You're talking about apples and oranges.

Server OSs are a completely different story than desktop environments. There are lots of 64 bit server apps and server apps greatly benefit from large amounts of memory possible with 64 bit OS.

The same is not true of desktop apps (although memory usage in the NEXT rev of OS may outgrow the 4 gig baseline we now live at). There's very little benefit to 64 bit given very few apps use it and even those apps that do show little or no performance gains. On top of that memory usage for 64 bit apps is significantly larger so right off the top you likely need to start with 8 gig to have a reasonable development environment to start with.

I totally fail to see the advantage at this point in time.I'm sure the time for 64 bit will come, but that time is not here yet for desktop environments. The continued problems with 64 bit drivers (especially for older hardware), the extra memory requirements, the lack of improved 64 bit performance all point to a early adopter pain penalty to me. But knock your self out and be the guinea pig. I appreciate that you're willing to be the sacrificial lamb for me, Kevin :-}.

The market is a great indicator too. If you look beyond applications that are part of the OS, what major applications do you use that are 64 bit? Checking on my 64 bit server even the only 64 bit apps I'm running out of about 30 installed apps are Microsoft's built-in stuff. The rest runs in 32 bit compatibility mode which runs slower than native 32 bit with its reverse thunking layers.

To paraphrase your earlier post: If you really need those 1 or 2 64 bit applications, use a virtual machine - after all Win 7 makes it easy right? :-}

+++ Rick ---

> Why I value your opinion I still want to know what benefits I'll get with 64-bit Windows 7 beside ability to use more physical memory on PC. There're not that many 64-bit applications out there, are there? What about 64-bit drivers for older hardware?
>
>Note that I said "new box" :)
>
>SQL Server - 64 bit version (and the interim release of SQL Server later this year will take better advantage of 64-bit architecture)
>MOSS - 64 bit version
>
>And obviously the 64-bit versions of the OS. I'm recently upgraded from Win Server '08 to Win Server '08 64-bit and have noticed better performance.
>
>MS general trend right now is 64-bit