My response to “my Vista 64-bit runs just fine"

I had several comments to my last posting "Are you ready to deploy Vista 64-bit? " These comments indicated that Vista 64-bit was a champ. Considering that my last posting was not necessarily my opinion. I wanted to weigh in on the comments that I have received.

Well, in some way I agree. Thanks to SP1 and recent advancements with driver and software support. Vista 64-bit is in a much better position than it was at RTM. However, I think you might be missing the point of the blog. This posting was based on an opinion of my friend, who was writing about the frustration he went through with Vista 64-bit.

Now, going back to your comment: "really have to say that I am not finding the issues described above with my Vista Ultimate X64 SP1 version." Yup, I've had the same experience. I run Vista on several different machines and for the most part it's a champ. Then again, those installations aren't really doing anything besides Office and web suffering. When I did decide to venture out and purchase a Windows Media Center machine running Vista 32-bit, I ran into a bit of frustration.

My mistake was deciding to install an aftermarket digital sound card into the machine. Needless to say, it didn't work all too well with my Vista system and my home theater system. After four months of troubleshooting with the vendor, they concluded it was a driver incompatibility issue with Vista (despite having a previously released Vista driver). I believe since then, they have released a driver that works, but I had given up and purchased a PS3 as a replacement. This was earlier this year, and last time I checked they still didn't have 64-bit version of their Vista driver.

Sadly, this is but one example. I also have a Web cam that crashes Vista, but works fine on an XP machine. Additionally, I can recall a number of instances where Vista (64-bit in general) has lacked in both driver and software support (yes even in 2008). Heck, an FDE vendor that I'm working with right now still doesn't support Vista 64-bit and will not until later this year.

Now, as for this statement: "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!" I don't 64-bit support was the issue. The lack of support was Vista 64-bit support. Most likely, the vendor has an issue with how Vista 64-bit requires WHQL signed drivers. While I happen to think this was good thing, Microsoft for some reason didn't plan the transition into WHQL correctly, and the RTM release was left very driverless. Hence why I don't think this statement is correct as well: "XP 64-bit drivers more common than vista 64-bit?? Hello Cliffy, what color are the clouds in your sky?" There are more XP 64-bit drivers then Vista 64-bit.

Lastly, I don't think my friend was complaining about 64-bit Virtual PC, but being able to run Vista 64-bit as a quest operation system (maybe I'm reading what he wrote wrong).

Bottom Line:
One of the reasons why previous versions of Windows dominated the market place was driver and software support (actually maybe the only reason). Just look at Linux, certain builds are fantastic. But, driver and software support has always tripped it up, hence why you don't see major penetration into the consumer market place. When Microsoft released Vista, they forgot this and didn't really focus enough energy in getting the software and hardware vendors behind them. Instead they now playing catch up, while working very hard on getting Windows 7 out the door.  Things are getting better, but the damage has been done.