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Windows XP Professional x64 Edition RC1 tested

Kai Schmerer ZDNet Germany

Published: 05 Jan 2005

Just before Christmas, Microsoft finally made Release Candidate 1 of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition available to testers. The server variant is also now available. After repeated delays, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is now due to ship in the first half of 2005.

If previous experience with Microsoft operating system releases is replicated, Build 1289/RC1 will be followed by a further release candidate (RC2) and then the marketable ('gold') version. If no further problems emerge, Windows XP Professional x86 Edition could reach gold status by the time of the CeBIT show in March.

The route into the 64-bit world was accelerated thanks to AMD's AMD64 technology, which is used in the Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX desktop processors and in the Opteron server chip. In contrast to Intel's Itanium, AMD's 64-bit architecture can handle 32-bit code very fast, which makes for a smooth transition to 64-bit computing.

Intel has been non-committal about this state of affairs, the official line for a long time being that "nobody needs 64 bits on the desktop right now". This then became the promise that: "as soon as an x86 64-bit Windows operating system is available, we will support it". The open source Linux operating system has been available for some time for AMD's x86-64 platform. However, 64-bit computing will only take off in the business market once 64-bit Windows is available, since most business users currently work with the Microsoft operating system.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Build 1289 Release Candidate 1.

Not all applications are available in a 64-bit version, including Internet Explorer. Missing 64-bit plug-ins such as Shockwave, Flash and Java VM mean that the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer cannot render numerous Web sites. There are no problems with the 32-bit version in this respect.

Windows Update currently works only with the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer.

Windows Update is now available with Release Candidate 1.

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Featured Talkback

So if you upgrade to XP SP3 you can't uninstall Internet Explorer, I'm quite sure I'm having a Deja-vu feeling about MS preventing people from uninstalling Internet Explorer in other Windows products.