vern72 :
Wow. I've seen when people were thrilled when 32-bit CPUs hit the scene and now they're beginning to get phased out.
Indeed, but 32-bit had much greater longevity than 16-bit did.
stdragon :
alextheblue :
Gillerer :
Because of various driver discrepancies, the 64-bit versions of XP and Vista were largely considered unreliable - especially for gaming use.
Horseplop. I had a daily driver with WinXP Pro x64 for a long time and it ran every single game I threw at it, flawlessly. Very solid OS, based off Server 2003 x64. Driver support was actually far better than I anticipated - even my Audigy 2 worked well with it, and Creative drivers are notorious for issues (although this was back in their better years perhaps).
WinXP Pro x64 was a rare bird though. No one installed it unless there was a specific need. I know of a GIS (Geoscience) business where there program worked with some seriously large SEGY files and needed a lot more RAM beyond the 4GB limitation inherent with 32bit. The number 1 problem was getting proper printer drivers support. At the time, they were buggy as heck and would often crash the printer spools service. In some cases, BSOD the computer. Though I blame that on the vendor than Microsoft.
TLDR; Windows 7 was the first true "prime time" 64bit OS for the desktop.
I agree with you for the most part. But you didn't have to have a specific "need", just as I don't "need" to overclock but I do it anyway. Here was my scenario... I had more RAM (system and VRAM) than WinXP 32-bit can address (without horrible driver-murdering PAE). My choices were: Vista 64-bit, or WinXP Pro x64. So I gave x64 XP a shot, knowing it was Server 2003 derived.
The result? It was so solid I never switched that particular system over to Windows 7 64-bit. It handled gaming like a champ. The whole machine was retired before MS (and others, such as game devs) dropped support for various flavors of XP. I never had any issues with drivers for any of my hardware. I even had an old Samsung MF laser printer (SCX-4100) that worked great with drivers from Samsung's website.
But again, I agree with the gist of what you're saying. It was a rare bird. But it was very reliable and used the same kernel as Server 2003. Possible shoddy drivers notwithstanding - which was a greater problem for Vista actually, what with the new WDDM driver model that caused vendors to scramble and release alpha-quality drivers as "release".