrate. They dont want to spend time looking for compatible security software.

 

I am satisfied with my Vista64 install. The only problem I had was FastStone Image Viewer crashing but the new beta has fixed that. I am surprised though at how many MS apps doesn't work in 64 bit such as Virtual PC and MSN toolbar for IE764.

 

I too am so far happy with my x64 Vista here.. The only issue I've seen that's slightly annoying is that defrag seems to be painfully slow. This machine came with Norton 360, so I am trialing it for 60 days. I let it do a manual defrag and it took over 4 hours to defrag about 80 gigs. Seems pretty slow to me, but maybe that's par for the course. It might have been running as a background process or something, I'm not sure. Anyway, aside from that, I have zero complains, and only positive experience. This is Vista Home Premium on an AMD Triple Core, 4 gigs ram, ATI HD video, etc..

 

Vista x64 has gained back some of the respect that x32 Vista lost. Its stable, secure and fast with proper hardware and with patch guard its relatively safer as well. The defrag issue is probably due to the disk being accessed constantly and my suspicion is Norton.

 

I believe comodo is the only hips that currently works on 64-bit vista. However at this point i don't think hips is necessary, vistas default security setup is sufficient imo. All i have added to my setup is rollback rx and look'n'stop. I've just started trying out the 64-bit version of firefox which is called minefield. Its still in its early stages but so far so its been quite good.

I've never used the built in vista defragger, i currently use the 64 bit jkdefrag which seems to do a good job and fairly quickly too.

 

One more month with Vista 64 and (almost, se below) all is still working just fast and fine.
I use Auslogic defragger and it is really fast and does its job.

I have tested some 64bit firewalls (still not many out there)
I tried Vista Firewall Control and it seemed to do its job, it catched all outgoing attempts.
But I just couldnt stand the nagging on its 30-day trial so I uninstalled it. The point of nagging on a trial is...? It cannot be to encourage people to explore the software (it gave 2-5 nags every time I wanted to change settings ffs!)

Then I tried Jetico and gotta give it credit for being the first ever software that managed to lock the computer in all my Vista (32 and 64Bit) experience Screen, keyboard and mouse just freeze after the reboot when it was asking initial questions. Uninstalled it in safe mode but it messed something up so I couldnt connect to the net - enter shadowprotect.

Then I tried something called FirePanel Vista. Didnt get past the splash screen that prevented me to see what kind of error message it gave. The splash screen blocked the text and wouldnt go a way so it was totally useless.
Comodo, Outpost and ZA worked as advertised but they are overkill for me. I am looking for a "simple" firewall like Look´n´stop that only does firewall stuff (blocking out and ingoing traffic when needed)
Even though LnS is rock solid and does its job I am always looking for something new

 

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/index.html

Comes with a basic free x64 version. Have you given this a try?

 

Reading your pros and cons, one has the feeling that it is hardly worth the trouble switching to 64bit. I wonder though what was the original idea behind 64bit from MS ? Security? Are all future Windows OSs going to be 64bit? Has the quality of graphics and colour rendition improved?

 

I have been on x64 since x64 XP beta came out along with Ubuntu x64. Its far more stable, faster and generally better in every sense. Under heavy load x64 OS excels with its stability. One of the reasons MS is pushing x64 Vista is that its inherently better and more stable than its x32 counterpart. Also features like patch guard etc. keep it safer in most cases. All x32 programs have worked fine under XP x64. I don't do games so can't tell you there but Vista x64 runs majority of the games out there.

 

I too have been on Vista x64 for a few months and it's been just fine. It runs any x32 apps, and many apps now are x64 compatible and take advantage of the extra ram and cores. Seems like the future is definitely x64, so there really isn't any fighting it as far as I can see... most new PCs in the stores now are x64. Ubuntu x64 runs extremely well also, and XP x64 just screams.... I must admit that it's faster than Vista by quite a bit on new hardware.... There really is no reason to fight it, as they say, resistance is futile....

 

The secret to XPx64 is the proven excellent NT 5.2 core which is also used in MS's highly successful Windows 2003 server, this is what makes XPx64 best MS OS till date apart from 2003 and 2008.

 

Running vista Ultimate x64 and with 8Gb ram loving it. Lightning fast. No defrag probs on 2 x 500Gb drives, even with NIS 2008.
Only notable probs:
Could not get Autocad 2006 to run at all, and
I have a Wacom Tablet and the Tablet Input Service was causing Opera to crash regularly. I don't use the handwriting stuff anyway, so I just turned it off.
Other than this, I'm extremely happy with it.

 

Wow, may i ask what you need 8gb for?

 

Maybe standard for his machine, I have server (x64) with 8Gb.

 

@meriadoc
http://www.safelyremove.com/index.html
That a good tool ?? Looks useful: I'm forever popping stuff on and off: dread forgetting somtimes to turn off !
LoL: I find lots of useful tools in other peeps sigs
( hidden resource @wilders: got most stuff covered in the sigs !! )

 

Its a good tool and takes the place of the normal safely remove its always able to stop a device - no try later message plus of course there's the other features.

...ahem and works okay on my Vista 64

cmd line...

 

Yes that deserves respect, all the other firewall companies make a bad impression looks like sort of incompetent response to the future.

I have some issues on Vista 64:
1 - Uninstaller no more accessible, workaround: RevoUninstaller.
2 - System control freeze-up therefore lost control over system restore, workaround: kill sr-folder from linux.
3 - Spooler issue: Spooler service won´t start, workaround: print from virtual machine.
4 - Virtual Box install issue all versions: Installation prematurely ended because of an error. Workaround: use another vm

No no vista you won´t get me down, never, . I have always a workaround in repertoire and have
no problem to share these ideas if others are affected too.

 

Hi SJ, workaround, time for re image/install/repair?..

 

Yes soon I will iniciate a nice selfdestruction. Until then I scratch vista down so that its worth to do reinstall.

Oh I forgot one specific Vista 64 issue if some non essential services are stopped, we see a mega iphlpapi crash problem like e.g. in Tcpview and many other tcp/ip related programs:

Anwendungsname: Tcpview.exe
Anwendungsversion: 2.53.0.0
Anwendungszeitstempel: 47842097
Fehlermodulname: IPHLPAPI.DLL
Fehlermodulversion: 6.0.6001.18000
Fehlermodulzeitstempel: 4791a72b
Ausnahmecode: c0000005

 

Some of the mentioned restrictions can be avoided by activating slsvc (software licensing)
another harassment of Microsoft. But as you see above my little workaround suggestions could
make your vista 64 session comfortable even with disabled slsvc as protest against
superfluous and unjustified compulsions.

 

I have just done a reformat and clean install of Vista x64. I found that after a few months of installing and uninstalling apps and generally messing with things, that "quirks" start developing, perhaps more so and quicker than in XP or Win2k.

 

The most annoying in Vista 64 is svchost.exe which is responsible for SysMain and Tablet services, this beast is crawling like hell at windows startup and is responsible for permanent harddisk noises and hd led activity. I use to suspend it if it bugs too much.

 

I don't have that problem, but I did see quite a few visual and cosmetic type glitches... Nothing too serious, but enough to be annoying and lead me to start clean again....

This time instead of the factory image I had with all the installed apps like Norton 360 and so on, I used the Vista CD and did a clean install without all the extra stuff I don't want or need. That may help also...