Posted by Jim Guerber on December 11, 2006 at 10:13:51:
I just came across a good article which attempts to explain the x64 flavors of Microsoft Windows. It is aimed at XP64 but has a lot of generalized info also. The link is below.
I also wanted to tell you about my conclusions from my earlier tests:
http://support.signature.net/messages/7602.htm
I think that Vista looks better than XP. As some of you know, I liked Windows 2000 very much. I also like Windows2003 Server even though it goes overboard with its security protection. Although I am running XP on my development machine, I don't like it very much. Finding things is not very intuitive in this system, although I guess anyone can adapt.
My favorite platform to my amazement was Longhorn! It has the look of Vista, but was much easier to install. I wonder whether this is because it is not released yet, and so it does not have dome of the protection that Vista RC2 has, but it was a breeze to install.
ALL of the x64 platforms were more difficult to install.
My recommendation is to go ahead an get the 64 bit hardware now if you must upgrade, but stick to the 32bit (x86) windows versions for now. Maybe this will change in a year or so, I don't know.
Anyway, take a look at the link below.
Jim