My x64 nightmare begins (Updated)

I've been planning for a while now to do something around the time of Vista's one-year anniversary in early November, but since I've gotten a number of emails lately about this topic, I thought I'd mention the biggest part of it here: I want to reevaluate the x64 versions of Vista now and see if they're any more viable than they were a year ago. So today I wiped out my main desktop (on which I installed the 32-bit version of Vista Ultimate 32-bit in early December 2006) and installed Vista Ultimate x64.The good news: It's actually much better. Virtually all of my hardware was recognized immediately and a surprising amount of my usual software installed flawlessly.The bad news: Problems remain. Some are critical. Among them are...iTunes. It actually does install and work. But none of my iPods will work at all, and iTunes displays a dialog asking for a 32-bit Windows version. UPDATE: I started getting weird error messages about CD import and burning not working, did a bit of research, and then downloaded a file called Driver_Installer_AMD64_EM64T.exe, which appears to have the proper x64 optical drive drivers that iTunes needs. Apparently, Apple borked this in the latest iTunes versions (go figure). NOTE: I cannot guarantee the safety of this file, but it is working for me and didn't trigger any malware sensors. I will keep testing, of course. iPod UPDATE: So the phrase "none of my iPods" above is not technically correct. After installing the patch noted above and repairing iTunes, I plugged in my iPod classic and it worked. The iPhone and iPod touch continue not working, but I will test other iPods today. Perhaps all non-touch/iPhone iPods would work. That's not wonderful, but it's better than "none." Windows Live suite. The installer refuses to install any of the applications. Apparently there is a workaround out there somewhere, and I've heard that Microsoft intends to support x64 with the final release.IE add-ons. Specifically Flash, which has caused some WMP cra

Paul Thurrott

October 10, 2007

2 Min Read
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I've been planning for a while now to do something around the time of Vista's one-year anniversary in early November, but since I've gotten a number of emails lately about this topic, I thought I'd mention the biggest part of it here: I want to reevaluate the x64 versions of Vista now and see if they're any more viable than they were a year ago. So today I wiped out my main desktop (on which I installed the 32-bit version of Vista Ultimate 32-bit in early December 2006) and installed Vista Ultimate x64.

The good news: It's actually much better. Virtually all of my hardware was recognized immediately and a surprising amount of my usual software installed flawlessly.

The bad news: Problems remain. Some are critical. Among them are...

iTunes. It actually does install and work. But none of my iPods will work at all, and iTunes displays a dialog asking for a 32-bit Windows version. UPDATE: I started getting weird error messages about CD import and burning not working, did a bit of research, and then downloaded a file called Driver_Installer_AMD64_EM64T.exe, which appears to have the proper x64 optical drive drivers that iTunes needs. Apparently, Apple borked this in the latest iTunes versions (go figure). NOTE: I cannot guarantee the safety of this file, but it is working for me and didn't trigger any malware sensors. I will keep testing, of course.

iPod UPDATE: So the phrase "none of my iPods" above is not technically correct. After installing the patch noted above and repairing iTunes, I plugged in my iPod classic and it worked. The iPhone and iPod touch continue not working, but I will test other iPods today. Perhaps all non-touch/iPhone iPods would work. That's not wonderful, but it's better than "none."

Windows Live suite. The installer refuses to install any of the applications. Apparently there is a workaround out there somewhere, and I've heard that Microsoft intends to support x64 with the final release.

IE add-ons. Specifically Flash, which has caused some WMP crashes as well, because Movielink requires it. My guess is that this should actually work. Not sure what's going on there.

There's a few more, but that's the gist of it for now. Any thoughts? 

About the Author

Paul Thurrott

Paul Thurrott is senior technical analyst for Windows IT Pro. He writes the SuperSite for Windows, a weekly editorial for Windows IT Pro UPDATE, and a daily Windows news and information newsletter called WinInfo Daily UPDATE.

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