Recently, a friend of mine (name will be with held for certain reasons) went on a tirade over the pain and suffering he endured while attempting to deploy Vista 64-bit. He was very passionate in the account of his deployment effort and conclusion that Vista 64-bit was "currently" not a deployable version of Windows. So, because he felt so strongly about this conclusion and had suffered so greatly from his encounter, I offered to immortalize his tale provided he wrote up a summary.
As promised, he did, and as promised the following is his write-up (minus any curse words and references to things best not said). Bear in mind, this is straight from an IT'er attempting to deploy Vista 64-bit which has been RTM November 8, 2006. I for once will not be providing much of an opinion.
"Where do I start - how about Vista 64-bit is not supported by Microsoft. That's a confusing statement, hold-on to your keystrokes and let me explain. Some of the companies (legal in nature) wanted to refresh their workstations and went with their Gateway contracts to purchase Windows Vista 64-bit (whatever flavor of Vista you like... there's too many to keep track). During their venture they discovered that Vista 64-bit or even Vista is not supported by their legal software applications (BTW - it is the most common and top 5 legal software companies). They stated it can work, but it will not be supported us. Well, we ventured to go that route regardless of vendor support, a huge mistake and here is why:
- The legal software requires the Adobe generic postscript driver, which anyone can tell you is not currently available for Vista 64-bit. Even a hacked version and installation of Adobe Professional 8 may meet your requirements but once again the software is looking for certain parameters which are not available. This was escalated to senior engineer at Adobe stating that they cannot support 64-bit and please downgrade to XP. Yes, we tried to run in compatibility mode.
- Microsoft's Answer: Run Virtual PC with XP. Wow great idea, however you need to purchase a separate license for XP. Also Microsoft does not support Windows Vista 64-bit with Virtual PC. Isn't that a b$%G# you can't go over 3GB due to OS limitation and now you want to go with 64-bit to hurdle > 3GB with Virtual PC and it is not supported.
- What is really brilliant is one of the most popular Dell/Gateway models used for migration from Vista to XP does not support Virtual PC. Virtual PC has its own problems like incredible slowness and instability. That should be a different blog.
- Lastly, Dell and/or any other computer retailers are not selling XP. I do not know how many vendors are in bed with each other but we all should say is thank you and we are going elsewhere (easier said than done).
Checklist to go with Vista 64-bit:
- Is there really a need, can you run XP 64-bit which has more drivers support?
- Inventory all applications (include iTunes, Adobe, etc) and verify if they support Vista (do not look at their marketing e-mails or web pages. How do they support it and if they support 64-bit (most vendors do not support 64-bit, let alone Vista 64-bit)?
- Are you a contractor (if yes, go ahead and encourage management that this is the right direction)? If no, then figure out a way to justify Vista without impacting your employability.
- Microsoft is already working on next version of client OS to surpass Vista. Can you wait one - two more years and go with that headache. They'll get it right eventually.
By the way - Boot Camp or Parallels runs XP better in a virtual environment than Vista. So get a Mac and run XP. This has been an unpaid unsolicited advertisement for Mac products. Thank you and have a good day."
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With more than ten years of experience in IT, Tyson Kopczynski has become a specialist in Active Directory, Information Assurance, Windows automation, PKI, and IT security practices. Tyson is also the founding author of the Windows PowerShell Unleashed series and has been a contributing author for such books as Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 Unleashed and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Unleashed. He has also written many detailed technical papers and guides covering various technologies. As a consultant at Convergent Computing, Tyson works with and provides feedback for next generation Microsoft technologies since their inception and has also played a key role in expanding the automation and security practices at CCO. Tyson also holds such certifications as the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), the SANS Security Essentials Certification (GSEC) and SANS Certified Incident Handler (GCIH), and the MCTS (Application Platform, Active Directory, and Network Infrastructure).
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Vista X64
The view expressed above I would agree with totally, if today's date was June 4th, 2007. However, using todays date - June 4th, 2008, really have to say that I am not finding the issues described above with my Vista Ultimate X64 SP1 version. Frankly, I have experienced exactly the opposite. The usability and functionally, of Vista x64 has in my view increased far beyond these issues in the article above. I would also like to have this person hearken back to 1990's when OS's & applications moved from being 8-bit & 16-bit versions to supporting 32-bits. The same complains and problems existed then. SOLUTION: Tell the application vendors that if they don't support X64 then we'll go find one who does! That's how software changes!
Software vendors always behind the curve
Rob hit it on the head.
I recently went to bat against my Cisco contacts because they have consistantly failed to keep up with the OS and security patches. I'll leave the product names out of it...but thier windows OS dev groups got thier priorities all on making new product with new features....and never allocate enough time to fix what people already are entitile to.
Even asserting that I pay for sofware maintainance and support they won't budge on the 64 bit issue. Thier solution...buy the new version; BTW may have 64 bit support by the end of year!
How about fixing what I paid for already?
I guess its easier to make new customers...than keep the current ones happy.
I run into this with many enterprise software application vendors.... The TAIL does not WAG the DOG...keep reminding them of this. Keep up with the OS or get out of the software business.
I agree with the 2007 to
I agree with the 2007 to 2008 assesment. I have Adove CS3 installed on a Vista 64-bit machine which I have been running for quite some time. With a (very) little research, I found out during the install, click cancel when it asks for the adobepdf.dll. There is a Microsoft update that needs to be installed (included in sp1) after the adobe install is complete and then do Adobe updates. It's a bit of a pain, but not bad.
As far as iTunes, I have been running that with the updated gearsec (gearpac...gear something) for a while, until Apple introduced a 64-bit compatable iTunes not too long ago.
XP 64-bit drivers more common than vista 64-bit?? Hello Cliffy, what color are the clouds in your sky?
Also, try http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en and download the actual 64-bit setup for Virtual PC.
Also, as far as "buying" extra licenses, that depends on your agreement with Microsoft, but in most cases, you can install at least one copy of XP in a virtual environment on a Vista machine legally.
BTW, if this is all too tough for you, you can leave XP on the machines. From what I hear, XP SP3 knows how to properly "disable" any additional RAM over the 4GB limit if it needs to.
My response
Thanks for the comments... you may find my response here:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/28531
- T