Is it possible to bring Windows XP x64 up to date?


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if i remember correctly from the last time i used win xp x64, you will need to use the windows server 2003 service pack instead of the regular xp service pack

I really need to make sure before I install XP x64 on this older AMD. I could just give them the x86 edition, but then the 8 gigs of DDR2 ram would get lost so to speak. I might be able to install Vista x64, but a lot of their other hardware are not up to speed. Which would mean either running drivers in compatibility mode or upgrading their hardware. i am doing this as a favor to them because their kid needs a system for homework. So I cannot afford to upgrade it any further then I already have.

Edit:

According to MS, there is no SP3 for Server 2k3.

I really need to make sure before I install XP x64 on this older AMD. I could just give them the x86 edition, but then the 8 gigs of DDR2 ram would get lost so to speak. I might be able to install Vista x64, but a lot of their other hardware are not up to speed. Which would mean either running drivers in compatibility mode or upgrading their hardware. i am doing this as a favor to them because their kid needs a system for homework. So I cannot afford to upgrade it any further then I already have.

Edit:

According to MS, there is no SP3 for Server 2k3.

Win 7 should be then, if your hardware has 8gb of ram that's far more than enough, my father has a c-60 processor running happily win7 x64 bits no problem, and it's quite fast.

  • Like 3

if i remember correctly from the last time i used win xp x64, you will need to use the windows server 2003 service pack instead of the regular xp service pack

true. i still have a copy somewhere @ home, although that version really never caught on.

Also remember that in that version of windows there's a bigger scarcity of drivers.

I really need to make sure before I install XP x64 on this older AMD. I could just give them the x86 edition, but then the 8 gigs of DDR2 ram would get lost so to speak. I might be able to install Vista x64, but a lot of their other hardware are not up to speed. Which would mean either running drivers in compatibility mode or upgrading their hardware. i am doing this as a favor to them because their kid needs a system for homework. So I cannot afford to upgrade it any further then I already have.

Edit:

According to MS, there is no SP3 for Server 2k3.

i currently run windows 7 64bit on an old amd 64 x2 dual core processor 2.40ghz..,no problems and much much faster then regular xp

I will see what can be done. I'll load my Win7 on it and see if it can recognize the hardware. If not, I will just slap WinXP x64 SP2 on it and update it as much as possible.

I will see what can be done. I'll load my Win7 on it and see if it can recognize the hardware. If not, I will just slap WinXP x64 SP2 on it and update it as much as possible.

Windows 7 will see everything fine, so long as you install the drivers. The drivers are avalible right?

Windows 7 will see everything fine, so long as you install the drivers. The drivers are avalible right?

I cannot find any Win7 drivers for some of the hardware and I don't have any extra hardware that I can just pop into it.

What do you need XP x64 for, if I may ask? AFAIK, it's been abandoned.

I upgraded the ram in this system to 8gigs. XP x86 will not utilize all the ram and their kid is studying graphics/media stuff that I don't understand. So will need full utilization of the 8gigs DDR2.

What do you need XP x64 for, if I may ask? AFAIK, it's been abandoned.

look at the higher posts, the whole point of 64bit was because the PC has 8gb of ram which would be wasted if he installed normal XP x86

I cannot find any Win7 drivers for some of the hardware and I don't have any extra hardware that I can just pop into it.

it's still possible that Windows 7 will have some generic drivers built in that will work out-of-the-box. so it's still worth a try. better to rule it out completely than to not try it at all IMO

I cannot find any Win7 drivers for some of the hardware and I don't have any extra hardware that I can just pop into it.

I upgraded the ram in this system to 8gigs. XP x86 will not utilize all the ram and their kid is studying graphics/media stuff that I don't understand. So will need full utilization of the 8gigs DDR2.

What can't you find? Give me the name and model no and I'll see what I can do. I got sources. :shiftyninja:

I cannot find any Win7 drivers for some of the hardware and I don't have any extra hardware that I can just pop into it.

you can install VISTA drivers within the windows 7 operating system with no problems. I recently had to install a geforce fx5200 card in a pc, windows 7 did not pick up the drivers by the vista drivers worked fine

  • Like 2

I cannot find any Win7 drivers for some of the hardware and I don't have any extra hardware that I can just pop into it.

I upgraded the ram in this system to 8gigs. XP x86 will not utilize all the ram and their kid is studying graphics/media stuff that I don't understand. So will need full utilization of the 8gigs DDR2.

Vista would still be a much better option for security, stability, support and multicore reasons. But there may be alternate ways to get the drivers that we can help with and 7 would be a much better option (as said above, Vista drivers should work fine.)

It shouldn't be too hard to get everything working on Windows 7. Windows XP x64 isn't always a good idea, some applications have issues with it and you'll have an even harder time finding drivers.

I am loading Win7 now on it. If it doesn't work, then I will just enable PAE on the x86 kernel:

http://msdn.microsof...28VS.85%29.aspx

Don't ever do that. It leads to heaps of compatibility issues. A friend of mine tried it once because of driver issues in x64 and it was horrible. PAE is a last resort if no other x64 Windows works (which would seriously surprise me).

It shouldn't be too hard to get everything working on Windows 7. Windows XP x64 isn't always a good idea, some applications have issues with it and you'll have an even harder time finding drivers.

Don't ever do that. It leads to heaps of compatibility issues. A friend of mine tried it once because of driver issues in x64 and it was horrible. PAE is a last resort if no other x64 Windows works (which would seriously surprise me).

I did this once before a few years ago and never had an issue. Of course it was a Linux distro I was using. But it never hurts to try. It will be a fresh install of XP anyways, so no big deal if I have to reformat the system.

In regards to XP x64 being supported, as I recall, it was built on the 2003 Server kernal (5.2?) and not the orignal XP kernal (5.1?) and thus as noted follows the 2003 service pack cycle which is why it was only ever up to SP2. A bit of googling will show that the support lifecycle end date for extended support is as that for XP SP3 (x86), 8/4/2014, so the OS is still supported, and should be usable, pending driver availablity of course.

That said, I would still go with the recomendation of Windows 7 vs XP x64. I' running 7 Ultimate x64 on an Athlon X2 5600+ with 4GB DDR2 and it runs beautifully.

On my Rosewill tower with Pentium D, 4 GB RAM, and ATI Radeon X300, I put XP x64 on a small partition in the HD - it seems to recognize all my barebones hardware just fine, even the Ethernet driver as well. I didn't connect my Logitech webcam though.

I do not intend to connect my all-in-one printer on XP x64 because I have Server 2003 R2 and 2008 R2 on other large partitions (it's a 500-GB HD) and I used those server OSes as a print server, along other roles like file-sharing. The XP x64 is just a test bed for curiosity. I'd have installed it on my laptop, but the Core 2 Duo is incompatible with XP x64 (I tried everything, even on a VM).

I don't use XP much nowadays anyway. My primary OS is Win 7 and Server 2008 R2.

On a side note though, I have access to download Server 2012. Will that even work under the hardware? I'll test it out when I get back to my towers (I'm out at my brother's apartment at the moment).

Well, Win7 installed. Only thing it doesn't install is the old r100 radeon.

Find the legacy drivers for it... I remember to had a laptop with an iGPU radeon xpress1150 (see my signature), it was out of the official package set but it was always available on the legacy package and always enabled transparencies for me (note, it must have pixel shader 2 for transparencies at least)

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