xp64 v xp32

[alkis]

dear all
your input in the following problem would be greatly appreciated.
i just bought a new workstation (dual dual AMD, 4g RAM etc.)
i requested xp 64 for all the reasons that we all know.
i ve made peace with the fact that i ll have to install max 9 at 32bits as it wouldnt mix with the farm otherwise but i thought it would stil be worth having xp64.
my company IT guys that are setting it up are saying now that its impossible to install most of the other software that we use in the company, like firewalls and printer drivers( very important) mainly as well as custom calendars and scheduling because of lack of appropriate 64bit drivers. when using the 32 bits ones they dont work.
i m seriously thinking therefore to go back to xp32
if i do, how can i utilise all the RAM ?
would a 3gb switch equivalent solution work?
would there be any other significant difference between the two?
any idead would be great
thanks in advance
alkis

[Clifton Santiago]

When we bought our first 64 bit workstation w/4 gb RAM about a year ago, we initially put XP 32 bit on it because of concerns with compatibility. I eventually decided that the benefits of higher RAM usage outweighed any other issues, and we switched to XP 64.

As it turned out, everything ran brilliantly on it, even really crappy low-end programs like Microstation, the company database, and the timesheet program. The only problem we have are print drivers. I can only print to the color laser printer, and not any of the black and white printers.

This is really a minor issue for me because I am totally virtual. I don't print anything and I leave that up to the architects or graphics department.

I don't regret upgrading and I will never go back.

[Paul Oblomov]

All the drivers must be 64-bits. So, any firewalls and other apps, that depend on drivers won't work, if they're not recompiled for 64-bits. About printer drivers - indeed there're lots ot beta versions, but not for all printer models. I can sujest using FinePrint driver series. It supports almost everything.

[alkis]

thanks for the replies
Paul: if i install fineprint i still need the specific printers drivers of the devices (?) which cannot be installed . how have you dealt with that
regards

[tammo]

when i switched to x64 a while ago i installed an antivirus package without problems.
later tech support told me that it was not doing anything aginst viruses under x64. it just sat there eating memory.
so even if you can install something on x64 it doesnt mean that it will do what you think.
my printer canon i865 has no x64 driver and canon tech support told me there will never be one. i now run it with another driver (PIXMA) and it works.
i cant go back to 32 bit because the project we currently work on just wont render.
i will sell my renderfarm after the next project and move everything to x64.

[jujubee]

I've got AVG professional installed and it picks up viruses all the time. Then again, I get about 30 emails a day that bypass two layers of filters.

As for printer drivers, scanners, and whatnot, I've been able to get just about everything to work except old webcams.

It may be worth just holding off till a Vista release.

[kwok3d]

pdf

For those who have trouble printing out PDF in x64, use CutePDF. It's free, nice and clean. This is the biggest problem to me so far.

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

[Dynedain]

Re: pdf

For those who have trouble printing out PDF in x64, use CutePDF. It's free, nice and clean. This is the biggest problem to me so far.

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

I use PDFCreator. It's open source and works as a printer. So from any program in Windows, you simply print to PDF.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

[jujubee]

I second cutepdf - it's great.

[vlado]

It may be worth just holding off till a Vista release.

Vista will have its own set of problems; officially no 3dsmax release is supported on Vista yet, and although it runs fine most of the time, there may be issues. E.g. I had viewport problems with DirectX in 3dsmax 9 and Vista RC1 so I had to use OpenGL (then again, it may be because of the default video drivers that come with Vista).

Best regards,
Vlado

[alkis]

i m seriously thinking therefore to go back to xp32
if i do, how can i utilise all the RAM ?
would a 3gb switch equivalent solution work?
would there be any other significant difference between the two?

thanks for the replies again but could someone give me an idea on the above.

also cute pdf and other similar solutions are fine but...
in a networked office enviroment my machine first needs the actual printer drivers in order to find a printer, and having to print drawings form cad all the time as well would be a bit fiddly at least to pdf everything etc.

[Dynedain]

i m seriously thinking therefore to go back to xp32
if i do, how can i utilise all the RAM ?
would a 3gb switch equivalent solution work?
would there be any other significant difference between the two?

thanks for the replies again but could someone give me an idea on the above.

also cute pdf and other similar solutions are fine but...
in a networked office enviroment my machine first needs the actual printer drivers in order to find a printer, and having to print drawings form cad all the time as well would be a bit fiddly at least to pdf everything etc.

When I switched to XP64, I didn't have drivers for any of our specialty printers. Since then, things have improved.

Our HP and Oce plotters all have 64bit drivers. Windows includes drivers for most HP laserjets. Our Xerox color printers/copiers both now have XP64 drivers. If you are concerned, check the support pages for the specific printer(s) you are concerned about to see if 64bit drivers are available.

[OrionD]

for drivers for printers and firewalls, there are still a lot of probs with 64-bit OS (we had similar probs for our hp printers and anti-virus/internet security apps). but if u want pure performance increase and better stability, i'd highly recommend it. u can then look into even higher number for ram for ur workstation...
i've noticed much lesser crashes on the 64-bit machines compared to the 32-bit in general...

[DJ-Studd]

The only thing that we cannot use in XP64 is the Viz 2005 Mechanical Desktop Object Enabler.

It's the only object enabler that works properly and we're still trying to get Autodesk to give us a working object enabler for 3dsmax9.

Printer drivers are available and we use DeskPDF from Docudesk for PDF'ing. Trend Micro does the antivirus.

Cheers.
-- DJ

[DJ-Studd]

Oh, I've also been doing some testing recently.

I put another hdd in one of the machines here, installed XP64 then used VMWare to boot into XP32. I can also choose to boot directly into XP32 if I want.

-- DJ